SQL Script to Alter Server and Database Views After Copying Live To Test

Microsoft Dynamics GPMicrosoft Dynamics GP includes a number of views in the database which are used to drive some of the reporting (such as the Refreshable Excel Reports); these reports contain drill down links. I’ve never really done that much work with the views myself, but I was alerted to an issue by a partner organisation who was creating some reports from Dynamics GP integrated with data from their system.

As development was in progress, the partner was working on the clients standalone test system, but when they tested the drill downs, the data was coming from the live system. I did some exploring of the views and found that the drilldowns are coded during deployment to include the server and database:

'Account Index For Drillback' = 'dgpp://DGPB/?Db=GP&Srv=2018SQL1\GP&Cmp=TEST&Prod=0' +dbo.dgppAccountIndex(1,['Account Master'].[ACTINDX] )

This issue will affect the views not only when the databases are copied to a new system, but also when a live company is copied to a test company on the same server.

The solution was to create a script which would alter the views to the new server or database:

/*
Created by Ian Grieve of azurecurve | Ramblings of an IT Professional (http://www.azurecurve.co.uk) This code is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Int). */
DECLARE @ViewDefinition AS NVARCHAR(max) DECLARE @OldDatabase AS VARCHAR(5) = 'TWO' DECLARE @NewDatabase AS VARCHAR(5) = DB_NAME() DECLARE @OldServer AS VARCHAR(50) = '2018SQL1' DECLARE @NewServer AS VARCHAR(50) = @@ServerName CREATE TABLE #ViewDefinitions( ViewDefinition NVARCHAR(MAX) ,ROW_ID INT IDENTITY ) INSERT INTO #ViewDefinitions (ViewDefinition) --VALUES (SELECT REPLACE( REPLACE(['SQL Modules'].definition, 'CREATE VIEW', 'ALTER VIEW') ,'Srv=' + @OldServer + '&Cmp=' + @OldDatabase,'Srv=' + @NewServer + '&Cmp=' + @NewDatabase) FROM sys.all_views AS ['All Views'] JOIN sys.sql_modules AS ['SQL Modules'] ON ['SQL Modules'].object_id = ['All Views'].object_id and ['SQL Modules'].definition LIKE '%Srv=' + @OldServer + '&Cmp=' + @OldDatabase + '%') DECLARE cursor_Views Cursor FOR SELECT ViewDefinition FROM #ViewDefinitions Open cursor_Views FETCH NEXT FROM cursor_Views INTO @ViewDefinition WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS <> -1) BEGIN IF (@@FETCH_STATUS <> -2) EXEC (@ViewDefinition) FETCH NEXT FROM cursor_Views INTO @ViewDefinition END CLOSE cursor_Views DEALLOCATE cursor_Views DROP TABLE #ViewDefinitions GO

The script uses the @@ServerName and DB_Name functions for the new server and database names; the two highlighted sections are the parameters for the old server and database which need to be amended.

As this script updates the views, make sure you have a good database backup before running.

Updated 24/10/2018 following feedback from David Morinello

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2 thoughts on “SQL Script to Alter Server and Database Views After Copying Live To Test

  1. David Morinello says:

    Hi Ian!
    I was getting errors running this so I made some changes to the SQL to allow it to work against SQL 2014.

    I tried to post the code but the site would not let me, as it was too large. Drop me a note if you want a copy of the changes I made.

    1. Ian Grieve says:

      Thanks David for your feedback; I’ve updated the script above based on your feedback.

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