Tag: Enterprise DevOps Platform

FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Build and Deploy Salesforce DX Apps
FlexDeploy is an Enterprise DevOps platform with fully integrated support for Salesforce apps, metadata customizations, integrations and more. This is the fourth article in a blog series that will help you understand what makes FlexDeploy a perfect choice to implement DevOps, CI/CD, and release automation with Salesforce.

Here is a summary of the FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce series.
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: DevOps for Salesforce
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Source Control Your Salesforce Changes
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Deploy Salesforce Apps and Metadata Objects
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Build and Deploy Salesforce DX Apps
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Unit Test and Test Automation for Your Salesforce
In the previous blog article, we saw how easy it is to retrieve, view differences, and deploy your changes to your test and production orgs with FlexDeploy. In this article, we will see how easy it is to deploy your changes from SFDX to your test and production orgs with FlexDeploy.

Salesforce Developer Experience

Salesforce Developer Experience (DX) is a new way to develop and manage Salesforce apps using scratch orgs and version control. Scratch orgs are available for the Dev Hub enabled Salesforce platforms. These scratch orgs consist of Salesforce code or metadata that can be easily created or destroyed, helping to speed up the standard development workflow.

Salesforce DX is primarily used by advanced developers with version control and using Visual Studio. FlexDeploy enables all DX features to administrators and no-code or low-code developers who are not often experienced using tools like version control or Visual Studio. At the same time, FlexDeploy provides all the features to embrace the new development process with best practices for advanced Salesforce developers to take advantage of full CI/CD automation. If you are thinking about moving to SFDX, but a lack of skills and process knowledge is stopping you, FlexDeploy helps you to transform to a new SFDX without needing to learn new tools.

Once you enable the Dev Hub feature in your Salesforce org, you can manage scratch orgs and packages from FlexDeploy and integrate with version control seamlessly. FlexDeploy allows you to deploy to test and prod orgs using release and pipelines automation, ensuring quality, approvals, and visibility.

Enable Dev Hub Features in Your Org

Enabling Dev Hub in a development, production, or business org is safe and doesn’t cause any performance or customer issues. To enable Dev Hub in an org:
- Log in as System Administrator to your Developer Edition, trial, or production org (for customers), or your business org (for ISVs).
- From Setup, enter Dev Hub in the Quick Find box and select Dev Hub.
- To enable Dev Hub, click Enable.
*NOTE: After you enable Dev Hub, you can’t disable it.

Manage Scratch Orgs

FlexDeploy’s Salesforce Org Management screen automatically brings up all the scratch org created if the Dev Hub org is selected. You can view and create your new scratch org by clicking on the + icon next to the “Select Scratch Org” drop-down.

After clicking the + to create new, you can enter the details for the new scratch org and click OK to create. Once the new scratch org is created, it will be available in the drop-down for comparing and pulling changes.

Pull Changes from your Scratch Org

From the Salesforce Org Management screen, you can select your desired scratch org from the drop-down, and retrieve all your changes made. This will allow you to compare changes with version control or with any org, such as a test or prod, and view the differences. On this screen, you can view the new, modified, or deleted changes, compare each file, and view the differences. Once you review the changes, you can simply click a button to commit to your version control if you have it enabled for your enterprise.

Don’t forget to check out: 5 Pillars of a Successful Salesforce DevOps Process

Create and Manage Packages

FlexDeploy’s Packages screen enables you to view your packages and create or edit the existing packages.

If you are an advanced developer using Visual Studio or any other tool for your development, FlexDeploy allows you to view/edit your packages. As a result, all the packages are in sync with your source. If you edit existing or create new packages, FlexDeploy will update or create a new package in your code and you can view the changes in your tool.

For Administrator or no-code/low-code Salesforce development, you can completely manage your packages on the FlexDeploy Packages screen so that you can create new packages and manage them with few clicks.

Regardless of the type of development, users can:
- Define unit test type for packages in FlexDeploy.
- Manage dependencies by selecting multiple packages with desired order to deploy to target orgs.
- Create package versions (Build) from FlexDeploy Package screen.
- View what versions of packages are installed in various test and prod orgs.
Package details screen show the details of the selected package.

Release Automation

Once you have changes pulled from scratch org and created packages in FlexDeploy, you can use CI/CD and release automation features. FlexDeploy helps automate the complete Salesforce release with a simple drag-and-drop for creating reusable pipelines so you can build and deploy Salesforce DX Apps with ease.

