Tips and tricks to help your team recover from a failed deployment.
While we all know things can go wrong in the development process, it's always frustrating when they do. Let's talk about a few ways to help your team recover from failed Salesforce deployments while on the job.
Before we can get into the practical tips for recovery, so much can go wrong during deployments, so it's okay to feel lost or frustrated when something doesn't go right.
The good news is that with the right support and recovery plans, a lot of the last-minute scrambling and problem-solving will disappear!
The frustration of a failed Salesforce deployment – unexpected errors, metadata conflicts, or broken functionality.
Why deployment failures happen – missing dependencies, permission issues, validation failures, or manual errors.
The good news is that with the proper recovery plan, you can quickly fix issues and deploy confidently . 1. Common Reasons Salesforce Deployments Fail
With code, there can be many big (and small!) reasons for something going wrong. It's not inherently anyone's fault, but it can often be aggravating to think you'll have a smooth deployment only to be proven wrong.
It's easy to forget that everything is variable when it comes to the list of reasons why a deployment might fail. What does that mean? Anything from metadata conflicts to broken functionality, missed dependencies, permission issues, validation failures, or a simple manual error can lead to a failed deployment.
The good news is that a lot of these can be easy fixes!
Let's dig into the most common reasons Salesforce Deployments will fail.
Missing Dependencies —If you update one area of the project and fail to follow through on the edits, you'll end up with related components that fail. Think fields, objects, or Apex classes are not included in the deployment.
Profile & Permission Errors —When pushing code through environments, reviewing profile and permission levels is crucial because something as simple as that can block functionality.
Conflicting Metadata Changes —Often, we're all making edits simultaneously, and when another team member changes something in production that conflicts with the deployment, it won't function properly.
API Version Mismatches —If you're working with older sandboxes, it's easy for up-to-date Salesforce API to get lost. When this happens, code might work well in one sandbox, but as you move it through to production, things go wrong.
Manual Change Set Mistakes – If you rely on manual change sets, an incomplete deployment can be as simple as missing one component!
2. Immediate Steps to Take After a Deployment Fails
A. Identify the Root Cause When a deployment fails, it's essential to find the root cause. While there can be many impacts, before you start making small changes everywhere, take time to assess the original breaking point.
Here are a few great places to start:
Check your Salesforce deployment status logs for any error messages.
Then, look at debug logs and validation failures to narrow down your issue.
B. Roll Back to a Stable State
If possible (and this is why we suggest using version control!), revert to a previous working version as soon as possible.
If you can't quickly revert after you know where the problem occurred, leverage Git to manually restore previous versions of metadata from a sandbox or backup!
Remember that adapting and problem-solving are part of the process, so going backward is okay before reaching your final goal.
C. Fix the Identified Issues
Once you identify the root cause and roll back to a stable state, you can fix the reason the deployment failed.
Chances are you're looking at one of these to be your fix:
Missing dependencies. If this is the case, adjust and redeploy, including the required (and missing) components from the first time.
Permission errors. If this is where you're missing data, update your profiles and permission sets before you try again.
API Mismatches. Compare data from your production environment to your sandbox, make the required adjustments, and then try again with the correct version.
3. The Psychology of Deployment Anxiety – Why Teams Fear Releases When a deployment fails, it can be a major deal, so reacting to your development team with grace can help the whole recovery process go smoother.
A few things to consider:
Deployment days are stressful for admins and developers! Chances are they roll out of bed anxious about breaking production and disrupting everyone's business operations. Be thoughtful about how you initially respond to an issue. Remember that they can have fear about the situation from previous failed deployments, and a general lack of confidence in your rollback strategies can magnify the air of uncertainty.
Consider leveraging automation tools to help with deployment confidence. You can optimize your workflow with tools incorporating proactive testing and validation, automatic version tracking, one-click rollbacks, and continuous integration to catch issues before they impact users. The whole team will likely feel better about rolling out new features in that case.
Aim to build a "no-blame" culture around failed deployments. No one is perfect. By taking some of the pressure off your team to be perfect, you can emphasize process improvements and encourage collaboration instead of pushing negative energy into the team. This is an excellent opportunity to learn from mistakes and strengthen your protocols for future releases.
4. How Blue Canvas Helps You Recover from Deployment Failures The good news is that you can make it easier for your team to recover from this failure with a tool like Blue Canvas.
Blue Canvas makes it easy to:
Automate Git-based backups so you can instantly roll back if something goes wrong.
Detect errors before your deployment so you can confirm validation and proactively make changes.
Quickly undo failed deployments with a one-click rollback.
Conclusion Deployments are tricky, and while they can be common, you can optimize your tech stack to minimize and avoid them! When it comes to finding the right solution for your team, be sure to pick an option that enables CI and CD while allowing you to proactively test code before you deploy it.
We recommend trying Blue Canvas.
We're built for teams who want to deploy with confidence faster.
Book a demo to learn more today.
