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

Microsoft 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