Promotions Order in Unqork

Overview

Promotion advances your application and data collections in Unqork from their current environment stage to another environment. Promoting an application or data collection overwrites any previous versions in the target environment. You can promote styles, groups, roles, applications, and translations individually or at the same time.

What You'll Learn

In this article you'll learn about:

• Environment stages in Unqork

• Recommended promotions order in Unqork

Environment Stages in Unqork

Environment stages (or stages) in Unqork support each phase of building and rendering applications. As customer applications advance through development, they generally pass through the following stages:

Environment	Description	Code-base
Customer Staging	Where Unqork creators configure applications. This non-production environment hosts test data only. Features and bug fixes are released to Customer Staging at the end of a sprint cycle (every 2 weeks). After launch, this is where you prepare updates before promoting to UAT for testing. Unqork hosts the Customer Staging environment internally. Staging offers both a Designer and Express View interface.	Staging
User Acceptance Testing (UAT)	Where both Unqork and the client can view the latest build. This non-production environment hosts test data only. Unqork hosts the UAT environment internally. UAT offers both a Designer and Express View interface.	UAT
Production	This is the live application, and the only environment that end-users can access. This is also the only environment to host live client data.	Production

NOTE  Some customer applications move through up to 5 environments. The additional environments are Quality Assurance (QA) and Pre-production (Pre-prod). QA environments use the UAT code-base. Pre-prod environments use the Production code-base. The progression order is Customer Staging, QA, UAT, Pre-prod, then Production. Client leads decide the number of environments to use when developing a customer application.

TIP  To learn more about environment stages, including the release process for platform updates, search Software Development Life Cycle Processes in our In-Product Help.

Promoting in Unqork

Promotion advances an application from its current environment to another environment. Creators build applications in the Staging environment, then promote upwards. When moving an app to the another environment, you must also promote all other parts of that application. This includes roles, groups, styles, and app elements.

It's best practice to promote your applications with the Release Management tool. This tool makes it easy to create releases with specific apps, modules, and data collections. Then, you can promote that release, monitor its progress, and view all of its relevant information.

TIP  To learn more about the Release Management tool, search Release Management Tool in our In-Product Help.

Reference the following table when promoting from one environment to the next. While you can promote the parts of your application in any order, Unqork’s Product team recommends the following order:

Recommended Promotion Order	Part	Can it be promoted?
1st	Services	No. You must recreate Services in the new environment. You’ll do this under Services Administration.
2nd	Managed Assets	No. You must download the asset from the original environment. Then, upload the asset to your new environment. You’ll do this under Managed Assets Administration.
3rd	PDF Templates	No. You must download your PDF templates from your current environment. Then, upload the PDF templates to your new environment. You’ll do this under PDF Template Administration.
4th	Styles/Themes	Yes. You promote styles one-by-one under Style Administration.
5th	Groups	Yes. You can promote all groups under Group Administration.
6th	Roles	Yes. You can promote all roles under Role Administration.
7th	Application and app elements	Yes. You can promote your application. This is also where you can promote any app elements, including workflows, modules, and reference data.
8th	Translations	Yes. You can promote translations by clicking the Promote Translations button in Environment Administration. NOTE  It's best practice to make configuration changes in your development and build environments. Occasionally, you'll make a quick fix in a higher environment. Make sure to promote the translation table before updating the module in the higher environment to avoid losing work. This is because a translated module is a copy of the original, created by the translation table. All copies of the module are promoted at the same time. If you don't promote the table, the translated modules don't have a reference point when you make changes and can break.
9th	Global Variables	Partial. You cannot promote a variable's value, you'll create a new value specific to the new environment stage. You can promote a Global Variable's key, description, and Server-Side Only settings. You'll do this under the Global Variables settings page.
10th	Integration Jobs	No. Integration Jobs must be recreated and updated in the new environment. This is handled by Unqork’s Solutions team.

NOTE  Be mindful of how promoting one application can affect other applications. Sometimes several applications in an environment share a style or group. Also, promoting an app overwrites any previous versions in the target environment. This includes parts of an app like styles, roles, and groups.