I have just installed V5 on my dev system and so far so good! I have imported a backup from my live V4 and everything appears to be good.
I have an older backup from early last year (using database tools) which contains historical transactions from the previous 12months which are not on the most recent backup I have. I had to rebuild the system last year but when I came to import this backup I receieved errors and was unable to restore this, however on V5 it restores without issue. This was no big issue at the time as I had all the information I needed for accounting etc and just had to have the system up and running asap.
My question is, am I able to somehow merge the 2 backups that I have so that I can have all historical data to hand ? it is very useful when I want to look and compare sales figures from previous years. This is not a major problem so no urgency as I know you guys are always busy. Thanks in advance
I doubt it to be honest, if you started a fresh system merging them would not be reconmended, you will have duplicate ticket id and transactions etc,
Would be a recipe for disaster.
There could be a way to merge transactions yes but it would not be easy and it cant be done with Database Tools. You would need to use MSSMS and probably script your transactions out of one database and into the other. The major problem would be the ID’s of the tables will not be in correct sequence and we would need to adjust that.
I would recommend just archiving the older data in case you ever need it. Load it as a different database name in the same SQL Instance so if you ever need to pull a report from it you could but dont try to merge the two.
Merging 2 databases would be very difficult because of the inter-relationship between the tables and the unique constraints that apply throughout the DB structure. It is not something I would even begin to attempt.
Along this line @Jesse, maybe you could throw together a quick Tutorial on how to build a “Switch Database” automation flow, so that it would ease flipping back and forth to run Reports. I know you do this regularly for testing purposes, but you have not shown your implementation, have you?
I do this all the time yes and no I have not. I will prepare something today it is actually very simple. I am quite busy right now getting my smokers ready for todays meat. I have some time to check forum and quick posts but probably wont have time to do screenshots etc. I will try and remember to do something later this evening.