Deploying integrations

Once Processes have been created and possibly initially tested out, it's usually recommended to deploy them into another Agent Group for further testing as well as for production use. This guide will take you through the steps and requirements to do so.

Step by Step Tutorial Available

If you prefer more visual or interactive guidance on how to deploy Processes with Frends, you can find a step-by-step walkthrough from your own environment's home page, under Onboarding by selecting "Tutorial 4, Step 5: Deploy my first integration" tutorial.

Requirements

In order to be able to deploy Processes to another Agent Groups and Environments, you will need to have configured at least one other Agent Group in your Frends Tenant. While the Agent Group can be in the same Development Environment as is provided by default, it makes sense to add another Environment at the same time.

After deployment, you will also need an Agent, a Frends runtime executable on a server, within that Agent Group in order to execute the Processes deployed there. Not having an Agent will not block deployment, however, so you will not need any extra hardware or server configuration in order to follow this guide.

Environment Variables and Subprocesses

In case your Process is using Environment Variables and/or Subprocesses, there are some actions that need to be taken before deploying a Process can be done.

First off, any Subprocesses used in your Process must be deployed before the Process can be deployed. Deploying a Subprocess is done in exactly the same way as shown in this guide for Processes, but in Subprocess list view, of course.

Secondly, all used Environment Variables must have a defined value for the target Environment before Process deployment. This ensures that all values are there for the Process and it can be executed after deployment.

How to deploy a Process

In order to deploy a Process, head to Process list view and select the Environment and Agent Group where the wanted Process version resides. This is usually the development Agent Group if we want to deploy the latest development version, or testing Agent Group if a tested version of a Process is being deployed to production.

During deployment an older version can also be chosen to be deployed, but to deploy the very latest version of a Process you need to deploy from the development Agent Group.

When you are in the Process list, browse or search for your Process, and click on the ellipsis button on the right side of the row. This will open the actions available to do for the Process.

To begin the deployment, select Deploy Process to Agent Group. This will open a new modal dialog that will have the options and actions for deploying the Process.

First option to select is where do you want to deploy your Process to. By default, the next Environment's first Agent Group is selected. Order of these can be changed when creating and modifying the Environments and Agent Groups.

After selecting the target Agent Group and thus the Environment, you can also change which version of the Process will be deployed. This will also show where each version is deployed to already.

When editing a Process, a new version will be created each time, but only to the Development Environment. In order to push the changes to other Agent Groups and Environments, the Process needs to be deployed.

By default, the latest version within the current Agent Group is selected, and this is most often the version we want to deploy.

To finally actually deploy the Process, we have two options: Deploy and activate Triggers, or just Deploy.

When Triggers are activated for a Process, it means that any automated execution conditions for our Process will become active, and the Process will execute when the conditions match. When in deactivated state, even if the Process has for example a Schedule Trigger, the Process will not start automatically. Manual execution can be done in both states, however.

Deploying and activating Triggers will enable the Process to be automatically launched as soon as the deployment is complete. Only deploying the Process without activating Triggers will leave the state of the Process as it was before in the target Agent Group. If the Process was active before deployment, it will stay active afterwards as well.

By clicking either button, the Process will get deployed to the chosen Agent Group if everything went OK and all preparations were complete. In case there were any errors or missing details, an error will be shown and the dialog will not close. Most common error is that the Process is using Subprocesses or Environment Variables, which were not defined and deployed before deploying the Process.