Upgrading from SQList version 5 to SQList version 6 or later is not actually an upgrade, the two versions are two completely different products and, for that reason, replications configured in ver. 5 cannot be used with ver. 6.
Usually, it is not a big job to manually recreate the replications in ver. 6; however, if you have a large number of replications in ver. 5, a manual approach could result in a too time consuming and error prone operation. For this reason we have built this procedure to help you migrate your data.
IMPORTANT: currently the utility below only supports the following replications:
- SharePoint connections to SharePoint Online only;
- Selective replications only;
- SQL Server connection via SQL authentication only.
Note: this procedure requires some basic knowledge of file handling and command prompt use.
Initial preparations (important!):
- Stop SQList Service ver. 5;
- Take a backup of all SQList destination databases;
- Create a test database for each SQList destination database, this will be the database where ver. 6 will export to).
Step 1: install the latest version of SQList
If you haven't done so already, install a fully working evaluation version of SQList on the machine running SQList ver. 5. For details on how to do that see this support article:
If this is not the machine that will eventually run SQList ver. 6, you will be able to move everything over at the end (you won't have to do this procedure twice).
Step 2: create a temporary folder
Create a temporary folder, in this article we will use c:\temp.
Step 3: download the SQList profile importer utility
Download the profile importer utility (SQList.Profile.Importer.zip) from the link below, save it in C:\temp and unzip it:
Your folder should look like this at this point:
Step 4: open a command prompt
Open a command prompt and change directory to C:\temp.The command prompt must be opened "as Administrator", to do that follow these steps:
- Press WinKey + S;
- search for "cmd";
- right-click "Command Prompt" and select "Run as Administrator" (see screenshot below).
In the command prompt, change directory to c:\temp by typing:
Your window should look like this:
Step 5: run the utility
In the command prompt, run the following command:
SQList.Profile.Importer.exe "C:\ProgramData\AxioWorks\AxioWorks SQList\Profile.xml" "C:\ProgramData\AxioWorks\SQList\AxioWorks.SQList.ProfileDB.sdf"
Note: the command above uses the default SQList installation folders for ver. 5 and ver. 6. If you have installed them on different folders, adapt the command accordingly.
The utility will generate some output as it runs, once completed it will display the message "Import successfully completed.", like shown in this screenshot:
Step 5: Configure SQList ver. 6
Launch SQList Manager ver. 6, you will find the replications, SharePoint connections, and database connections imported from ver. 5 under the corresponding tabs.
Very important step: First of all, you will need to change the database connections to point to the test SQL database(s). To do that, select Database Connections tab, edit and save each connection.
If you want SQList to generate the new SQL tables with the same structure as ver. 5: select the Global settings tab and change the following settings:
Under the SQL naming and export options section:
- Table prefix separator: ":" (colon)
- Table suffix separator: "." (full stop)
- SQL naming separator: "." (full stop)
Under the Backward compatibility options section, check these options:
- Use "datetime" for date-only columns
- Use "datetime" instead of "datetime2"
- Do no use separator in many-2-many column names
- Do no prefix attachment ID column names
- Use "Number" for currency columns
- Use the "ID" column as Taxonomy term key
- Force clean table names
- Use version 5 clean names
Ensure you save all settings once done.
Step 6: start SQList and check the result
Now it's time to start SQList ver. 6, select the Service monitor tab, Start the SQList Service and keep an eye on the event log for any errors.
Once the SQL tables have been created on the test SQL database, we recommend using a third party tool to compare the structure of the tables created by ver. 5 and ver. 6 for discrepancies. Final adjustment will very likely be needed to obtain the desired structure.
Finally, when you are happy that SQList 6 generates the SQL tables the way you need, you can migrate it to the final production machine. For details on how to do that, read this support article:
If you have any questions or need any assistance with this procedure, contact our Support Team at
support@axioworks.com.