This process is similar to non-DX projects or any other technology in your enterprise. In addition to Salesforce, you can deploy changes to any technology like Mule Services, Web Applications, etc. The release pipelines can include automated and manual steps.

In conclusion, FlexDeploy allows you to transition from traditional Salesforce development to modern DX seamlessly. As a result, you can achieve a high-quality release of your changes with best practices and automated quality checks. If you are a DX developer, take advantage of all the advanced features to achieve high-quality releases with speed.

Keep Reading

Read Part 5: Unit Test and Test Automation for Your Salesforce
February 9, 2022
FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Source Control Your Salesforce Changes
FlexDeploy is an Enterprise DevOps platform with fully integrated support for Salesforce apps, metadata customizations, integrations and more. This is the second article in a blog series that will help you understand what makes FlexDeploy a perfect choice to implement DevOps, CI/CD, and release automation with Salesforce.
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: DevOps for Salesforce
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Source Control Your Salesforce Changes
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Deploy Salesforce Apps and Metadata Objects
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Build and Deploy Salesforce DX Apps
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Unit Test and Test Automation for Your Salesforce
In this blog article, we will review how easy it is to find the changes from your development Org(s) and commit them to your source control repository. We recommend using source control management (SCM) tools such as Git, SVN, or TFS for storing Salesforce changes.

Configuring FlexDeploy to Use Salesforce

Follow these steps to complete a one-time configuration to use FlexDeploy with Salesforce in your enterprise. You can use Blueprints to complete this configuration using a quick and easy wizard.

Configuring Salesforce Org Accounts in FlexDeploy

Salesforce accounts need to be configured to connect to your Orgs. This can be done under the Cloud Integration in FlexDeploy’s Topology screen. You can connect using User Email and Password or User Email, OAuth Key, and Client Id combination.

Repeat the connection creation for your other environment Orgs.

Don’t forget to check out: Keys to Improve Salesforce DevOps Efficiency

Associate Salesforce Accounts to Environments

After configuring the Salesforce Org accounts, you need to associate them with the environment. To achieve this, go to Topology Overview and click the Environment Instance you would like to associate with the accounts.

You can select one or many accounts per environment.

Project Configuration

Create a project in FlexDeploy as a Salesforce type and configure your SCM in the Project Configuration tab. Select SCM type and instance. In this example, we use Git. That is all you need to make your Salesforce development source driven. FlexDeploy’s seamless integration with SCMs will take care of adding, retrieving, committing, pushing, etc.

Check out another amazing blog by Flexagon here: Simplify Managing MuleSoft Properties by Deploying with FlexDeploy | Salesforce

Review Salesforce Changes in FlexDeploy and Commit to SCM

FlexDeploy’s integration with Salesforce provides rich features to retrieve changes from a Salesforce Org. The Org can be your Sandbox, Scratch Org, Development or Production edition. This screen allows you to select the Salesforce Org and retrieve the changes. It also displays the status of the file compared with your SCM.

1. Select the Salesforce Org you would like to retrieve changes from and view.

2. Click on the Pull from Salesforce.

3. FlexDeploy will display all the list of files with the State, Type, Full file name, and User who worked on it.
- You can select the file and view the content on the right panel.
- You can select to view the Remote file, i.e. what is in Salesforce, file in your SCM, and the difference.
4. Once the review is completed, you can select the files that you would like to commit to the SCM.

5. You can also choose to commit and create a package in FlexDeploy to build, and deploy that package to other Salesforce environments.

FlexDeploy’s extensive integrations with Salesforce, Source Control Systems (SCM) like GIT, Project Management tools like Jira, Service/Change Management tools like ServiceNow, and communication tools like Slack, MS Teams, and email will make retrieving changes from Salesforce, reviewing, and tracking in SCM easy for developers as well administrators.

Keep Reading

Read Part 3: Deploy Salesforce Apps and Metadata Objects
December 16, 2021
FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: DevOps for Salesforce
FlexDeploy is an enterprise DevOps platform with fully integrated support for Salesforce apps, metadata customizations, integrations and more. This is the first article in a blog series that will help you understand what makes FlexDeploy a perfect choice to implement DevOps and release automation with Salesforce.

In this series we’ll cover:
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Source Control Your Salesforce Changes
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Deploy Salesforce Apps and Metadata Objects
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Build and Deploy Salesforce DX Apps
- FlexDeploy Loves Salesforce: Unit Test and Test Automation for Your Salesforce
In this blog article, we will preview DevOps for Salesforce and all other ecosystems in your enterprise.

