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Automate pipelines for business process and logic app infrastructure, CI, and CD in different environments

Applies to: Azure Logic Apps (Standard)

To avoid rebuilding logic apps and remapping business processes to logic app workflow operations when you deploy to different environments, you can create pipelines by using Azure DevOps. Pipelines do all the work to automate infrastructure creation, continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD). These pipelines create resources for your logic apps, business processes, mappings between business process stages and workflow operations, and set up transaction tracking in your deployment environments for development, test, and production.

This guide shows how to complete the following tasks:

  • Create and run pipelines for your Standard logic app infrastructure, CI, and CD by using Azure Logic Apps Standard Tasks for Azure DevOps.

  • Prepare your business process for CI and CD.

  • Create and run pipelines for your business process infrastructure, CI, and CD by using Azure Logic Apps Standard Tasks for Azure DevOps.

  • Update and run your CI and CD pipelines after you configure other necessary components.

Prerequisites

  • An Azure account and subscription. If you don't have an Azure subscription, sign up for a free Azure account.

  • Visual Studio Code installed with the Azure Logic Apps (Standard) extension and the required prerequisites.

    For more information, see Create Standard logic app workflows with Visual Studio Code.

  • A Visual Studio Code workspace with an undeployed Standard logic app project.

  • An Azure DevOps organization, project, and Git repository where you store your source code and artifacts.

    To create and run pipelines in Azure DevOps, you need the capability to run pipelines on Microsoft-hosted agents. To use Microsoft-hosted agents, your Azure DevOps organization must have access to Microsoft-hosted parallel jobs.

    If you don't have a repository, follow the steps in Create a new Git repo in your project. To create repository, you need a GitHub account or Microsoft account, an Azure DevOps organization, and an Azure DevOps project where you have administrator permissions, such as Project Collection Administrator permissions.

  • The latest Azure Logic Apps Standard Tasks extension for Azure Pipelines in your Azure DevOps project.

    This extension provides automated, build, connections deployment, and release tasks for Azure Logic Apps (Standard). For extension information and task prerequisites, see Azure Logic Apps Standard Tasks.

  • The appropriate user role permissions to create, view, use, or manage a service connection between the pipelines that you create later in this article.

    For more information, see Set service connection security in Azure Pipelines.

Clone your repo in Azure DevOps

After you create a repository, clone the repo to your computer so that you can make and push changes in your local repo to the original repo in Azure DevOps:

  1. Clone the repo to your computer.

    The following example shows a repo in Azure DevOps with the default branch named main. Your team's repo in Azure DevOps might have a default branch with a different name.

    Screenshot shows Azure DevOps, Files page, and selected Clone button.

  2. Copy and save the HTTPS clone URL for later use.

  3. In Visual Studio Code, open your Standard logic app project.

  4. From the Terminal menu, select New Terminal.

  5. From the command prompt, go to the folder that has your project's workspace file.

    A workspace is a text file that has the .code-workspace extension. To find the folder with this file, in the project root folder, open the folder named .vscode.

  6. From the command prompt, run the following Git commands set up your local repo, snapshot your logic app project, link your local repo to the repo in Azure DevOps, and create a default branch in your local repo that points at the default branch for the repo in Azure DevOps:

    git init
    git add -A
    git commit -m "<your-commit-comment>"
    git remote add origin <clone-URL>
    git push --set-upstream origin main

    These commands complete the following tasks:

    1. Create an empty local repo.

    2. Add all new or edit files from the current folder to the index, which is a staging area or cache in your local repo.

    3. Create and save a snapshot with only the new or edited files currently in the index as a new commit object in your local repo. This object includes a brief description about the contents in the snapshot.

    4. Create a link between your local repo and the repo in Azure DevOps.

      In this example, the Git command git remote add origin <clone-URL> links your local repo to the repo in Azure DevOps that uses <clone-URL>. The command also assigns origin as an alias that you can later use for that repo.

    5. Create a default branch in your local repo, which is main in this example, and set up tracking between this branch and the repo in Azure DevOps.

