Introduction
Data Kits in Salesforce Data Cloud are a specialized packaging mechanism used to streamline the deployment and management of your Data Cloud configurations across different environments (e.g., from sandbox to production). They are crucial for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and DevOps, ensuring that all interdependent Data Cloud components are deployed reliably and in the correct order, separate from traditional Salesforce platform metadata.
Deploying Data Kits using Gearset
Gearset simplifies the deployment of Data Kits in Salesforce Data Cloud. With intuitive comparison and deployment workflows, users can effectively move complex Data Cloud metadata configurations between development, testing, and production instances.
The majority of Data Cloud metadata can be deployed directly through Gearset, as the user can select the specific components and dependencies they wish to deploy or commit to a target branch. These do not need to be added to a Data Kit to be deployable if using Gearset.
In the case of Calculated Insights, Data Lake Objects and Search Indexes these three components do have to be added to a Data Kit pre-deployment. The user can select the Data Kit and components in the Gearset comparison and deploy them to the target org or branch.
To deploy a Data Kit through the Metadata API, the metadata type you use is
DataPackageKitDefinition.
While DataPackageKitDefinition represents the kit, it often doesn't automatically pull all its content (like Data Streams, Data package kit objects etc). You would need to retrieve the DataPackageKitDefinition along with the specific Data Cloud metadata types that are contained within your Data Kit.
After making your selections, click Next.
You might see some problem anayzer suggested fixes if you are missing any dependencies. Add the missing components to the deployment and go to Pre-deployment summary.
Gearset will display a summary of the deployment package. Review it thoroughly to confirm all desired components are included and click Validate deployment.
If the validation process is successful, Click Deploy. Gearset will then begin the deployment process and deploy the Data Kits and their dependencies to your target.