Andy in the Cloud

From BBC Basic to Force.com and beyond…

Category Archives: GitHubSFDeploy


by 16 Comments

Branch Support for GitHub Salesforce Deploy Tool

If your not familiar, the GitHub Salesforce Deploy Tool will allow you to place a handy button on your GitHub README files to allow for super easy browser based deployment from your repo to a Salesforce org. Up until now it only worked on the master branch, it now supports branches!

GitHubSFDeployBranches.png

The new support for branches, does in fact cover tags and commits as well. Though only branches are defaulted from the button. If you already have the button on your README file, you will find it now magically starts detecting the branch!

ButtonOnABranch.png

Deploy to Salesforce buttons on branches now work!

If your new to the tool, go to the main page and grab the button code and paste it into your README file.  Or if you want a button you can use explicitly in a blog or article you can fill in the fields and generate it from the same page. As you can see the enhancement adds a new ref parameter to the generated URL. This can be a branch name, tag or commit. You can read more about the tool here.

ButtonWithScript.png

Enjoy!

 


by 20 Comments

GitHub Salesforce Deploy Tool Lightning Edition

A recent discussion on Twitter around sharing Salesforce configuration between admins has motivated me to revisit this tool. Before getting into anything major (watch this space). I decided to get back into the tools code by addressing a few outstanding maintenance tasks, enhancements and bug fixes, as well as treating it to a face lift!

LightningGitHubSFDeploy.png

As some of you may have noticed the tool has now adopted the Salesforce Lightning Design System look and feel. This new version is not just cosmetic, its also addressed some key enhancements and bug fixes…

LightningGitHubSFDeploy2.png

In keeping with the Lightning principles, this release makes the Deploy to Salesforce button (example shown below), even easier to place in your repository README files with less configuration required. The button will now automatically detect the GitHub repository. Which is useful if you Fork a repository into your own account or rename it, you no longer need to change the README file. The button code is now also smaller.

LightningGitHubSFDeployButton.png

IMPORTANT NOTE: This only works if your placing the button code in a GitHub README file. If your planning on using the button on a blog, article or wiki etc tick Use Specified Owner and Repository checkbox to have the specified repository details encoded into the button code as before.

This release has now also addressed issues preventing use with repositories that have Reports or Lightning Components in them. So you can now use the tool to deploy your favourite open source Lightning Components!

Finally if you have any private repositories, an improvement around the error handling in this area has also been made. Thanks to some great code contributions from Moti Korets and  Nathan Kramer for the whole GitHub private repository support! Thanks guys!

 

 


by 14 Comments

The new GitHub Deploy to Salesforce Button!

UPDATE January 2020:
The button now supports Salesforce DX source format! See here for more details.

deployThe GitHub Salesforce Deployment tool has been one of my most successful tools to date, i’m really pleased with it and how well it has been adopted. You can read more about the inspiration and background to the tool in my original blog post here.

I recently received a very nice submission to improve the visuals of the tool when invoking it from a GitHub Readme file, in the form of the Deploy to Salesforce button image! Big thanks to Karanrajs for creating it, it looks great! I have now integrated it into the main repository and given repository owners a nice utility feature to copy and paste the required HTML markup to embed in their README files.

To use it go to the main page of the here tool, enter your details and click the Show GitHub README button code checkbox, then copy paste the code into your README file, i usually place under the title then sit back and enjoy!

Screen Shot 2014-09-27 at 12.18.18

For example the README file for the Apex Metadata API repository now looks like this…

Apex Wrapper Salesforce Metadata API
====================================

<a href="https://githubsfdeploy.herokuapp.com?owner=financialforcedev&amp;repo=apex-mdapi">
  <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/afawcett/githubsfdeploy/master/src/main/webapp/resources/img/deploy.png" alt="Deploy to Salesforce" />
</a>

When displayed on the repository main page, we now see a shiny new button!