    For more information, see Git reference.

  7. At the prompt, provide your Git credentials to the Git Credential Manager.

Generate deployment scripts

Now, generate deployment scripts from your logic app project. This task lets you create the files to create your logic app resource along with the CI and CD pipelines to automate build and deployment for your logic app in Azure. For more information, see Automate build and deployment for Standard logic app workflows with Azure DevOps.

  1. If your logic app project isn't currently visible, in Visual Studio Code, on the Activity Bar, select Explorer.

  2. In the Explorer window, open the shortcut menu for the project folder, and select Generate deployment scripts.

  3. Follow the prompts to provide the following deployment information as required for your logic app:

    Parameter Description
    Resource group Select or create a new Azure resource group.
    Logic app name Provide a unique name for your logic app resource.
    Storage account name The name for the Azure storage account to use with your logic app.
    App Service plan name The name to assign to the App Service plan.
    Subscription The Azure subscription.
    Location The Azure region.

    The deployment script generation process creates a deployment folder that contains files for your infrastructure, CI, and CD pipelines along with parameters files, for example:

    Screenshot shows Visual Studio Code and generated deployment script files.

  4. From the command prompt, run the following Git commands to add, save, and push your local updates to Azure DevOps:

    git add -A
    git commit -m "<your-commit-comment>"
    git push

    For more information, see Git reference.

Create infrastructure pipeline for logic app

For this task, see the general steps in Create your first pipeline with the following steps:

  1. In your Azure DevOps project, on the project menu, select Pipelines > Pipelines.

  2. On the Pipelines page, select Create pipeline, or New pipeline if pipelines exist, for example:

    Screenshot shows Azure DevOps project, Pipelines page, and button selected for New pipeline.

  3. On the Select tab, select the repo type and the repo to use.

    This example selects Azure DevOps.

  4. On the Inventory tab, select Production or Non-production, and then select Configure pipeline.

  5. On the Configure tab, select Existing Azure Pipeline YAML file.

  6. For Branch, find and select the branch with your deployment script files.

    This example selects the main branch.

    Earlier, you pushed changes with generated deployment script files to Azure DevOps. Now, you can select the infrastructure pipeline file that you created in Visual Studio Code.

  7. For Path, find and select the infrastucture-pipeline.yaml file at the following location:

    /pipelines/infrastructure-pipeline.yaml

  8. Select Continue > Review pipeline. Provide a name for the pipeline. The pipeline folder is optional.

  9. To complete this task, select Save.

Create CI pipeline for your logic app

  1. Follow the steps in Create a pipeline for logic app infrastructure until you specify the path for the CI pipeline file.

  2. For Path, find and select the CI-pipeline.yaml file at the following location:

    /pipelines/CI-pipeline.yaml

  3. Select Continue > Review pipeline. Provide a name for the pipeline. The pipeline folder is optional.

  4. To complete this task, select Save.

Create CD pipeline for your logic app

  1. Follow the steps in Create a pipeline for logic app infrastructure until you specify the path for the CD pipeline file.

  2. For Path, find and select the CD-pipeline.yaml file at the following location:

    /pipelines/CD-pipeline.yaml

  3. Select Continue > Review pipeline. Provide the name for the pipeline. The pipeline folder is optional.

  4. To complete this task, select Save.

Create a service connection

A service connection is an authenticated connection between your pipelines and external or remote services that you use to complete tasks. In this scenario, the service connection lets your CI/CD pipelines create and manage resources in Azure. These steps create a Microsoft Entra ID app registration to use as an authentication credential. For more information, see Create Azure Resource Manager service connection that uses workload identity federation.

  1. In your Azure DevOps project, go to Project settings > Pipelines > Service connections.

  2. Select Create service connection. On the New service connection pane, select Azure Resource Manager as the service connection type, and then select Next.

