How to plan ahead for a TestStand Deployment

[ScottTron]

Hello,

I am starting a large TestStand project that will have a LV operator interface and all code modules will be LabVIEW. In the past, I have never actually deployed a TS system. I always just put the development environment on the production station. This time, I plan to actually deploy to a station and I'm looking for some advice ahead of time. Here is my basic architecture (and it is basic):

I have an operator interface written in LabVIEW.
I have 1 main test sequence right now.
I have a project called "Test Support".
"Test Support" labview project contains code modules that call VI's that are part of labview classes. 
The test sequence will call VIs that are directly part of the LV Classes as well as VI's that are part of "Test Support" project.

Should I try to package the HW classes into .lvlib's or .lvlibp's or just leave them as a .lvclass and call them directly? On that same note, should I really do any packaging or should I just leave everything as a VI and .lvclass?  Should I be calling the LV Classes directly now? I know there were some issues in older versions, but it sounds like those are fixed now. 

On the OI, I guess I need to compile that into an exe. Anything I should watch out for there?

Any help is appreciated. Even if it is pointing to other articles or forum topics. There's a lot of information out there to parse through.

[~jiggawax~]

This is a good one on LV: http://www.ni.com/white-paper/9923/en/

This has some good sections about calling LV from TS: http://digital.ni.com/manuals.nsf/websearch/B8398AF8729D906F862577B4004FF10C

[adambro]

The most important suggestion I would have is to put together your TestStand deployment and test that it builds as early as possible in your project and as frequently as possible. There has been some improvements in the Deployment Utility in recent versions but it still can be difficult to understand what is going wrong if you wait to the end of developing your system then try to get the deployment working. At least if you are building the deployment often you might have an idea what you've changed since it last built successfully.

[ScottTron]

Thank you both for the recommendations.  This is  not the first time I have heard the recommendation to try your deployment early and keep testing it throughout.  I think I will try to stick to that.  Thanks again!