#Development workflow

All new code, etc. should be developed locally, commited to this repository, tested on www-test.civicrm.org, and the deployed on production.

New configurations (i.e. configuration changes made via the UI etc. can/should be made on www-test.civicrm.org first before being deployed on production.

Note: you should not make UI configuration changes on test that you want to keep as it is getsover written with / synced from prod from time to time.

#Syncing to test and local environments

Syncing to www-test and local development environments is done in the standard way (mysqldump and restore the databases and rsync/copy the files). You should not need to worry about backing up the www-test database because no important data should be stored there (see development workflow above).

#Local development environments

You can develop locally as long as you are not storing any unencrypted personal data in your local development environment.

Drupal and CiviCRM databases can be encrypted on www-test.civicrm.org before being transferred to local development environments.

#Upgrades

Upgrades (especially CiviCRM upgrades) should be tested locally and on the test infrastructure before being carried out on the production server.

Put the site into maintanence mode before upgrading

#CiviCRM customisations

Any CiviCRM customisations should be places in the php and templates directory rather than being directly overwritted in order to make it easy to keep track of customisations through upgrades.