Direct Deployment Using Compare and Deploy

A direct deployment moves a set of changes from a source environment to a connected target environment using Appian's native deployment process, Compare and Deploy. Direct deployments are the recommended deployment type for teams with DevOps infrastructure configured to connect their environments.

With a direct deployment, you can deploy applications, packages, database scripts, and plug-ins without manually downloading and uploading ZIP files. For deployments to higher environments such as production, you can require a review process by enabling it in the Admin Console.

To learn more about our other deployment types, see External Deployments and Manual Deployments.

Compare and Deploy steps

Compare and Deploy guides you through a series of steps to prepare and execute your direct deployment:

1. Select your target environment: Choose the connected environment where you want to deploy your changes.
2. Prepare the deployment: Select the deployment contents— applications, packages, application configurations, database scripts, and plug-ins— and review changes.
3. Inspect the deployment: Check your deployment for security warnings, failing test cases, and missing precedents.
4. Review details and deploy the deployment: Confirm deployment settings and run the deployment.

Before you begin

Before you deploy, you should make sure that all of your objects, packages, applications, and accompanying files are ready for a successful deployment. Review the following best practices to help facilitate a successful deployment.

Determine what needs to be deployed

If you're unsure about what you need to deploy, check the table below to see which best matches your use case.

Deployment Contents	When to Use	More Information
Entire application	Deploy your application configurations and all related design objects. Use if the application does not exist in your target environment.	You can include database scripts and plug-ins with your application deployment.
Packages	Create a package or select existing packages to deploy a set of changes to your target environment. You can deploy multiple packages from the multiple applications simultaneously. Learn how to create a package.	You can add application configurations, database scripts, and plug-ins to a package during development and when you deploy your package.
ONLY database scripts or plug-ins	If your application already exists in your target environment and you only need to deploy plug-ins or make changes to the environment's database via scripts, you can deploy these changes without objects. Database scripts and plug-ins can only be deployed to a target environment using Compare and Deploy if you are an application administrator.	To deploy database scripts and plug-ins without other objects, the application must already exist in your target environment.
Admin Console Settings	If you need to change Admin Console settings, you can export specific settings from your source environment and import them into the target environment. You can import an application or package along with Admin Console settings via the Admin Console.	Certain settings that are specific to a given environment cannot be deployed, such as API keys or certificates.
Import customization files (ICF)	Use to change or configure the values of certain objects or settings during deployment. Primarily, ICFs specify values that vary between environments or that are not exported for security reasons, such as passwords. You can also use an ICF to dictate specific import behaviors such as forcing an update of unchanged objects or triggering a manual sync for record types in the target environment.	Appian generates a template import customization file, which you download, edit, and upload for deployment.

Check deployment readiness

Check that your deployment contents are prepared and ready to be sent to your target environment. If you're deploying a package, make sure that you've properly prepared it for deployment.

Determine the best time to deploy

For production environments, perform any deployment activities, including inspections, during off-peak hours. If necessary, a maintenance window can be scheduled in the Admin Console. A post-deployment process to your application can be used to automate deployment tasks and integrations such as initiating automated tests to further optimize your development lifecycle.

Back up your production objects

If you are moving complete applications from a staging environment to a production environment, take standard precautions to ensure continuity by creating a backup of your production objects. If the deployment fails for any reason, this backup allows you to restore the previous state of the application.

To create a backup of your production objects, export all of the existing objects associated with your application.

Check security

Check that your permissions and security for deployment are set up correctly to ensure that the right users can deploy to or from an environment, as well as ensure that the permissions for objects are appropriate for the target environment.

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