About Synchronization

WinStudio serves as a development tool for customizing forms. Form Sync is an aid to preserving customizations when you apply an upgrade to an application. The process of handling customizations in an upgrade is referred to as synchronization.

Caution: Effective synchronization demands a thorough understanding of the process involved, the preparation required, and the level and type of synchronization desired. We strongly recommend that you take time to familiarize yourself with these concepts and practices before you perform any synchronization tasks.

Use the Form Sync form to manage, synchronize, and maintain customizations to forms in an application. You can use this form to selectively apply upgrades supplied by a software vendor and to manage customizations during the development process. Upgrades include vendor-supplied upgrades to an application, service packs, and single fixes. (A single fix applies to one form or a small set of forms and global objects.)

If your forms database contains customizations to objects affected by the upgrade, you should use Form Sync to synchronize your customized versions with the new versions. Synchronization allows you to preserve customizations when the upgraded application is installed, synchronizing your customizations with the changes introduced by the vendor.

Note: Synchronization applies only to customizations made with WinStudio, that is, customizations to forms and global objects in the client tier. It does not apply to modifications to IDOs, stored procedures, triggers, or other areas of an application.

For more information, see Understanding WinStudio Customizations.

Synchronization replaces older versions in the current forms database with newer versions. During this process, you decide how to handle customizations (User, Group, and Site versions) of forms and global objects. You can retain a customization, replace it with an updated base-level version, or, in some cases, edit it.

Synchronization requires two configurations, a Source configuration and a Target configuration. Synchronization takes place using the forms databases in the two configurations.

For more information, see About Source and Target Configuration Selection.

There is a variety of ways you can perform synchronization. You can choose to synchronize any of these:

Forms only
Global objects only
The Explorer only
Any combination of these

You can also choose to keep or replace customized versions of forms, global objects, and/or the Explorer.

After you perform your synchronization, you should always test the results of your efforts before deploying the resulting synchronized files to the production environment.

For more information, see Testing Synchronization Results.