Whenever you deploy with Gearset, almost 100 problem analyzers automatically check your deployment package, catching common causes of deployment failure and suggesting how you can fix them before you deploy. This saves you from having to work out what went wrong with your deployment after it failed, or deploying changes to source control that won’t be deployable to a Salesforce environment.
Based on the issues in your package, Gearset’s problem analyzers will warn you about and fix problems such as:
- Missing dependencies: items that need to be created or added to the deployment in order for it to work.
- Missing deletions: some items are dependent on something that’s being deleted. These items need to be deleted as well in order for the deployment to work.
- Compatibility problems: some items may be incompatible with the target due to differences or changes in the API versions.
- History tracking settings: if a field has history tracking enabled, but the parent object in the target organization doesn’t, the field will need to be removed from the deployment or it will likely fail.
- Items using features that might not be enabled in the target org: if some standard object fields are being deployed, but they don’t exist in the target organization, this indicates they might use features that aren’t enabled in the target org and you might need to remove them to avoid the deployment failing.
- Object fields named differently in the source and target due to API version differences: if a field exists in both the source and target but is named differently in each due to the difference in API version, then, once again, the deployment will most likely fail.
Many deployments would fail if it weren’t for these problem analyzers. They don’t just help you spot problems that are otherwise easy to miss during manual deployments, but also apply fixes when CI jobs run in Gearset, automating repetitive troubleshooting for your team.
Visibility into what problem analyzers are doing to your deployment packages
Of course, you’ll want to see what Gearset’s problem analyzers are doing to your deployment packages. You need to understand why your deployment package is the way it is, both during the deployment and later if you come back to review your deployment history.
With Gearset, you have complete visibility of the changes that problem analyzers make to your deployment package. You can see that problem analyzers are going to take effect on your deployment package during manual deployments from the message that explains the problem and suggests the fix, which you can accept or reject.
In the example below, Gearset’s missing dependency problem analyzer has been triggered. This is because we’re trying to deploy a DiscountPercentage field on the Account object, but without the DiscountRate field on which DiscountPercentage depends. The problem analyzer suggests adding the Account object and its subcomponents because this will bring DiscountRate into the deployment package. Otherwise, the deployment will fail.
So you can see exactly what effect problem analyzers have had on your deployment package, this information is added to the deployment summary at the end of the deployment flow. And since deployment summaries are permanent records that form part of your audit trail, you’ll now be able to return to earlier deployments and understand why certain items were included or excluded from the deployment package.
In this deployment summary, you’ll notice that Gearset tells us which items were suggested by a problem analyzer. The new DiscountRate field was the missing item that our DiscountPercentage field depends on. The Account object containing these fields, which is otherwise unchanged, has also been brought into the deployment package by the problem analyzer.
The “difference type” icons in Gearset show you whether an item in your deployment package is new, different, deleted, or unchanged. A small cog symbol on the status icon indicates whether an item’s status was the result of a problem analyzer.
You can also see this additional information in your CI job history, so you know exactly what effect Gearset’s problem analyzers have had on your CI deployments.
Deploy more successfully with Gearset
Gearset’s problem analyzers pick up most causes of deployment failure, and can fix them for you. If you want to join the thousands of Salesforce teams already achieving massively improved deployment success, get started with a free 30-day trial of Gearset today!