How to enhance form iteration with the deployment API - CI/CD 

It’s crucial for those involved in form building on a large scale to have an automated deployment and testing process. Formsort's new Deployment API uses our existing Admin API feature to support automated testing by allowing developers to publish their forms to production as part of a CI/CD pipeline. We’ll unpack below the deployment API’s key functionalities and highlight how you can use it to enhance your form iteration process. 

The need for form deployment and testing

Who is this tool ideal for? 

If your team has technical resources, you can use the deployment API to automatically test that your form is working correctly in a staging environment before deploying to production where responders will use it. It’s particularly useful if you operate in a high-stakes or compliance-heavy industry where you need to verify different aspects of your forms before you show them to customers.

Testing forms before deployment saves time and resources. It prevents errors and issues that might require costly corrections. For instance, if a client-facing form is broken and patients are going through it, the data is lost, it’s a bad user experience, and you might lose leads. Errors in forms can also disrupt workflows, leading to confusion, delays, and suboptimal outcomes. 

Understanding the Formsort deployment API

With the deployment API, you can programmatically promote your flows between different environments using an API call. This unlocks automated testing of a flow variant in a staging environment before it is deployed to a production environment: you can run a set of end-to-end tests on a staging deployment and then deploy successfully-tested flows to production—the content of the variant will be unchanged when promoting to the production environment from the staging environment.

How is this different from our existing testing solutions?

Previously, deployments were only possible from within the Formsort studio. It’s convenient for most users but it’s a manual process: someone has to log in, find the correct flow, and click “Ship this sucker” to deploy it. This new automated feature lets you speed up your deployment cycle. 

The deployment API also improves the correctness of deployments. Deploying from the studio always deploys the latest version of a given form, which might not be the same one that was tested within a staging environment. With the deployment API, you’ll be able to achieve reliable, repeatable deployments in a way that wasn’t possible before.

How the Formsort deployment API works

With this feature, you can deploy a flow to production after a successful test run in a continuous deployment pipeline. First, you’ll need Formsort Admin API access. You can refer to our documentation for the technical details on how to call the new API. You’ll work on the flow variant and publish it to a staging environment. If events are enabled for variant revisions being published, then you’ll receive a webhook with the information you need to start automated testing. Once your testing is complete, you can promote the exact same variant revision from staging to production using the new API.

Optimize your form iteration cycle with Formsort

The deployment API is a major advancement in empowering you to test and release your forms with unprecedented control, efficiency, and flexibility. Ensuring flawless clinical workflows, this tool is tailored for a wide array of testing and deployment solutions. Build your forms with Formsort and enhance your form management experience with the deployment API.