In Enterprise management support, the concept of test folder and how it applies to patching comes up time and time again.

So, what is a test folder? Depends on who you ask this question from, the answer might be different. If you ask an Enterprise management customer, they would probably point to a folder that they can play with and enter test transactions.

But in Enterprise management vocabulary a real Test folder is a folder that has a specific property/flag set to true. Before we get to the point of how you check mark it let's discuss the what happens when Test flag is checked, and what makes a Folder special when it is a test folder.

It's all about Patching

What this means is that the concept of Test folder is only matters during the patching and what happens when you apply a patch.

As you have learned in Installation and patching and development training, application layer codes in Enterprise management are stored under TRT folder under X3 folder and your child folder and there is a parent/child relationship between the X3 folder and any child folder.

What this means is that when you run any function and a code is called, Enterprise management first looks at the TRT folder under the child folder and then the TRT folder under the X3 folder. This hierarchy always happen irrespective of if the folder is marked as Test or not.

So,then what happens when you apply a patch?

When you apply an application patch to a folder, if the folder is marked as Test it will receive the standard code in its own TRT folder, but if the folder is not marked as Test, it will not receive the source code (no matter how many times you apply that patch)

Common questions you should be able to answer now that you read the above:

Q1- I have applied the patch but the changes that I was expecting, or the defect that should be solved it's still not solved:

A1- You should check if the folder was marked as test and if the patch was applied to both X3 and child folder, if the folder is not marked as test and patch was just applied to the child folder, that is the cause of the issue. In production folders which are not marked as test) you should apply the patch to both X3 and your child folder.

Q2: Why is that I see standard source code in the child folder? But my folder is not marked as test

A2: If you see standard source code under child folder, either someone manually entered them there or the folder was at some point marked as test and it's not now, which you should follow the related KB at the end of this post to clean the code.

Mismatch of programs

This is the term that I like to use when programs from different version of Enterprise management are running in your folder.
Imagine this scenario:

Your folder was marked as test at some point, maybe during implementation and then it was switched to not be test any more,but standard source codes were left in the child folder and a new patch was installed.

As I mentioned earlier the if the folder is marked as Test it will receive the source code, with the same token if the folder is not marked as test , the standard source code in the child folder are not overridden with new code, so the mess you will have in your hand would be that some of the codes that are running are from X3 folder and newer and some code that are left over in the child folder are from older patch and that is what I call mismatch of programs. An example of this is on KB 84156.

Relevant KB:

KB 18561 How to designate a folder as a test folder?

KB 84572 How to tell if a folder is a test folder?

KB 69175 My Sage X3 production folder was marked as a Test folder.