Azure DevOps (TFS, VSTS)

We provide a free extension that is compatible with both on-premise Azure DevOps Server (Team Foundation Server, TFS) and cloud based Azure DevOps Services (Visual Studio Team Services, VSTS).

Benefits of the Apwide Golive Azure DevOps Marketplace Extension

With the Apwide Golive and Azure extension, you can leverage the robust capabilities of Azure DevOps and combine them with the comprehensive test environment management features of Apwide Golive for Jira.

This integration enables you to easily connect your Azure DevOps projects with Apwide Golive. This connection establishes a bridge between the two platforms, enabling smooth data exchange and synchronization. Deployments and relevant environment information required by testers, release managers,... and other teams, are automatically pushed to Apwide Golive from your Azure DevOps pipelines.

Reading this page, you will learn how to use Apwide Golive for Jira extension to automatically send deployment and environment information to Golive/Jira from your Azure DevOps pipelines.

Installation of the Azure DevOps extension

If you do not have an Azure DevOps subscription, start here to get a free one: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/organizations/accounts/create-organization

In order to make the extension available for your Azure DevOps organization, you must access the marketplace:

Search for “Apwide Golive” and install the extension:

Connect your Azure Project with Golive

This extension provides a new type of connection to easily connect your pipelines with Apwide Golive Cloud or with on-premise Apwide Golive for Jira Server / Data Center.

Go to your Project Settings/Service Connections to connect to different instances of Golive:

Follow instructions to properly configure and verify your connection parameters:

Once you have configured at least 1 working connection, you can start adding tasks that will connect to golive from you Azure DevOps pipelines.

Add custom Golive tasks to your pipelines

You can easily add and configure new tasks to your pipelines with the graphical assistant:

The graphical assistant can also be used in “Release” pipelines:

Apwide Golive Environment pipeline task

Use this task when your need to update deployment or to push any other information of your environments to Golive and Jira.

This is your “swiss knife” task to track your environments managed in Azure DevOps.

Configure a new task using the graphical assistant

For convenience, we provide a graphical assistant to help you configure properly your task. If you are working with yaml pipelines, this assistant will help you to generate well formed and re-usable yaml code.
Another benefit of the graphical assistant is that it connects directly to your Golive instance and allows you to retrieve the technical ids right in Azure DevOps, without having to connect to Jira and Golive screens.

STEP 1 - Select the connection and specify the target Golive environment

After having selected the Servie Connection to connect with your Golive server, you have to identify the environment you want to update in Golive. This is done by setting your Target Environment.
You can use constant textual values mixed with pipeline variables to set the different task parameters.

Automatically create target environment (if missing in Golive)

Select “auto create” option if you want to automatically create the environment based on the provided names if it does not exist yet in Golive:

Push information to an existing target environment

In order, to use an existing environment as target, simply let the “Environment Name” parameter empty and search for the Golive environment in the picker list:

You can also directly type the ID in the picker, if you already the ID of the target environment

STEP 2 - Push deployment information

If your pipeline is performing deployments, you can send the information of the performed deployment to Golive. All deployment information to push to Golive are set in the “Update Deployment” section:

Version Name: name of the deployed version. If you activate the “sync Jira Version” option in Golive, a new Jira version will be automatically created in Jira (if not existing yet).
Tips: do not include the build number in the version name, there is dedicated field to track build number.
Build Number: build number
If you want that the build number is automatically set with the number of current job, let the default value.
Description: unlimited and multiline field to enter description of the deployment, release notes,… This field supports basic html tags if you want to format its content.
Jira Issue Keys: list of Jira issue keys that are part of the deployment. If you activate the “sync Jira Version” option in Golive, these issues will be automatically added to the deployed Jira Version.
Deployment Attributes: list of deployment attributes to store additional and customizable meta information to your deployments.
N.B. You must create/configure deployment attributes in order to use them in your pipelines.

STEP 3 - Update Environment Status

If you want to update the status of the Golive environment (ex: when starting a deployment, after a deployment has been performed,…), open the “Update Status” section. Pick the desired status or type its name:

STEP 4 - Update Environment url and attributes

You can update and share other useful environment information managed by Azure DevOps pipelines in the “Update Environment” section.

Typical use case: share the new url’s of your environment and its credentials to enable testers and other users to quickly access the application environments from Jira / Golive screens.

Information about infrastructure, location, deployed data sets,… may be also really useful to publish using custom environment attributes:

Configure a task using YAML

When working with yaml pipelines, the graphical assistant will generate yaml code that you can edit an re-use in other pipelines or in templates of pipeline.

Example of generated yaml:

YAML

trigger: 
- main

pool:
  vmImage: "ubuntu-latest"

steps:
- task: ApwideGoliveSendEnvironmentInfos@1
  inputs:
    serviceConnection: 'apwide.atlassian.net'
    targetEnvironmentName: 'eCommerce Demo'
    targetAutoCreate: true
    targetApplicationName: 'eCommerce'
    targetCategoryName: 'Demo'
    deploymentVersionName: 'ECOM 2.3.4.34-SNAPSHOT'
    deploymentBuildNumber: '$(Build.BuildNumber)'
    deploymentDescription: |
      <b>✅ Job #$(Build.BuildId) - $(Build.DefinitionName)</b>
      Requested by: $(Build.RequestedFor) 
      Branch: $(Build.SourceBranchName)
    environmentStatusId: '1'
    environmentUrl: 'https://ecommerce.staging.company.com'
    environmentAttributes: |
      {
      "OS" : "Linux",
      "Location" : "Switzerland",
      "Owner" : "me@company.com"
      }

You can use custom or pre-defined pipeline variables if you want to make your pipeline more dynamic and re-usable in different contexts.

The yaml editor supports auto completion:

Usage of graphical assistant is optional. You can add and setup a task in directly in yaml editor.

Contact us

We are at your disposal if you have question or need support regarding Apwide Golive and this integration with Azure DevOps: https://www.apwide.com/support-documentation/