Simplifying complexity with scalable DevOps
Fluence transformed their Salesforce development by partnering with Gearset to automate workflows and minimize time-consuming manual tasks. By gradually adopting automated CI jobs, sandbox seeding, and daily backups, Fluence built a scalable and reliable DevOps process that can match their pace of growth and ensure business continuity.
The challenge of rapid growth
Since the implementation of Salesforce in 2018, Fluence has grown rapidly — along with its use of the platform across various business units. With a growing user base, Fluence’s Salesforce team found that deploying with change sets wasn’t the best use of their time.
Having used a mix of tools in the past, the team wanted one solution that could introduce automation into their release process and reduce the time they were spending deploying org to org.
Building a confident release process
To keep up with the speed of their growth, Fluence needed in-house expertise and a scalable solution that worked for the whole team.
Team Lead, Rupali Joshi, remembers Gearset quickly standing out as the tool Fluence needed.
“We considered different products in the market, but once we explored Gearset there was no looking back.”
Rupali and the Fluence team were guided through the onboarding process by Customer Onboarding Manager, Thomas Giffin.
“Thomas gave us that confidence, that it’s fine to go ahead, to run the jobs and see how it works. When we hit issues, we’d get on a call and get things resolved. Whenever I reached out the answers were given to us immediately.”
With help from Thomas and their Customer Success Manager, Craig Marsh, the Fluence team were able to quickly pick up key processes, confident in the knowledge they had the support of the Gearset team when they needed it.
“Craig makes sure we are getting the most out of Gearset, and that it benefits Fluence. His focus is on how Gearset can help us more.”
Steps towards DevOps maturity
The Fluence team wanted a scalable process that could take them from consistent metadata deployments through to full DevOps maturity. After starting out using Gearset for their deployment process, the team were keen to make use of more functionality. For Fluence, the first step was to create an org strategy. From there, they progressed on to deployments, automated CI jobs, sandbox seeding, versioning with Git, and backup.
“After the first deployment with Gearset worked, we tried two more deployments, and then three more. After that there were no second thoughts.”
They made quick progress, as Rupali says “from development to approvals, a lot of our processes have changed.” But key to their success has been the step-by-step approach — building their DevOps process in stages.
“We didn’t do everything in one go as it was new for the organization and for some team members. But it was a step-by-step phased process with DevOps completely built in.”
Saving time with streamlined processes
One of the most significant benefits that Gearset brought to the Fluence team was the time saved in pre-deployment processes. Gearset’s ability to analyze metadata and identify dependencies made it easier for the team to track their changes and build deployments that would succeed.
“If I introduce a new field, or I’ve added ten permission sets, it automatically tells me where the dependencies are. This process is saving us a lot of time.”
The impact of this increased visibility was particularly clear during large-scale deployments. Rupali describes a recent project which included a deployment with over 600 components. Using their old process, this task would have required complex staging and preparation. However, with Gearset, the team had the deployment ready in just two days.
The team is now also seeing benefits beyond the pre-deployment process. Making use of Gearset’s deployment cloning feature, they’re able to redeploy tested changes which have already been approved in lower orgs in their pipeline, avoiding additional work spent rebuilding.
“We can clone what we’ve already deployed in UAT to production. We select the target and the source, and then we just deploy it across.”
Ensuring reliability with backups
As they built their DevOps process, implementing data backups quickly became one of Fluence’s most valuable improvements. Gearset’s daily backups give the team peace of mind, knowing data changes are stored securely and provide a safety net in case of any unforeseen issues.
“We have the data from the first day we turned on the daily backups. It’s a disaster recovery process. If we run into a situation, we can go back.”
For Rupali, the ability to compare data snapshots and roll back to previous versions has offered a level of efficiency and consistency that was previously impossible with the manual methods they relied on before.
“Now with Gearset, the advantage is that I have this comparison in front of me. If there is a scenario where we have to roll back, we can just go back to the previous data. It is super easy. You have it all in front of you.”
Easy backups with Gearset not only saved Fluence time, but also increased confidence across the team even as they were working hard to develop processes to match their pace of growth. As Rupali puts it, “Gearset gave us the edge.”
Confident, scalable deployments with Gearset
“The way the company is growing, Gearset is really contributing through the huge number of deployments and the faster way that we’re doing things. Gearset just went hand in hand with all the new processes we are building.”
Gearset transformed Fluence’s deployment process, enabling the team to scale alongside the company’s rapid growth. Deployments that used to feel daunting, often handling thousands of components, became manageable as the team’s confidence in their processes grew.
“When deploying something like a permission set, there can be apprehension, but now I’m not worried about it. Now we just hit the button. The team is confident.”
As Fluence continues to grow, the team is working with Gearset to further mature their DevOps process. Future plans include building a dedicated release management team and using Gearset’s Pipelines to manage their CI/CD process. With Gearset as a foundation, the team is confident in their ability to scale and support the company’s evolving needs.
“I’m sure Gearset will scale to where we’re going. I don’t see a challenge at all.”
