Setting up separate staging and live environments

Most of your QA/dev team's testing can be done in development mode, but you may want your team to be able to test in Production mode as well. For example, you'll need to use production mode to test out a funnel in Analytics, or to see how an A/B test's results would look.

Creating a test app or testing environment

When starting with your Leanplum integration, we generally recommend separating your app into two different Leanplum apps: one for your testing environment (internal users only), and one for your production environment (real users). This allows your developers to see their changes in production mode, while minimizing risks of accidentally sending content to the wrong users.

Head to App settings to create another Leanplum app. Each Leanplum app will have its own set of API keys.

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Name your Testing and Live apps clearly

Use app names that clearly indicate which app is staging and which is live. For example, if your app is called "Plums," you could use names like "Plums Testing" and "Plums Production." You are not limited to a certain number of apps in the Leanplum dashboard, so feel free to create test environments for all of your apps.

Testing workflow with a staging app

Once you have your apps set up, a potential workflow between a test app and a production app might look something like this:

1. Have your development team use the staging app for development, including creating new A/B tests, trying new variables, and creating messaging campaigns. Do this in dev mode so you can see changes right away.
2. Use the staging app to send the campaign, message, or other changes to all internal users or test devices. You can do this with the production key to allow your team to test the exact delivery settings and analytics results. (Do not use the production key in your production app yet!)
3. When you're ready for final QA, you can switch to the live app, but use the app in Development mode. This is where you copy over your messages, sync new variables, or move other content from your test app to the live app.
4. Once your content is ready, you can push the changes to production in your production app. Now sit back and watch the results from your real users come in! 😎

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When you are ready to release an update of your app to the App Store, it is important to ensure that you are using the Production app keys in the live version of the application.

Need a refresher on when to user production mode vs when to use development mode? See here for a quick overview.