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, to ensure that all interdependent Data Cloud components deploy reliably and in the correct order, separate from traditional Salesforce platform metadata.
You can watch a short demo of our support here.
Prerequisites
Before deploying Data Kits, you may need to enable Data Cloud in both source and target orgs. You may also need to assign the Data Cloud Admin permission set to your deployment user.
Deploying Data Kits using Gearset
Gearset simplifies the Data Kit deployment. With intuitive comparison and deployment workflows, users can effectively move complex Data Cloud metadata configuration between development, testing, and production instances.
Most Data Cloud metadata can be deployed directly through Gearset, as users 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 for deployment when using Gearset.
Some Data Cloud metadata types must be deployed through a DevOps Data Kit. For example, Calculated Insights, Data Lake Objects, and Search Indexes should be added into a Data Kit. Once the Data Kit is created, it can be selected in Gearset comparisons along with all its components for deployment to the target org.
To deploy a Data Kit through the Metadata API, the metadata type you use is
Data package kit definition.
While Data package Kit Definition represents the kit, it often doesn't automatically pull all its content (like Data streams, Data package kit objects etc). You 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 analyzer suggested fixes if you are missing any dependencies. Add the missing components to the deployment and go to the 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 deploying the Data Kits and their dependencies to your target.
Activate the Data Kit
Go to the target org, and open the new Data kit you deployed.
Click Data Kit Deploy to activate the Data Kit in your target org.
Note: We are currently implementing a new process to automatically activate data kit components post-deployment.