Gearset can help you break down metadata into individual parts and deploy them to the target. However, sometimes users want to choose individual elements within the metadata or specific lines of XML to deploy, you can now do this with Precision Deployments feature within Gearset!
Gearset's compare and deploy feature now supports Precision Deployments for the following metadata types:
Layouts
Mini Layouts
Report Types
Settings
LeadConvertSettings
Record Types
Standard Value Sets
Global Value Sets
Picklists and Multiselect Picklists
Permission Set Groups
Lightning Pages
CustomApplication
CustomObjectTranslation
Assignment Rules
What was hard about deployments?
When you have multiple team members working on the same metadata, deploying has at times given many teams a headache due to a number of common issues:
Metadata can often contain test fields and work-in-progress changes, and therefore only some items are ready to be deployed to the next org or committed to a feature branch
This problem is often exacerbated when working with your team in shared sandbox orgs as they typically include other people’s changes
Merging layout changes is difficult. Most admins and developers often just wish to deploy their own layout item changes and keep everything else as is
It is way too easy to overwrite existing changes in the target org when another team member deployed their changes before you. At times, fields get manually added directly in the target org (especially common with Production orgs)
Sifting through genuine additions and deletions from simple field moves and reorders in the XML view in Gearset used to take much longer than ideal
The amount of effort needed to overcome all these obstacles meant that many teams either skipped deploying certain metadata types altogether or resorted to manual workarounds, which involved editing files in code editors and source control. Gearset now offers a much faster and more flexible way of cherry picking specific deployments.
Enter Precision Deployments
Precision Deployments give teams and individuals the ultimate flexibility in deploying and committing supported metadata types (Note: Precision Deployments will only work on existing items that flag as 'Different' in the comparison, not new/deleted)
Here we will walk through an example with Page Layouts:
Choose your Layout file, then in the XML view below start picking the changes you want to include in your deployment. Simply leave out any in-progress fields or any changes belonging to other team members.
Quickly include all changes by selecting the entire Layout file in the main table
Select or deselect all changes in either the source or the target by using the “Selected” checkboxes in the XML view
Any field that has a different position in the layout is marked with a chain icon
Quickly jump back and forth between new and old field locations in the layout file
That's it — you're now ready to start using Precision Deployments in Gearset.
Feedback
If you have thoughts or feedback on this document or on the feature, please get in touch with us via the in-app chat.
We would love to hear your suggestions.
Many happy precise deployments!