Environments and promotion

An environment is a stage your work runs in, such as Development, Testing and Production. The same process can log in to a test system in Testing and the live system in Production, without being copied. You decide which environment a process runs in, and promote it when it is ready.

Environment management is on plans that include it.

1. Create environments

1. Go to Settings › Automation › Environments.
2. Click Environment to add one.
3. Fill in its Name, and optionally a Colour and Description.
4. Switch on Default for ad-hoc runs for the environment a run uses when none is chosen.
5. Switch on Production (protected) for your live environment. Promotions into it need a second person (see below).
6. Click Save.

Click an environment to change it. Manage access decides who may promote into it: company admins always may, and anyone else needs admin access on that environment. The same right is needed to approve a promotion.

2. What changes per environment

• Credentials. A credential can hold a different secret for each environment. See A different secret per environment.
• Variables. In Library › Variables, open a variable's menu and choose Environment values to give it a value per environment.
• Connections. A connector connection can be tied to an Environment in its settings. A cloud flow step that uses the connection's Alias key gets the connection for its run's environment, or the shared one when there is none.
• Applications. A match signal on an application can be tied to an environment.

3. Which environment a run uses

A process's own Environment is set in its edit form, under more. When it is empty, the run uses your company's default. A queue's worker runs can be given an Environment of their own.

4. Promote a process

1. Open the process and choose the Promote tab. You need edit rights on the process.
2. Choose the Target environment.
3. For a production environment, choose the Approver.
4. Add a Note if you like, such as Release 1.4.
5. Click Promote.

Promotion records that this process is cleared to run in that environment. It does not copy the process. Credentials and values are picked per environment at run time.

For a cloud process, promoting also freezes the current version, so runs in that environment use it rather than later edits. A bot process always runs the definition as it is when the run starts.

Recent promotions on the tab lists who promoted what, where, and when.

Problems block promotion

A process with problems that would stop it running cannot be promoted. You see "This process has … problems that would stop it running. Fix them on the Validate tab, then promote again." Click Open Validate, fix them, and promote again. Warnings do not block.

Approval for production

Promoting into a production environment needs two people: the one who promotes, and an approver who also has the right to promote into that environment. The approver must be a different person.

A small team where one person does both can switch on Allow self-approval on that environment. It is off by default, so two people is the rule.

5. The Changes tab

The Changes tab on a process lists everything that happened to it: steps added, edited, moved or removed, connections changed, versions saved, locks, restores and publishing. Each entry shows who did it and what each field was before and after.

• Filter by action or by person, or search the events.
• Jump to the step an entry is about, or filter the list to one step.
• Restore or compare an earlier version.
• Load older shows more.

Related articles

• Working with credentials
• Check a process still works
• Roles and administrators