Automating deployment with Livecycle

Question

I am working on a project with Adobe LiveCyle Workbench ES4. I have been tasked with automating our deployment to produciton. This is for the entire project which includes LiveCycle, but I have very little LiveCycle experience.

In our current manual process we copy the XDP (right-click->copy) file from TEST and paste it into PROD using workbench. We then must un-deploy the application, then re-deploy it for the change to take affect.

Is it possible to script the export of an XDP in test and then an import of the XDP into PROD?

Are there any best practices?

Can anyone point me to a resource that might help with automating this?

Is there a command line option for the undeploy\deploy?

Answer 1

You should not have to redeploy an application for changes to form only to occur. Only changes in processes require a redeploy.

Normally the way we deploy is by exporting the application to an LCA through Workbench, and importing that LCA through the admin console to the desired environment. You can choose to make a patch LCA and select just the XDP files you want to move. You can also include files from more than one application in the LCA if you want.

This is probably not economical if you're talking about moving one only form, but if you have multiple then it is a much better way to go.

Answer 2

I have used Livecycle a lot, and in our environments we did not use workbench to make deployments and passages between environments.

The deploys were made by copying the xdp files to the destination folder. With some script (linux or windows) you can easily automate daily deployments, or whatever you are after.

I am unsure about the usage of workbench, so I don't know if using workbench is a requirement for you...

Answer 3

An application does not need to be redeployed for XDP changes to takes effect. You only need to check-in the new asset(s) into the application for them to be picked up with the following requests. You are most likely un-deploying/redeploying only because the check-in process is automatically triggered when deploying.

As for scripted deployments, take a look at the [Adobe LC Root]\sdk\misc\Foundation\ArchiveManagement folder for some script samples and instructions. I believe some of the check-in/check-out APIs are undocumented but keep in mind that for virtually every operation, there is a web service endpoint that can be called.