Q: Opencart database deployment from development to production I am in the process of trying to create a database deployment plan between development, acceptance and production. The issue is that when I dump the DB from acceptance, then import to production it overwrites all of the customer data.
To combat this I have chosen to ignore the following tables in the mysqldump command:
oc_address
oc_coupon_history
oc_custom_field_to_customer_group
oc_customer
oc_customer_ban_ip
oc_customer_field
oc_customer_group
oc_customer_group_description
oc_customer_history
oc_customer_ip
oc_customer_online
oc_customer_reward
oc_customer_transaction
oc_order
oc_order_download
oc_order_field
oc_order_fraud
oc_order_history
oc_order_option
oc_order_product
oc_order_recurring
oc_order_recurring_transaction
oc_order_status
oc_order_total
oc_order_voucher
oc_paypal_order
oc_paypal_order_transaction
oc_return
oc_return_action
oc_return_history
oc_return_reason
oc_return_status
oc_review
oc_tax_rate_to_customer_group
oc_voucher_history

Are there any tables I have missed which contain customer/transaction data? And will I run into any issues doing this?
I am also going to ignore the oc_settings tables to prevent the production payment settings from being overwritten.
How do existing Opencart stores handle the content creation process? Surely they are not editing production directly.
Any constructive answers would be appreciated.
Opencart version 1.5.6

A: 
Are there any tables I have missed which contain customer/transaction data? And will I run into any issues doing this?

You might want to include:
voucher
voucher_history

and omit (these are more akin to system settings):
order_status
order_field


How do existing Opencart stores handle the content creation process?
  Surely they are not editing production directly.

This is more or less opinion based which is discouraged here but I'll venture an answer.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with what you're doing.  There's also nothing wrong with editing a production database directly.
I often use a process like this:


*

*Write & test a simple script to import a csv or xls with product data.  There are tools out there for this but in my experience, none of them are detailed enough to deal with the complexities that often arise.  In any event, once you've got a working script, updating your data in the future from the same data source should be a breeze.

*Dupe production db to dev

*Run import script

*Check and make sure nothing catastrophic happened

*Dupe dev product tables back to production


There are so many countless workflow possibilities here that ultimately only you can determine the best fit for your business.
