How to: Generate Deployment Reports
In Deployment Designer, you can set properties for a deployment report and then generate the deployment report from a deployment diagram. Deployment reports are designed to assist you in creating an installation script from structured XML information in the report. The report contains required application and datacenter configuration settings as well as a list of all of the System Definition Model (SDM) metadata that comprises deployment validation. This SDM metadata is provided by the application and application hosting layers and describes most of the information that is required to deploy an application. For more information, see Overview of Deployment Reports.
Note
Finalizing a deployment definition from deployment diagrams or deployment reports generated from default systems is not recommended. Default systems are useful for quickly evaluating the deployment of individual applications within the datacenter, but should not be used for final deployment. For more information, see Deployment Definitions Created from Application and System Diagrams.
To set deployment report properties
Click the deployment diagram surface to select it.
In the Properties window, set the Destination Path property.
Tip
If the Properties window is not open, press F4 or choose Properties Window from the View menu.
This path indicates where project files will be copied if the Include Content Files, Include Source Files, or Include Binary Files properties are set to True.
Note
You are required to set the Destination Path property only if you also set the Include Content Files, Include Source Files, or Include Binary Files properties to True. The Destination Path property has no default value.
Set the Include Content Files property.
This property indicates which content files will be included in the deployment report and copied to the destination path directory for use in scripting.
If you choose True, the following types of files are included:
Web projects - Code files, project files, resource files, .config files, referenced assemblies, SDM files, and all other non-source and non-binary files. This includes .xsd, .disco, and .wsdl files.
Windows projects - SDM files, assemblies that exist in the solution folder, and all other non-source and non-binary files.
Office projects - SDM files, assemblies that exist in the solution folder, and all other non-source and non-binary files.
Set the Include Source Files property.
This property indicates which source files will be included in the deployment report and copied to the destination path directory.
If you choose True, the following types of files are included:
Web projects - None.
Windows projects - Code files, project files, resource files, and .config files.
Office projects - Code files, project files, resource files, and .config files.
Set the Include Binary Files property.
This property indicates which binary files will be included in the deployment report and copied to the destination path directory.
If you choose True, the following types of files are included:
Web projects - None.
Windows projects - Executable files and App.config files, which are also included if you set Include Source Files to True.
Office projects - Generated assemblies and App.config files, which are also included if you set Include Source Files to True.
To include diagram images in the HTML deployment report, set the Include Diagrams option to True (default).
To avoid being prompted to overwrite files, set the Overwrite Files Action property to Yes.
Set the Error Resolution property to Prompt, Ignore, or Abort.
If you are generating the deployment report using automation, set this property to Ignore if you want to create the report regardless of errors. If you want report creation to fail in the event of an error, set the property to Abort.
Set the Errors Only property to one of the following:
True
The HTML report will contain only a list of validation errors and warnings.
False
The HTML report will contain a list along with all other content (endpoints, settings, resources, and so on).
Note
In some instances, the text for errors in the deployment report differs from the text for errors in the Error List window.
You are now ready to generate a deployment report.
To generate a deployment report
Once all deployment report properties are set, choose Generate Deployment Report from the Diagram menu.
Tip
You can also right-click the deployment diagram surface and choose Generate Deployment Report.
If a report already exists for the deployment diagram, and the Overwrite Files Action property is not set to Yes, you will be prompted to overwrite the existing report.
Note
Only existing reports are overwritten. The remaining files and directory structure remain intact. This retains any additional files that you might have written to the directory structure. To avoid the prompt to overwrite files in the future, set the Overwrite Files Action property to Yes.
When prompted, choose one of the following:
Yes – Overwrite the current file and prompt if the same situation occurs again.
No – Do not overwrite the current file and prompt if the same situation occurs again.
Cancel – Stop the report generation process.
Deployment Designer generates two deployment reports in Solution Explorer, one in HTML (.html) format and one in XML (.xml) format. When report generation completes, both the .html and .xml files are added to the solution folder of the system associated with the deployment diagram.
Both the HTML and XML-formatted reports contain mostly the same information. However, the HTML report also contains images of diagrams in the solution and a list of owners. In addition, the HTML report does not contain resources in which default values are set to NULL and were not modified, while the XML file does contain these resources for scripting purposes.
You can also generate deployment reports through automation using Visual Studio or create them using a command line entry. For more information, see How to: Use Automation with Deployment Reports and How to: Create Deployment Reports from the Command Line.
Note
When an application runs, it looks for settings in the file named <appname>.exe.config. If this file is not present, the application might not function properly. The deployment report does not copy or list <appname>.exe.config — it only includes app.config, which is a copy of <appname>.exe.config. To work around this problem, ensure that your deployment script renames app.config appropriately.
Security
The data that a deployment report contains might include sensitive or confidential corporate or institutional data. Be aware of this consideration prior to distributing or disposing of the report.
Note
When Include Source Files or Include Content Files is set to True, a warning displays to indicate that the output directory might not be secure.
See Also
Tasks
How to: Customize Deployment Reports