Clean up DB for Sitecore upgrade - IAR items

Question

We are doing Sitecore upgrade from 9.2 to 10.2. We are using XP topology hosted in On Premises. In 10.x. Sitecore introduced IAR (Items As Resource) to manage Sitecore default items such as templates, renderings, layout etc., While doing clean up DB using Sitecore Update App, we found that there 35+ items are registered in log file which we have to do clean up. So we are deleting those items from DB and apply the customization manually. I have below questions:

• Is this clean up activity mandatory? What would be impact if we are not doing?
• Is there any quicker solution available for applying customization for those default items?

Answer 1

We recently did a similar upgrade and had the same questions (as the log files identified close to 200 modified items).

The reason it is important is to ensure that your Sitecore solution is using the most up to date versions of those items.

The log files give an indication of what field on the item has been altered, so based on that information you could decide its not worth making the change. However, you risk missing some important change between old and new. The safest bet is to delete the item (and corresponding fields values) from the SQL DB and then reapplying through Sitecore.

One thing I would stress though, is that it is very important that you apply these changes to all publishing targets after you do the master DB (as mentioned in the upgrade docs).

Failure to do this can lead to content being deleted on publishing targets.