Automating your Netsuite deployments comes with a number of benefits. Below are just a few of them:
Forces Version Control
A prerequisite for achieving automated deployments, committing your Netsuite scripts (and objects) to a VCS (version control system) is an absolute must. While you could get by without it, sooner or later you will be forced into doing so.
Business critical processes are affected by SuiteScript deployments, and having full visibility into what’s being deployed to your account is invaluable.
- enable peer reviews
- review new code and changes to existing scripts before releasing
- maintain a full history for auditors
- enable rollbacks if necessary.
Keep VCS and FileCabinet in sync
A good implementation of Netsuite CI/CD will ensure that the code checked in to your branches, reflects what is live in Netsuite.
Daily routines could also listen for additions/changes to objects in your Netsuite account, and automatically open pull/merge requests accordingly. This acts as an audit log of changes being made directly inside Netsuite to objects and (hopefully never) to scripts.
Offload deployment duties
By relying on an automated test and deployment process, developers can focus their efforts on writing and reviewing code. This also tightens things up in terms of security, as you can limit all script modification rights to a dedicated CI/CD user.
Have peace of mind that anything that has been deployed to production has ‘gone through the process’ with full visibility into the changes.
Enable a culture of collaboration
A typical release would require opening a merge/pull request and merging this into your key branches. Merge requests could be reviewed by other developers, providing a second pair of eyes and bringing them up to speed with the feature to be released.
If using collaborative messaging tools like Slack, you can sync every change and notify a group of people to every new action carried out on a merge request. This keeps the whole team in the know on what’s being deployed to your Netsuite account and when.
Test Code before it is released
Integrate testing into your CI/CD process and run unit tests on your entire codebase to ensure changes have not broken critical business processes.
Netsuite Infrastructure as Code
SDF is the gateway to automated Netsuite deployments, and sending all scripts and objects through version control enables you to track even the slightest of changes to a Custom Record for example. It also enables you to easily migrate clusters of metadata between Netsuite accounts which is a huge time saver.
Avoid Deployment Errors
As with all automation, the room for human error is reduced. Nothing spells trouble like a misconfigured deploy.xml file being inadvertently deployed to production, and introducing several unintended script and object updates.
A lot of the benefits detailed above can be attributed solely to the process of sending all scripts and objects through a VCS. However, once that is done, it naturally leads into fully automating your Netsuite test and release processes too.
We have lots of experience doing this, and would love to help you reap the benefits of going this route. Contact Us to discuss all options in more detail.
