The process for deploying code changes
Understanding the process of code deployment is essential to communication between technical and functional teams. Now that you have learned about the flow of code, you will need to know how to deploy the code to different environments to ensure that the flow is correct. Let's review the steps:
After you have checked in code to the development branch, from your development environment, you will need to merge it to the testing branch. Check the reference links at the end of this module for more details on this exact process.
When the code has been merged into the testing branch, you will build the code in the corresponding Visual Studio DevOps pipeline. That process creates a .zip file that you will upload to the asset library and apply to an environment. To apply to an environment, make sure that you have uploaded the file into the asset library by going there in the Lifecycle Services project. Select the Software deployable package on the left. After the page has loaded, select the + (plus) button to name and select the file from Azure DevOps.
After the package is in the asset library, go to the environment's full detail page for which you want to deploy the package. To deploy the code, select Maintain > Apply updates and apply the correct code package.
After you deploy code to an environment, there's an essential task to complete.
If the code completed, you need to go back to the Full details page of the environment, select History > Environment changes, and then select the package that completed. Then, you can select Sign off. This process ensures that the package is complete, but you can also select the software deployable package as a release candidate for production if the package was applied to a Tier 2 Sandbox Acceptance Test environment.
If the environment that you deployed the code to was a testing environment, restart the process at the merge step for the next branch and deploy to the next environment in your flow.