Deploying my SharePoint application from my development, UAT and production environment

Question

I am somhow new to SharePoint and I have read on an online training which mentioned that “Creating a new content type using feature will improve re usability, since it will enable us to transfer content types from one environment to other”. So this raise the following question which I need to know in the future:-

1. If I create a new content type directly from the SharePoint administrator (not using Visual studio), then will I be able to transfer the newly content types from my development to my UAT environment?

2. Let say that I currently have three versions of my sharePoint application on the three environments. If I created new items, lists and content types in addition I have created a new wiki site in my development environment. And I have unit tested these on my development environment. Then how I can only transfer the newly added components to my UAT environment which include:-

   • A wiki site

   • Content types

   • Document library

   A• And updating privileges on an existing team site.

Best Regards

Answer 1

All the components you mentioned are stored on the respective SharePoint content database your site collection belongs to. There is no easy way to selectively transfer changes from one farm to the other if you made the changes using the UI. Now, if you had created them using a solution package (wsp) and a feature you then could easily load them onto a different environment using some PowerShell commands. The other way would be to backup and restore your content database to UAT. BE AWARE That this will replace all your web app/site collection content on the destination so not really an option for migration to production environments.