Managing the deployment of the Nintex Platform

Thomas Xu

Velrada Senior ConsultantNINTEX VTE

Managing the deployment of Nintex Platform

3

Thomas Xu

Senior Consultant

(SharePoint & O365)

Perth, Australia

44

Agenda

What is deployment

Planning the deployment

Automated deployment

Demo

What is deployment?

6

Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)

Analysis

Design

DevelopmentTesting

Deployment

7

Importance of deployment phaseRisks of unsuccessful deployments

Measures the project success

Delayed project deliverables

No separate environment for testing/training

Rework

Planning the deployment

9

Common issues

Missing solution dependencies

Missing infrastructure dependencies

Permission issues

Broken links

Javascript, CSS or farm solutions

Version inconsistencies or licensing issues

Workflow failed to start, error occurred

10

Managing the common issues

Change control

Dependencies/pre-requisites

Disaster recovery

Environment

Development standards

Solution design

Manual

Automated

Deployment methods

11

•POC

•Development

•Debugging

DEV•DEV changes

•Regressiontesting

UAT•Feature release

•Bug fixes release

PROD

EnvironmentChange control

12

Version and licenses (e.g. Enterprise, standard)

Authentication (e.g. ADFS, forms, windows)

Service components (e.g. Excel, search, word automation )

Solution components(e.g. Lookup Lists, Site content types/columns)

Custom solution(e.g. Integrations, farm solutions)

Version and licenses (e.g. Enterprise, standard)

Configuration (e.g. Lazy Approval, Nintex Live)

Solution components(e.g. UDAs, Workflow Constants)

NWC , Nintex Hawkeye, Nintex App Studio(e.g. Tenant info, Services)

EnvironmentDependencies–on premises

13

Tenant (e.g. Single tenant, multi-tenant)

Authentication(e.g. Hybrid, cloud)

Admin Center(e.g. New/classic experience, custom scripts, BCS)

Solution components(e.g. Lookup lists, site content types/columns)

Custom solution(e.g. Delve, Yammer, Azure web services)

Version and licenses (e.g. Enterprise, standard)

Document Generation(e.g. Quota)

Solution components (e.g. document generation templates, connection manager)

NWC , Nintex Hawkeye, Nintex App Studio(e.g. Tenant info, Services)

EnvironmentDependencies–cloud

14

EnvironmentDisaster recovery

Content restore Solution restore

VM snapshots

Database backupsMicrosoft support14 days retention site collection restore only

3rd party toolsShareGateMetaLogix

Source control

Team Foundation Server (TFS)Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS)

15

Solution designDevelopment standards

Simplicity No hardcoding

Service/Testaccounts Reuse

Capacity planning

Source control

MaintainabilityPerformance& Scalability

16

Deployment

Manual vs. automated

17

Manual deployment

Pros Cons

No initial effort required to create an automated deployment mechanism

Can be easier to understand

Error prone

Longer deployment time

Not easily repeatable/ deployable by someone else

Hard to reuse

18

Automated deployment

Pros Cons

Less error prone

Much more deployable and repeatable by someone else

Cost benefits

Supports continuous development and more frequent releases

Supports modularised deployment

Initial effort required to create the automation deployment mechanism

Lack of understanding of the deployment process

Automated Deployment

20

Automated deploymentPlanning

Environment Preparation

Solution assets

Source control

Deployment sequence

Deployment mechanism Logging

21

Automated deploymentCommon deployment Assets

Lists/Libraries Content Types

Features Site Columns

Pages Custom Solutions

Master Page Farm Solutions

Form templates

Workflow Templates

Document Templates

HTML/Javascript/CSS/Images

Workflow Constants

22

Automated deploymentTool

Automated deploymentToolsSharePoint Client Browser

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Automated deploymentTools

Pros Cons

Free

Gain insight in Site Structure

Assists with environment preparation

Supports SP2010/2013/2016/online

Requires SharePoint technical knowledge

SharePoint Client Browser

Automated deploymentToolsShareGate

26

Automated deploymentTools

Pros Cons

Supports all SP versions

Content Migration

Copy site objects

Reporting

Allows repeatable deployment

Supports most on-prem and O365 Nintex Deployment

Paid licenses

Not yet fully support migrating on-prem to O365 Nintex workflows

ShareGate

Automated deploymentToolsOffice Pattern and Practice

(PnP) SharePoint Provisioning

Engine

28

Automated deploymentTools

Pros Cons

Free

Supports SP2013/2016/Online

Easy import/export of provisioning templates

Repeatable deployment

Extensibility

Logging

Limited Support

Requires developer knowledge

PnP SharePoint Provisioning Engine

29

Automated deploymentToolsNWAdmin.exe

30

Automated deploymentTools

Pros Cons

Free

Supports most Nintex On-Premdeployments

Supports wide range of Nintex administration operations

Does not support Nintex Forms

Does not support Nintex O365 deployments

NWAdmin.exe

31

Automated deploymentToolsNintex O365 REST APIs

32

Automated deploymentTools

Pros Cons

Free

Supports Nintex O365 Deployments

Requires some code

Does not support Nintex On-Premdeployments

Nintex O365 REST APIs

Demo

• February 26–28• SAN DIEGO

Questions

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