How to use solution patching and Apply Solution Upgrade in a CI scenario?

WaelHamze / dyn365-ce-vsts-tasks

VSTS Extension for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement

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How to use solution patching and Apply Solution Upgrade in a CI scenario? #86

Open jellevervloessem opened 5 years ago

jellevervloessem commented 5 years ago

I'm investigating the use of patches in our release guidelines and automation. Now our automated setup looks like this: Build

Set version number of Solution
Extract managed solution
Extract unmanaged backup.

Release

import managed solution

Question: triggering a build on DEV (manual), I think

I should export the Patch that is created on te previous build.
I should apply a solution upgrade
create a new patch 'v-next'

Triggering the Release should

install the patch on TEST, ACC, PROD,
Apply solution upgrade

This scenario is for an 'end-of-sprint-Release' that is why I will manually trigger this. Is there a way of setting up Continous Integration using the Patching? -> this was possible in my current scenario.

Am I on the right track?

WaelHamze commented 5 years ago

@jellevervloessem are you deploying all these patches to production? at what point do you deploy the next version?

jellevervloessem commented 5 years ago

I haven't figured it all out, but i think that I only deploy entire managed solutions when they are rolled up to an upgraded solution. The patches stay on DEV unless there needs some emergency patching to be done. Not sure, but hiw do you recommend to us these steps?

BugsOli commented 4 years ago

@jellevervloessem have you found a suitable solution for your needs? I'm exactly in the same boat right now and would need some input on how to proceed with the patches from DEV to TST

jellevervloessem commented 4 years ago

@WaelHamze, @BugsOli

For ContinousIntegration I still use unmanaged solutions. I rather like to use managed solutions with patches. The way I understand it,

I should have a patch open during my DEV sprint.
At the end of the sprint I deploy the patch to TEST and rollup the patch up.
I would then immediately create a new patch v-next to work on during the upcoming sprint. So in this case I deploy patches to the test environment and apply the upgrade on the test environment. Leaving all the patches visible on the DEV.

-> is this the correct way to use the patches and is this possible in devops?