Deploy code and data changes

You will have to take a different approach for deploying new code to an existing published project depending on whether or not you configured external storage.

If you’ve configured external storage according to our recommendations, you should be able to clear the existing deployment and re-deploy with the same steps as the initial deployment- first publish your application and then deploy the published files according to your platform.

If you host your app in an Azure Web App, you can use the --clean parameter of the az webapp deploy command to clear out the deployment slot before you do anything.

If you use IIS, we recommend creating a reusable script that clears out the deployment location and copies the publishable files.

If you do not use external storage, you’ll need to copy asset files, media files, and form submission files to a safe location before clearing the existing deployment, then copy them back after deployment.

Otherwise, they may be lost permanently.

We recommend creating a script to automate this process.

Deploy new data to an existing published application

Standard Continuous Deployment

In some cases, you may want to create some data in your development environment and deploy it to the published environment. For example, you might create a custom module, which contains classes and class data alongside code.

We recommend using Continuous deployment (CD) to keep the data in sync between your environments. You can follow the guidance in the Continuous Deployment documentation.

Asymmetric Continuous Deployment workaround

If you want to have different data between your development environment and your published environment, standard CD procedures may cause issues, overwriting objects in the production database with data that you only want to exist locally.

In this case, you can use the following workaround:

Set up your environments

Make sure CD is enabled locally, along with some kind of source control. Also follow the advice in the CD documentation to keep macro signatures in sync with your production environment.

Make your data changes

Add the data to your development instance, allowing Continuous Deployment to serialize the data in your source control repository.

Copy your dev environment

Make a new copy of your Development application that exists outside of your source control system. We’ll refer to it as the Copy instance in this section. Make sure the Copy instance exists outside of your source control. It should be a distinct project, not a branch.

Disable your Published app, and change the connection string of the Copy instance to point to the Published database. Then run a CD store from the Copy instance. This serializes the data from the Published database into the Copy instance’s CD repository folder.

Transfer the data

Using your source control history, isolate the new serialized files that were created or modified as a result of your data changes in your Development app, including any dependent objects that may have been affected.

Copy these files into the corresponding folders of the Copy instance’s CD repository. Then, run a CD restore to propagate the changes to the Published database.

Then you can delete the Copy instance and deploy any new code changes to the Published app before reactivating it.