  3. On the New Azure service connection pane, provide the following information:

    Parameter Value or description
    Identity type App registration (automatic)
    Credential Workload identity federation (Recommended)
    Scope level Subscription
    Subscription Your Azure subscription.
    Resource group The Azure resource group.
    Service Connection Name The name for the service connection.

  4. When you're done, select Save.

  5. Note the name for the created Microsoft Entra ID app registration.

Find the Microsoft Entra ID application registration

Confirm that your Microsoft Entra ID application has the necessary role and permissions for your scenario and get the object ID for later use. For more information about app registrations, see Register an application in Microsoft Entra ID.

  1. In the Azure portal search box, enter the name for the Microsoft Entra ID application.

  2. Confirm that the Microsoft Entra ID application has Contributor access for the resource group. If not, assign that access.

Update logic app pipelines with the service connection

Now, specify the service connection to use with your logic app pipelines.

  1. In each listed pipeline file, find the property named serviceConnectionName.

    • Infrastructure pipeline: Update the infrastructure-pipeline-variables.yml file.
    • CI pipeline: Update the CI-pipeline-variables.yml file.
    • CD pipeline: Update the CD-pipeline-variables.yml file.

  2. For the serviceConnectionName property, set the value to the service connection name.

  3. In the CI-pipeline-variables.yml file, add a new property named subscriptionId, and set the property value to your Azure subscription ID, for example:

    subscriptionId: '<Azure-subscription-ID>'

  4. Make sure to save all the updated pipeline files.

  5. From the command prompt, run the following Git commands to add, save, and push your local updates to Azure DevOps:

    git add -A
    git commit -m "<your-commit-comment>"
    git push

    For more information, see Git reference.

Run infrastructure pipeline for your logic app

To create your Standard logic app resource in Azure, follow these steps:

  1. In Azure DevOps, open your logic app infrastructure pipeline, select Edit, select the appropriate branch, and then select Run.

  2. If prompted, provide the permissions necessary to run the pipeline.

After the pipeline completes, your empty Standard logic app resource is created in the Azure portal.

Run CI and CD pipelines for your logic app

  1. Before you run the CD pipeline, update the CD pipeline to include the source value, which is the name for your CI pipeline.

    You can directly commit to the branch, but then run git pull on your local source to locally synchronize this change.

  2. In Azure DevOps, run the CI pipeline, and then run the CD pipeline.

  3. If prompted, provide the permissions necessary to run the pipelines.

After the CD pipeline completes, the content from your Standard logic app project is deployed to the previously created logic app resource in the Azure portal.

Prepare your business process for CI and CD

After you create and deploy a working Standard logic app resource in Azure, you can define and map your business process stages to workflow operations so you can start tracking transactions. After you set up, deploy, and test the business process, you can prepare the business process for CI/CD.

  1. In the Azure portal, find and open your business process resource.

  2. On the resource navigation menu, select Overview. On the toolbar, select Export to extract the deployment content as a .zip file.

    This .zip file contains Azure Resource Manager templates, parameter files, and business process resource pipelines that you can use for infrastructure provisioning and CI/CD process in Azure DevOps.

  3. In Visual Studio Code, go to your logic app project's deployment folder, which was created after you generated deployment scripts for the project, and create a folder named businessprocesses.

  4. Extract the exported .zip file, and add the business process folders to the businessprocesses folder, so that your project folder structure looks similar to the following example:

    \deployment\businessprocesses\<business-process-name>

    Screenshot shows Visual Studio Code and exported business process project folders.

Update business process pipeline variables

Now, update your business-process-pipelines-variables.yml file to use the previously created service connection.

  1. In Visual Studio Code, go to your logic app project, find the pipelines folder, and open the file named business-process-pipelines-variables.yml at the end of this path:

    deployment\businessprocesses\<business-process-name>\pipelines\

    The business-process-pipelines-variables.yml file contains a node named businessProcessMapping. This node includes references to your business process stage mappings and specific logic apps. These references contain paths with Azure subscription IDs and names for resource groups and logic apps.

