Do you identify Development, Test and Production Web Servers by colors?

Last updated by Nick Curran [SSW] 4 months ago.See history

As per rule "Do you have separate development, testing, and production environment?", it's better to use different background colors to identify Development, Test and Production servers.

CRM

ssw staging 2
Figure: Staging uses blue background

ssw production 2
Figure: Production uses red background

The way to change the default background color is to edit the CRM CSS files. These changes aren't supported and may be overwritten when CRM Rollups are applied.

CRM 2015 and CRM 2016

Using theme feature to change the environment color.

Figure: Changing CRM 2016 UI by using theme feature

CRM 2013

Edit {{ CRM WEBSITE ROOT }}\_controls\navbar\navbar.css:

.navigationControl
{
    background-color: #006600;
    margin: 0;
    z-index: 999;
    float: left;
    width: 100%;
    position: relative;
}

Figure: Edit the background color to reflect the environment

crm2013 greenbar
Figure: CRM 2013 with a green navigation bar

CRM 2011

Edit {{ CRM WEBSITE ROOT }}\_static\css\1033\cui.css, locate and modify the section ms-cui-tabBody so that it reads:

background-color : #ffffff;

Change color to a suitable color for the environment:

background-color : #bbffaa;

CRM2011 ColorCodedRibbon
Figure: CRM Ribbon color green to signify production environment

CRM 4

Edit, {{ CRM WEBSITE ROOT }}\_common\styles\global.css.aspx

body.stage
{
    <% if (CrmStyles.IsRightToLeft) { %>
        dir:rtl;
    <%} %>
    border-top:1px solid #6893cf;

    /* background-color: #d6e8ff; */

    background-color: #ffff00;

    padding: 4px;
            
    /* background-repeat: repeat-x;

    background-image: url(/_imgs/app_back.gif);
    */
}

Figure: In C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\\_common\styles\global.css.aspx comment out and change the reference in yellow so the users know what server they are on

CRM DevelopmentColor
Figure: Color of CRM Development Server - Red

CRM TestColor
Figure: Color of CRM Test Server - Yellow

CRM ProductionColor
Figure: Color of CRM Production Server - Default

SharePoint online

Regarding the color codes, we use to differentiate Production to Test with SharePoint online.

Here is what we change:

  • Site Settings | Change The Look
  • Test – Orange

sharepoint orange theme
Figure: Selecting Orange theme for test

sharepoint orange applied
Figure: orange theme applied

Production - Office

sharepoint office theme
Figure: Selecting Office theme for Production

sharepoint office applied
Figure: office (blue) theme applied

We open source. Powered by GitHub