Company Clone

This program lets you clone an existing SYSPRO production company to a new or existing SYSPRO non-production company. These sandbox environments will vastly improve the testing and validation of new features and solutions without impact or risk to the live company data.

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Exploring

Things you can do in this program include:

  • Backup existing production company

  • Restore the company as a non-production, cloned company

  • Update the company database by applying eSignatures, events, triggers, etc.

Cloning SYSPRO companies with power tailored customizations should be approached with significant caution as this could have serious or inadvertent consequences due to possible automated integration with third-party systems and the capability of running business objects.

This program is accessed from the Program List of the SYSPRO menu:

  • Program List > Administration

This program can also be accessed from the following program(s):

  • Company Browse

    From the Company Clone function.

A SYSPRO company refers to a distinct business entity created and managed within the SYSPRO Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. Each SYSPRO company represents a self-contained operational environment with its own business data (including customers, suppliers, inventory, financials, and transactions), configuration settings (such as fiscal calendars, currencies, and localization preferences) and security and access controls (including operator permissions, passwords, and role-based restrictions).

All SYSPRO companies are classified as production or non-production companies:

  • A production company refers to an active, operational entity within SYSPRO that a business uses to conduct its daily transactions. The accuracy, availability, retention, and audibility of its data are essential to the organization’s ongoing operations and compliance requirements.

  • A non-production company refers to a test or sandbox environment. It is not intended for conducting actual business transactions. Data entered in a non-production company is typically non-critical and temporary in nature, often discarded once testing or training activities are complete. Non-production companies are typically used for the following:

    • evaluating configuration options

    • exploring new features or modules

    • validating power tailoring or customizations

    • providing user training

The company name of non-production companies must be preceded with the word TEST to clearly distinguish it from production companies.

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Company Browse

Starting

You restrict operator access to activities within a program using the Operator Maintenance program.

Controls whether an operator can clone a company using the Company Clone program.

You can restrict operator access to programs by assigning them to groups and applying access control against the group (configured using the Operator Groups program).

You can restrict operator access to programs by assigning them to roles and applying access control against the role (configured using the Role Management program).

  • There is currently no flag or field that defines a company as a non-production company.

    The company name of non-production companies must be preceded with the word TEST to clearly distinguish it from production companies.

  • A SYSPRO company that uses a shared general ledger or inventory can't be cloned.

  • Any customization defined against the role or operator within the source company will not be applied to the cloned company.

  • The following modules will not be included when cloning a company:

    • Manufacturing Operations Management

    • Embedded Analytics

Solving

The advantages of this method are the following:

  • The .bak file can be created during a maintenance window (where nobody used the system)

  • The .bak file could be used to create multiple new target companies, each identical in configuration and data.

    If the live database is used as the source, each copy operation may result in variations in the target database, as the live data continuously changes.

When cloning a company, the following is done:

  1. During the backup process, a backup is created from the source company database.

    This step can be omitted if a previously created backup file is selected.

  2. During the restore process the target non-production database is created.

    • The new database name will be applied.

    • The target company name and company reference is saved.

  3. During the update process the target non-production database is updated.

    • eSignatures, events and triggers that are not to be included are removed from the target database.

    • eSignatures, events and triggers that are included are applied to the target company.

    • All columns with the data type Company are updated to reflect the target company ID.

    • The SysproAdmin system-wide table is updated to indicate the company / database name cross reference for the target database.

  1. Launch the Company Clone program.

  2. Select the company you want to clone at the Company field in the Source section.

  3. Select the existing company you want to update at the Company field in the Target section.

  4. Enable the Force Overwrite field.

  5. At the Start point field select Update.

  6. Select the Start Clone Process button.

Yes, you can use the COM Company Clone to clone a company.

The XML input elements are the same as the fields in the Company Clone program, except the NonSysproCompId element that correlates with the Update user defined tables field.

Using

  • Once you have cloned a company, you have to exit SYSPRO, login to the cloned company and import a license for the cloned company using the License Manager program.

Referencing

This starts the cloning process of the source company.

A progress bar is displayed to show the current stage of the cloning process.

Field Description

Source

 

Company

This lets you select the source company that you want to clone.

The company where you are currently logged in is displayed by default.

Backup folder

This lets you select the folder where the backup will be located.

Backup file

This lets you select the backup file if you start the cloning process with restoring the source company database, i.e. you have selected Restore at the Start point field.

Target

 

Company

This lets you enter a name for the cloned company.

You can select an existing company to update the database using the Force Overwrite field.

Company name

This lets you enter a name for the cloned, non-production company, which must start with the word TEST to clearly distinguish it from production companies.

If a valid, licensed, non-production company already is selected at the Company field, the name is automatically populated.

The clone process will only commence if the target company is a non-production company, i.e. if the name of the target company starts with TEST.

Database

This lets you enter the name of the target database, i.e. the name of the database that will be restored from the backed-up source database.

If you are forcing an overwrite, then the database must match the original target company database.

Reference

The default reference is Cloned Company, but this can be changed.

Options

 

Force overwrite

Enable this to overwrite, i.e. replace the existing target company.

Disable SQL triggers

Triggers defined within the SQL database of the source company are disabled by default.

You can remove the tick if you want to enable SQL triggers.

Allow login

Logins to the cloned, non-production company are allowed by default.

You can remove the tick if you don't want user to login to the cloned company.

Update user defined tables

Enable this to update the company columns in any user defined tables that are not included in the data dictionary.

Start point

This lets you decide with which activity you want to start the cloning process.

Select this to start the process by backing up the source company database.

Once the backup is complete, the copied database will be restored and then updated.

Backup schedules against the database won't be affected.

Select this to start the process by restoring the database from the backup you selected at the Backup file field.

Once the backup is restored, the cloned company will be updated.

  • Ensure no one is transacting when running the SQL restore script, as it sets the database to single user mode before restoring.

  • Although the restore script supports multi-file backups and allows defining data and log file folders, but we strongly recommended using the default folders from the SQL instance.

Select this to start the process with updating the company ID in the database of the cloned, non-production company.

This is typically used as a starting point:

  • in a SaaS or managed instance environment where you can only update a company (the backup and restore options will be unavailable).

  • when the SQL admin login does not have permission to backup or restore a database.

SQL data folder

This indicates the folder used by SQL to store the data files.

This displays the SQL instance default.

SQL log folder

This indicates the folder used by SQL to store the log files.

This displays the SQL instance default.

Include

These options are disabled by default, which will result in eSignatures, events and triggers to be removed from the database.

Evaluate carefully when enabling these options to clone the company. Including eSignatures, events and triggers could cause emails to be sent and third party data to be updated when using the test environment.

eSignatures

Enable this to copy the eSignatures defined at company level from the source to the target company.

As eSignatures are defined at system level, operator or role level are stored in the system database and are always copied to the cloned company.

Events

Enable this to copy the events defined in the source company to the target company.

Triggers

Enable this to copy the triggers defined in the source company to the target company.