SDLC: Managing changes in a 'Closed System' (M1 - ERP)

I am working with a client who has an ERP system in place, called M1, that they are looking to make custom changes to.

I have spent a little bit of time investigating the ERP system in terms of making customizations. Here is a list of what I have found with regards to custom changes:

• Custom changes cannot be exported/imported. There is an option in the M1 Design Studio, however, they always appear to be disabled... I tried everything and I couldn't find a mention of it in the help documentation.
• You can export a customizations change log (CSV, XML, Excel, HTML) that provides type, name, location and description. In essence, it is a read-only document that provides a list of changes you made. You cannot modify the contents of this log.
• Custom form changes made, go into effect for all data sources (Test, Stage, LIVE). In other words, there does not appear an ability to limit the scope of a form change.
• Custom field changes must be made in each data source (Test, Stage, LIVE). What's odd here is that if add a field in Test, adjust a grid to display it, subsequently change to LIVE, it detects that the field doesn't exist and negates the grid changes.
• I'm unable to find documentation indicating that this application supports version control.
开发者_运维百科

sigh

....

So...

How do I manage changes from an SDLC: ALM methodology and tools standpoint?

I could start by bringing in a change request system to manage pending and completed customizations. But then what? How should changes me managed and released? Put backups of application under source control and deploy when needed?

There might not be a good answer to this question since I'm unable to take advantage of version control and create a separation of environments, but I figured I'd ask in case anybody has had similar experience or worked with M1.

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I take it from the lack of answers in two months that your question is unanswerable. SDLC is something you could write a textbook on, or read a textbook on, and not know enough about your environment, other than that probably in order to get hired at your shop, "SDLC" would be a bullet point on the hiring qualifications.

I have no experience with M1, but I am assuming that you're going to have to ask your peers at work for their ideas, because it sounds like you're asking a vertically closed (your shop, your tools, your practices) question that has no exact technical answer.

As for best practices; I suggest you investigate best practices outside your M1 ERP silo and apply them as makes sense to you.

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The company I work for also uses M1 erp. We have similar issues regarding version control of the customisations. From what I can tell, all customisations are stored in the M1DD database. You could backup a copy of this database before any major development work as a basic revision control system.

I am familiar with the issue of all changes becoming immediately active in all datasets. This is particularly annoying when you are making changes to a commonly used modules as you don't know how live data will be affected during the development process. One technique I have found useful is to surround untested code with an if statement so it is only executed when I am logged in.

If App.UserID = "MYUSERNAME" Then
   'new code here
End If

I would be interested in hearing how you solved this problem.