We all rely on the ServiceMax migration tool to move SFMs and SFWs across environments. The tool now has error checking for some SFM components, but not all. Specifically, I believe that the tool does check to see if there are fields on the SFM Page Layout which are missing from the target org. In this situation, a nice error message is displayed during the 'Validate Migration' step in the tool.
However, the tool does notcheck for all SFM components. What we experienced this week is that a field, referenced in the SFM Lookup Filter Object Map, did not exist in our target org- Production. This caused the Lookup to our Product Stock records to completely fail in Production which caused downtime for our Global Engineers.
The Migration Tool did not alert us that there was a missing field during validation and sent us a confirmation email showing migration 'Success' which was misleading for our team. To be a truly enterprise tool, it must have thorough error checking for all aspects of SFMs and SFWs during migration.
What is the underlying problem do you intend to solve with this idea?
Trying to prevent SFM errors in our Production org due to incomplete migration.
How is the problem being addressed today, if at all?
Error check is on SFM Page Layouts I believe. We now have to manually review all components of an SFM including:Validation RulesSFM FormulasField MappingsObject Mappings
Hi Michael Majerus - I had the engg. team look into this and they weren't able to reproduce this issue. Hence my suggestion would be to create Case with the steps to reproduce to issue if not already created. Once we are able to reproduce this issue, we can add this to our enhancement backlog and prioritize it. Thank you!
Hello Anita D'Souza. Thank you for looking into this. We actually did have a P2 support case open last week 00069679. The answer that we received from support was that there would be no way for the migration tool to check all of the field dependencies within an SFM because of Salesforce limits. I have seen the Migration tool check for SFM page layout dependencies, but I don't believe it checks for fields referenced in an SFM Lookup Form-Fill object map.
In our case, in our sandbox, we had a field being referenced in an SFM Lookup Form-Fill object map. When we migrated the SFM to Production, the Migration tool did not indicate any errors and we received the 'Success' email post-migration. However, since the field being referenced did not exist in Prod, the Lookup would not function at all. We checked all of the lookup criteria and context filtering was correct. We eventually found the issue within the Form-Fill object map. Once we removed the referenced field, the Lookup started working as expected.
So, I believe the Migration Tool does not check all field references in an SFM. Please feel free to reference the case. I would like to understand if what support is saying is correct or if this was a one-off situation and the tool does in fact check all field references including Form-Fill maps.
Hi Michael Majerus - I had the QA team look into this and particularly at SFM Lookup Form-fill field map. Based on their testing, they weren't able to reproduce this issue as the migration tool called out the missing field. Here are the screenshots from their testing:
Let us know if you had the same setup or a different one.
Hello Anita D'Souza. Thank you for working with the Eng. team to test this. My setup was exactly the same but we didn't get an error message and the SFM migrated 'successfully' to Production. Hoping this does not affect us again in the future.
Support informed us that there would be no way to check all fields related in an SFM due to the query complexity and governor limits. Is the Engineering team stating that each and every field referenced in an SFM is checked in target org to make sure that it's migrated successfully? If yes, we would expect all SFM components: Qualifying Criteria, Mappings, Formulas, Validation Rules, Lookup Context Filtering, Lookup Object Mapping (Form Fill), Source Object Update.
Would you please confirm the above expectations about SFM Error checking in the migration tool are correct so that we understand if any limitation exists?
Sure, Michael Majerus !! Based on my previous conversation with the team, migration tool does check for missing fields across most of the SFM components. The only area that we are not doing such check is in SFM Literal i.e., SVMX.CurrentRecordHeader.SVMXC__Order_Status__c
Also, going forward Shivaranjini Gangadharappa will be overseeing migration tool. So feel free to tag her on SFM and Migration Tool related comments/feedback.
Thank you Anita D'Souza for the detail about migration tool error-checking. We did have a case open in the recent past where the tool did not alert during migration, but we are past that now. I will work with Shivaranjini Gangadharappa in the future if anything comes up. Thank you again for your support and expertise!
Thanks for posting this in idea. We have some improvements in migration tool to show more detailed and user friendly messages in recent release. Also emails details of all items selected for migration, its dependent items and migration status of each item. Do reach out to me if you still see any issues or gap using the migration tool for the configurations supported by tool