so I customized the MS Absence Request db, migrated some data, included some list content and want to move it to production. however all of the name fields are blank and it doesn't appear that the securty/item permissions has migrated either. Is there a better way to get this to come over? What's going on? I REALLY need to migrate this site from DEV to PRODUCTION :)))

How you are moving the site template from Dev to Prod? I presume that that you are using the site template with data option. This option has some limitation. It will allow you to move only limited data (50 MB -not sure). If you wants to move the data from Dev to Prod use export and import option. Once you imported then you have to inherit the permission from you parent site. Pls try and let us know. Senthilrajan Kaliyaperumal