How does "Deployment Automation Manager" plug-in work in a Appian cloud instance?

Question

Hi, 
 I am using Appian cloud instances for creating and deploying applications. Now I have to automate the deployment to another instance. I have got "Deployment Automation Manager" this tool from Admin portal. But I want to know how exactly it works? I have gone through Appian playbook notes but could not fully understand how to use this. Can anyone please describe this? Thanks in advance :)

Henry Taylor · Accepted Answer

Hi Sudip, 
 Sorry to hear about the confusion, but I would love to see if I can help out! 
 So, if I am understanding correctly, you are doing your app creation in Cloud Instance A. You now have Cloud Instance B that has the Deployment Automation Manager plugin installed, and you would like to use it to import your applications from Instance A. If thats accurate, the DAM would work well for you. 
 For your situation, we recommend using the DAM to: 
 
 Version your applications (pushing them to a repository) from Cloud Instance A 
 Import the versioned applications into your new environment, Cloud Instance B 
 
 To do this, you first need to locally download the DAM application from Shared Components . The plugin you installed to Cloud Instance B is the client side application needed for deployment, but you will still need to version locally. In addition, you need to 'Export' the applications from Cloud Instance A that you would like to deploy to Cloud Instance 'B' through the normal Appian Designer Export. Put these export ZIPs in an easily reachable location on your local. 
 
 For Step 1: Version your applications, you want to go look at the playbook under: Automated Versioning Manager > Script Execution. This section describes how you can use the Version Manager to version your applications to a GIT - based Version Control host (we now support GitHub, GitLAb, and BitBucket!). To make it easier for you to keep track of the data fields, we recommend using the version-manager.properties file to input all of the needed information instead of using Command Line Arguments. Using the versioner, you will want to: 
 
 Add the applications to the repository (see Use Case #2 in the AVM section of the Playbook) 
 Once added to the repository, you can then build the package to be imported into Cloud Instance B (see Use Case #3 in the AVM section of the Playbook) 
 
 Now, you have your application safely in a repository, where you can keep track of application changes and easily collaborate across developers, and have built the package to be delivered into Cloud Instance B. 
 
 For Step 2: Importing your Application, you want to look at the playbook under: Automated Import Manager > Usage. Here, you have two options: 
 
 Using the Deployment Plugin on Cloud Instance B to import your application via a User Interface (Usage #1) 
 Using your local Command Line Interface to import your application into Cloud Instance B (Usage #2) 
 
 Which option you pick is up to you. Keep in mind, for the importing step, the application you are importing is the versioned application. Once completed, through either option, you will be able to open your Cloud Instance B and see the application! 
 
 Note: While we recommend versioning the application, both tools can be used independently. So, if you wanted to, you could use the Import Manager to directly import the exported applications as well. 
 
 One last thing, could you tell us what you found confusing about the Playbook? We are currently working on updating the documentation to provide a better user experience, so we would love your feedback! 
 
 Let me know if you are still confused and have more questions, 
 Henry Taylor