Screen Shot 2014-09-27 at 12.23.21


by 26 Comments

Updated GitHub Deploy Tool : Sandbox Support

I’ve added support to select either Sandbox or Production (Developer) login, there is now a main page where you can enter the owner and repository name manually. If passed in the URL these fields will be populated automatically.

loginpagesfdeploy

The original URL format is still supported, but only deploys to production…

https://githubsfdeploy.herokuapp.com/app/githubdeploy/afawcett/apex-sobjectdataloader

To generate a URL that will only deploy to sandbox…

https://githubsfdeploy-sandbox.herokuapp.com/app/githubdeploy/afawcett/apex-sobjectdataloader

To generate a URL that will display the above page and give the user the choice.

https://githubsfdeploy.herokuapp.com/?owner=afawcett&repo=apex-sobjectdataloader

To display the main page without any default owner or repository simply use this..

https://githubsfdeploy.herokuapp.com/

Enjoy!


by 87 Comments

Deploy direct from GitHub to Salesforce!

githubsfdeploy

UPDATE September 2014: I have now updated the tool to generate the HTML to place in your README file for more information please see this blog entry, so you can have a button that looks like this on your README.
deploy

At Dreamforce 2011, I had the pleasure of meeting Reid Carlberg, Jeff Douglas, Eric Magnuson and Richard Vanhook for the first time face to face, this alone was very exciting! I was co-presenting with them in a session entitled, ‘The New Frontier: PaaS and Open Source‘. In that session we talked about our thoughts on building an open source community on the platform. While this idea had not fully formed then, I was observing the barrier to entry for anyone getting a cool bit of open source Apex into their org was quite high compared to other platforms. Especially given both are in the cloud. Sure packages helped, but that put the overhead on the author to update them as well as the repository. As well as leaving a potentially unwanted package definition in the developers org. New developers on the platform also often struggle with Ant and Eclipse, leaving them copy and pasting to get the code in, yuk!

Inspired by the GitHub Clone in Desktop button you see on Github. I’ve created a tool that will deploy directly from Github into a Salesforce org. Its been deployed in the cloud, using Heroku, so there is nothing to install. Simply click a custom link pointing to the desired repo, login to your org and the tool scans the repository for Salesforce files (or packages) and after a brief confirmation page, your one click away from having the code in your org! To include such links in your README file, take the base URL of the following…

https://githubsfdeploy.herokuapp.com/app/githubdeploy

Then apply the owner and repository name, e.g.

https://githubsfdeploy.herokuapp.com/app/githubdeploy/financialforcedev/apex-mdapi

When visitors to your GitHub repo click such a link, they will be taken through an Salesforce oAuth login flow to their desired org, or if they are already logged in an initial prompt to confirm the app access needs are acceptable.  Then they will see something like this… Screen Shot 2013-09-24 at 00.37.31 Clicking Deploy starts the deployment giving feedback as Salesforce processes… Screen Shot 2013-09-24 at 00.42.13 Having reviewed a number of GitHub repositories containing Apex code and various other Salesforce files. Some utilise the documented Metadata API folder structure with a package.xml committed. Others include only the Apex class files, without the metadata xml files that accompany them. The tool attempts to resolve these differences via the following.

  • If a package.xml is found, it will include everything in that folder exclusively and utilise the package.xml when deploying.
  • If no package.xml is found, it will attempt to dynamically generate one.
  • If no metadata file for an Apex class, it will create one for it.

I’ve tested the tool with a number of other repositories I found Salesforce code in and this seems to cover the majority of use cases. However I’m sure there will be some others I’ve not discovered. Right now I would recommend using a package.xml for now with the correct structure. Though you can experiment with the auto package.xml creation feature, if this works for you, it saves you a job keeping that in sync as well! NOTE: The tool does not run tests during the deployment, so will not deploy into production orgs, I may add a checkbox with a big disclaimer around it if there is demand. Bottom line this is a developer tool. Try it out! I hope this helps make our open source Salesforce projects even more accessible. I’ve now updated all the repositories I hang out in most often, check out Deploy to Salesforce links in the README files now. In the Apex Enterprise Patterns and its sample application repository (work in progress for upcoming Dreamforce 2013 session) and Apex Metadata API. Finally I’ve published the full source code for the tool here, feedback and ideas welcome! Screen Shot 2013-09-24 at 01.11.51 Update: Added Sandbox Support see additional blog here.