Setting up hedgehog TDS build configuration for dev environment

Question

We use Hedgehog Team Development for Sitecore to manage content items and also want to use it for content deployment.

I am trying to create a TDS build configuration that should deploy TDS items to a remote dev server. Dev server isn’t on my local so I don’t know what I should mention in “Sitecore Deploy Folder” field.

What I am trying to achieve is when any developer / TeamCity builds the TDS project in dev configuration the TDS items should be deployed to the dev site. I can’t create this configuration from the dev server as we don’t have visual studio on the dev server.

I even tried putting the path from the server (this path doesn’t exist on my local from where I am try to set the configuration) but that doesn’t work.

Any directions on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

On the Build tab of your TDS project, there are two fields.

• Sitecore Web Url This is what TDS will use to connect to the server component to deploy your items.
• Sitecore Deploy Folder This is used for two purposes, one to install the aforementioned server component ("connector") and to deploy the output of your web project.

For deployment to a remote server, the Sitecore Deploy Folder needs to be a UNC path to the web root on the server (e.g. \\devserver\share\path-to-webroot), and whatever identity is running the deploy needs write permissions on that share.

Answer 2

I believe TDS only uses this path for deploying the "connector", which consists of the _DEV folder with the web service endpoint and some libraries that are placed into Website\bin.

If you are choosing to use the Deploy feature of TDS for CI, ideally you would deploy the "connector" manually the first time and although there is no use in setting the Sitecore Deployment Folder anymore TDS would not deploy with it blank. Your best bet is to setup a share on a server and use the share path for that setting (i.e. \myserver\share).

As a side note, check out the TDS package installer that comes with the app under C:\Program Files (x86)\Hedgehog Development\Team Development for Sitecore (VS2013). It is possible to set the TDS projects to generate *.update packages for code and content and automate their deployment or deploy them manually - just another way of implementing the CI.

Answer 3

I am using TeamCity as build for Sitecore and TDS deployments. Have a few different configurations depending on packaging needs. (update packages vs. webdeploy, etc).

Our typical approach to this is to create the MSBuild XML file for the configuration directly, which allows me to control the CI builds and deployment distinct from local developer builds.

In this case, the active configuration during build is set to DEV-CM, or TEST-CM, depending on the environment, and I pass in MSBuild parameters for:

IsDesktopBuild=false GeneratePackages=true (TDS project properties are set to generate separate code/file packages) SitecoreWebUrl=ht tp://[host] SitecoreDeployFolder=\[server][share]\website

In visual studio, the DEV-CM and TEST-CM configuration targets are created and configured for the TDS projects to enforce Deployment settings, multi-project packaging dependencies, etc.

This sends the configuration to TDS's portion of the build, generates the packages (which I have published out as TeamCity artifacts) and performs the TDS deploy to the target URL and target UNC.

I would encourage the route of separate build XML files and specifying that XML file as the target script in the TeamCity build step.