    Note

    Make sure to change these values if you plan to create a deployment package for a different environment, such as test or production. That way, when you deploy the business, the stages in the business process map to the correct subscription IDs and logic app names.

    Important

    Always secure and protect sensitive and personal data, such as credentials, secrets, access keys, connection strings, certificates, thumbprints, and similar information with the highest available or supported level of security.

    Make sure that you securely store such information by using Microsoft Entra ID and Azure Key Vault. Don't hardcode this information, share with other users, or save in plain text anywhere that others can access. Set up a plan to rotate or revoke secrets in the case they become compromised. For more information, see the following resources:

  2. In the business-process-pipelines-variables.yml file, find the serviceConnectionName property, and set the property value to the service connection name.

  3. From the command prompt, run the following Git commands to add, save all local changes to tracked files, and push to Azure DevOps:

    git add -A
    git commit -a "<your-commit-comment>"
    git push

    For more information, see Git reference.

After you finish these steps, your business process pipelines now appear in the Azure DevOps repo.

Screenshot shows Azure DevOps repo with uploaded business process pipelines.

Set up permissions and access to Azure Data Explorer

Azure Business Process Tracking uses Azure Data Explorer as the backend data store. So, you need to make sure that your service connection can connect, access, and update Data Explorer cluster, database, and tables by completing the following steps:

On the Data Explorer database where your service connection needs to create a table, make sure that your service connection has Database Admin role.

  1. In your Azure Database Explorer cluster, go to your Data Explorer database.
  2. On the database menu, under Overview, select Permissions.
  3. Add your service connection, and assign the Database Admin role.

For more information, see the following documentation:

Create infrastructure pipeline for your business process

  1. Follow the steps in Create a pipeline for logic app infrastructure until you specify the path for the business process infrastructure pipeline file.

  2. For Path, find and select the infrastucture-business-process-pipeline.yaml file at the following location:

    deployment/businessprocesses/<business-process-name>/pipelines/

  3. Select Continue > Review pipeline. Provide a name for the pipeline and pipeline folder.

  4. To complete this task, select Save.

Run infrastructure pipeline for your business process

To create the business process resource in Azure, follow these steps:

  1. In Azure DevOps, open your business process infrastructure pipeline, select Edit, select the appropriate branch, and then select Run.

  2. If prompted, provide the permissions necessary to run the pipeline.

After the pipeline completes, your business process resource is created in the Azure portal.

Create CD pipeline for your business process

  1. Follow the steps in Create a pipeline for logic app infrastructure until you specify the path for the business process CD pipeline file.

  2. For Path, find and select the deploy-business-process-pipeline.yaml file at the following location:

    deployment/businessprocesses/<business-process-name>/pipelines/

  3. Select Continue > Review pipeline. Provide a name for the pipeline and pipeline folder.

  4. To complete this task, select Save.

Run CD pipeline for your business process

To deploy content from your previously deployed business process to your new business process resource in Azure, follow these steps:

  1. In Azure DevOps, open your business process CD pipeline, select Edit, select the appropriate branch, and then select Run.

  2. If prompted, provide the permissions necessary to run the pipeline.

Update logic app CI pipeline with business process task

Now, update your logic app CI pipeline to use the task named Azure Logic Apps (Standard) Business Process Artifacts Build. The logic app CI pipeline extracts tracking profile content from your deployed business process and includes that content in subsequent logic app deployments. This tracking profile contains instructions that the Azure Logic Apps (Standard) runtime uses to emit business data to Azure Data Explorer.

Note

Per this guide's prerequisites, make sure that you installed the latest Azure Logic Apps Standard Tasks extension for Azure Pipelines in your Azure DevOps project.

  1. In Azure DevOps, open your logic app CI pipeline, and select Edit.

  2. In the Tasks pane, find and select Azure Logic Apps (Standard) Business Process Artifacts Build.

  3. In parameters pane or in the YAML file editor, provide the following parameter values as described in the table:

    Tip

    When you set these parameter values, try using the in-browser file editor instead. The editor makes it easier and more convenient to reuse parameters from elsewhere in your solution.

