Salesforce - How to Deploy between Environments (Sandboxes, Live etc)

Question

We\'re looking into setting up a proper deployment process.

From what I\'ve read there seems to be 4 methods of doing this.

1. Copy & Paste -- We don\'t w

Answer 1

I'm still struggling with this myself. Neither the IDE of the Migration Tool have solved the main issues I face, which are as follows:

1. Installed packages cannot be deployed to a Developer Org. You have to install them manually one by one in the Dev Org.

   If a package cannot be installed in the org (for example because it requires password, like Marketo Sales Insight, or because it has been deprecated, like Salesforce for Google Adwords) and our application has dependencies on it (like references to fields in objects that belong to the package) then we won't be able to deploy the app.

   Workaround: if a package cannot be manually installed in a DEv Org each developer will need his own Developer Sandbox. Additional Developer Sandboxes can be ordered from Salesforce. (The client has to be willing to pay for them, though...)

2. When the sandbox is refreshed from production and we refresh our local project (which is connected to SVN) from the server all additional files/code that was in in the old Sandbox but it's not in production is going to be moved to the new Sandbox.

   Workaround: all changes made in production must be replicated in the Sandbox and the Developer Orgs. (Kind of a pain, but ok...)