You likely have one or many of the following challenges with your Salesforce deployments, which means you need a better solution for promoting your Salesforce changes across environments.
- No visibility on what the changes in your Development Org are or who made changes
- Cannot see the difference between environments, e.g. a change already deployed and what is in your Development
- Complexity in handling so many types of customizations
- Not easy to deploy multiple changes
- Inadequate testing or some of the test case execution skipped
- Handling the dependencies with other applications and integrations
- Manual effort and less efficiency
- No easy rollback
- Overriding changes of other developers
- No visibility of what is getting deployed to Production and skipping the approvals
- No communication on changes
- Slower releases
What FlexDeploy Provides

FlexDeploy’s rich DevOps features, flexibility in controlling release automation, and integrated Salesforce support provides a highly efficient solution for your enterprise. FlexDeploy supports org-based development, source-driven development, or hybrid development models for your Salesforce customizations. Whatever model you use with the no code, low code or advanced code development environment you are in, FlexDeploy can increase the efficiency of your deployments by applying best practices and automation to eliminate all the manual, tedious, and error-prone work involved with moving your changes through Salesforce environments.

FlexDeploy introduces a fully integrated solution for Salesforce deployment and release management with the 5.4 version. The advantage comes with rich features for continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD), enterprise release management, and handling of technologies including MuleSoft APIs, Database deployments, Java Applications, etc.

Supported Metadata Types

You can make your Salesforce org even more useful and responsive to your users by developing custom applications and integrating your external applications. You can deploy all your code changes with FlexDeploy as it supports all commonly used metadata types.

Don’t forget to check out: Keys to Improve Salesforce DevOps Efficiency

Identify and View Changes

FlexDeploy helps you to identify and view changes made in a sandbox or development org or scratch org. Once identified, FlexDeploy helps pick what can go into your Source Control Management (SCM) tool such as Git and can commit changes directly.

Diff the Modified Files

You can view the file contents in your org or SCM and view the line-by-line difference to identify what sections were added or removed.

Auto Generation of Package XML

With so many types of customizations, it is difficult to hand-code your package.xml to pull the changes from Salesforce and deploy them to other environments. FlexDeploy automatically generates the package.xml and eliminates developers’ manual work.

Create Packages and Deploy

FlexDeploy helps you select multiple files and create a package, which is especially handy when you have a lot of changes. You can track the packages with the latest version and the version that has been deployed to each environment org.

Control Unit Test Executions

You have full control over the package to define the test level for each package. This ensures the needed tests execute after deploying and avoids missing test executions.

Notifications and Approvals

With FlexDeploy you can enable notifications to keep respective teams informed of any continuous deployments. Notifications include the details of changes being promoted. You can also set up approvals, including external approvals that delegate the approval to tools like ServiceNow.

Fully Automate Your Release with Dependencies

FlexDeploy’s in-depth CI/CD and release features will help you automate the complete Salesforce release process with a simple drag-and-drop editor for creating reusable release pipelines to automate and control your release process. In addition to Salesforce, you can deploy changes to any technology like Mule Services, Web Applications, etc. The release pipelines can include automated and manual steps.

Test Automation

You can automate Salesforce Apex Tests or UI automation tests using test tools like Selenium, Tosca, HP UFT, Automation Anywhere, and more. Simply configure FlexDeploy to execute the tests and automate the code promotions based on the test results.

Check out another amazing blog by Flexagon here: Simplify Managing MuleSoft Properties by Deploying with FlexDeploy | Salesforce

Easy Rollbacks

Most of the time we push the release forward and don’t look back. But FlexDeploy has plugin operations to rollback any Salesforce Packages if needed. You can ensure the quality of the environment by automating the release to rollback the package based on test results.

Salesforce DX Ready

All the FlexDeploy features work with Salesforce DX, per Salesforce’s recommendations and best practices. If you already have DX in your organization or you are planning to move to DX, it is easy and seamless with FlexDeploy! FlexDeploy integrates with your DevHub orgs and scratch orgs.

Integration with Other Tools

FlexDeploy’s native integration with other tools like Git, Jira, and ServiceNow will help achieve process-oriented development within your organization.

Keep Reading

In the rest of this series, we’ll walk through step-by-step how you can utilize FlexDeploy with Salesforce, and start getting the benefit of a DevOps platform for Continuous Delivery and Release Automation.

Read Part 2: Source Control Your Salesforce Changes
https://flexagon.com/flexdeploy-loves-salesforce-source-control-salesforce-changes/
November 3, 2021