App environments

Managing application lifecycle using environments

Kissflow's application lifecycle is an agile process of building applications in the development environment, deploying the application to test environment, and finally moving it to the live production environment. Every Kissflow user will have default access to the Kissflow live account. As a Super Admin, you can add other Kissflow users to the Development and Test environments with Super Admin or User privileges.

What are the environments in Kissflow Apps?

Kissflow Apps offer a unified console with visibility to all your default environments:

• Development: This environment lets you build applications with an agile mindset. The environment can be shared with citizen developers, IT developers, and developer admins. As a Super Admin of the Kissflow account, you'll be able to add other users to the development environment with Super Admin or User permissions. The default URL of this environment is dev-<account_name>.kissflow.com. You can always modify the URL if needed.
• Test: After an application is built in the development environment, it has to undergo end-to-end testing before getting deployed to live. Once applications are deployed in the development environment, they are transferred to the Test environment next. This environment can be shared with QA engineers, release managers, and QA admins. As a Super Admin of your Kissflow account, you'll be able to add multiple users to the Test environment with Super Admin or User privileges. The default URL of this environment is test-<account_name>.kissflow.com. You can always modify the URL if needed.
• Live/Production: This is where the application is made live. It's always the primary account domain of your Kissflow account. The Account Owner, all Super Admins, User Admins, Billing Admins, and users have access to the production environment. The default URL of this environment is <account_name>.kissflow.com.

  

   

To access environments:

1. Sign in to Kissflow account as an Account Admin.
2. Click your profile picture on the top right corner of the page and click Environments from the dropdown.

   

     

Managing environments

Once you access the environments page, you'll be able to copy all the environment URLs from here. You can also modify the development and test environment URLs by clicking the Edit button ().

 

When you change the domain address, you will be directed to the new URL and all users will be notified about this change.

To invite users to work on these environments, simply click the Manage users button under the corresponding environment. Then, click the Add a user button to add users to the environment with Super Admin or User permissions.

Need for separate environments

Development – It is an environment where developers design the application, fix bugs, and have the freedom to make mistakes.

Test – It is an environment where manual or automated tests are executed before the app is deployed to live.

Production – It's the live Kissflow environment for production-ready applications and finished content. Your organizational employees primarily consume the application from this environment.

Reasons for having separate environments

• Application development is a continuous process. Because development involves extensive debugging and testing, mixing testing and production environments is never a good idea. Separate environments are required to avoid issues caused by application development and to limit the risk of business disruption.
• To reduce the likelihood of unexpected downtime. You don't want any business to come to a halt because a new build has been put into production.
• You must ensure that quality assurance, unit tests, and stress testing are all carried out in a completely separate environment. If something goes wrong in development or QA, it will have a negative impact on the production environment, affecting live users and their mission-critical data.
• To increase the application's service level agreement (SLA) and give a better user experience for your users.
• To reduce the odds of sensitive production data falling into the wrong hands. When dealing with highly sensitive and confidential data, such as client information, ID numbers, or financial transactions, it is critical. We also want this to prevent production data from being mixed up with test data.