Duco enables the highest operational agility, empowering teams to adapt to business changes rapidly, while maintaining robust control and auditable change management.
To ensure consistent, secure, and reliable configuration deployments across all environments, it’s essential to follow a structured and transparent promotion flow.
When creating a new process
- Use sandbox to experiment
Begin in the sandbox environment to freely explore configurations and test ideas safely. - Test thoroughly in UAT
Once your setup is stable, promote it to UAT using production-like data. Invite end users to verify functionality and business logic. - Iterate quickly in UAT
Make small refinements directly in UAT. For larger, structural changes, return to Sandbox for further testing before re-promoting. - Validate the entire flow
Test end-to-end automation, including data submissions via SFTP or API, to ensure seamless operation before going live. - Promote to production on approval
Move to Production only after business sign-off and readiness confirmation.
When updating an existing process
- Always enable change control
Keep change control active in production to prevent unintentional disruptions or breaking changes. - Use staging copies for cosmetic updates
For minor updates-such as description edits, exception category and/or label changes, or UI refinements—use a staging copy in production. This maximises agility while maintaining control. - Handle structural changes safely
For substantial updates (e.g., logic changes, schema updates, or data source modifications), push the latest production version back to sandbox. This ensures you’re modifying the most up-to-date version under safe conditions.
Deployment best practices for integrated configuration deployment (non cash processes)
As part of our integrated configuration deployment process, it is highly recommended to follow a structured promotion flow. The sandbox → UAT → production model provides control, traceability, and reliability for all deployments.
Current best practice recommended flow:
1. Sandbox → UAT promotion
- Use sandbox for initial configuration and validation.
- Once verified, promote to UAT for extended testing and user acceptance.
- Gather business approval before production deployment.
2. UAT → production promotion
- Promote to production only after successful UAT validation.
- Ensure all issues are resolved and rollback procedures are in place.
Configurable option: direct UAT → production promotion
While the sandbox → UAT → production flow remains the recommended standard, some organisations may enable direct promotions from UAT to production to accelerate their release cycle.
Important considerations:
- Access control: Only authorised users should be able to perform direct promotions.
- Change management: Skipping sandbox introduces risk. If enabling direct UAT → prod promotions, ensure strong change management, testing, and rollback protocols are enforced.
- Configuration: To enable this setup, raise a support ticket to adjust deployment configurations accordingly.
Best practice recommendation configuration and promotion integrity
Avoid deleting processes in target environments:
- Do not delete processes, rules, or configurations in UAT or Production that exist in the source environment. Deletion can cause promotion conflicts or failures during subsequent deployments.
If a process has been deleted:
- Create a copy of the original process in the source (e.g., Sandbox).
- Assign a new, unique process code (different from the deleted one).
- Promote the copy through the standard flow (Sandbox → UAT → Prod).
Enforce uniqueness of identifiers
- Ensure that process names, codes, data source identifiers, and labels are unique across environments. Reusing names or codes – even if previously deleted – can lead to conflicts during promotion.
Reference groups, not individuals
- Avoid embedding individual user references (IDs or emails) in workflows, permissions, or notifications.
- Use group-based references (roles or user groups) instead to keep configurations environment-agnostic.
Keep deployment packages clean and manageable
- Build packages in a single session. If configuration changes occur, recreate the package.
- Avoid bundling too many items in one package—limit to ~50 processes per package for easier tracking and troubleshooting.
- Always test the package in UAT before production promotion.