    Parameter YAML name Required Value Description
    Azure service connection connectedServiceNameARM Yes <serviceConnectionName> Parameters pane:

    1. Select the Azure subscription associated with the service connection.

    2. Select Authorize.

    3. Select the service connection.

    For more information, see Create a service connection.
    Standard logic app name appName Yes <logicAppName> The name for your existing Standard logic app.
    Subscription ID subscriptionId Yes <subscriptionId> The ID for your Azure subscription.
    Target folder targetFolder Yes <logicAppName> The name for the folder that contains your Standard logic app. The folder that contains your Standard logic app and is the same folder as the sourceFolder parameter for the AzureLogicAppsStandardBuild task.
    Deployment folder deploymentFolder No <logicAppName> The folder that contains the workflowparameters folder, which contains the parameters.json file for your logic app.
    App settings file path stagingAppSettingsFilePath No See example. The path to the app settings file that the task generates. This file includes the app settings for the business process stages that are mapped to the specified logic app workflow operations.

    In the AzureLogicAppsStandardRelease task, use this app settings file for the appSettings parameter value. To include the file with the published pipeline artifact, make sure that you store the file in artifacts staging directory.

    For more information, see Azure Logic Apps Standard Business Process Artifacts Build Task.

  4. When you're done, make sure that task section named AzureLogicAppsStandardBusinessProcessArtifactsBuild@0 appears below the node named steps: and above the task named AzureLogicAppsStandardBuild@, for example:

    jobs:
  - job: logic_app_build
    displayName: 'Build and publish logic app'
    steps:
      - task: AzureLogicAppsStandardBusinessProcessArtifactsBuild@0
        inputs:
          connectedServiceNameARM: '$(serviceConnectionName)'
          appName: '$(logicAppName)'
          subscriptionId: '$(subscriptionId)'
          targetFolder: '$(Build.SourcesDirectory)/$(logicAppName)'
          deploymentFolder: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/deployment/$(logicAppName)/'
          stagingAppSettingsFilePath: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/appsettings_businessprocess_$(Build.BuildId).json'
      - task: AzureLogicAppsStandardBuild@0
        displayName: 'Azure Logic Apps Standard Build'
        inputs:
          sourceFolder: '$(Build.SourcesDirectory)/$(logicAppName)'
          deploymentFolder: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/deployment/$(logicAppName)/'
          archiveFile: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/$(Build.BuildId).zip'

  5. When you're done, select Add.

  6. In the editor, update the targetPath parameter value to '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'.

    - task: PublishPipelineArtifact@1
  displayName: 'Publish logic app zip artifact'
  inputs:
     targetPath: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'
     artifact: '$(logicAppCIArtifactName)'
     publishLocation: 'pipeline'

  7. When you're done, select Validate and Save.

Update logic app CD pipeline with app settings

The app settings for your Standard logic app provide important setup information for the Azure Logic Apps (Standard) runtime to emit data to Azure Data Explorer. Your logic app CD pipeline requires the following changes:

  1. In Azure DevOps, open your logic app CD pipeline, and select Edit.

  2. In the YAML file editor, set the appSettings property to the following value:

    '$(Pipeline.Workspace)/cipipeline/$(logicAppCIArtifactName)/appsettings_businessprocess_$(resources.pipeline.cipipeline.runID).json'

    For example:

    - task: AzureLogicAppsStandardRelease@0
  displayName: 'Azure Logic Apps Standard Release'
  inputs:
     connectedServiceName: '$(serviceConnectionName)'
     appName: '$(logicAppName)'
     resourceGroupName: '$(resourceGroupName)'
     appSettings: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)/cipipeline/$(logicAppCIArtifactName)/appsettings_businessprocess_$(resources.pipeline.cipipeline.runID).json'
     package: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)/cipipeline/$(logicAppCIArtifactName)/$(resources.pipeline.cipipeline.runID).zip'

  3. When you're done, select Validate and Save.

  4. To keep your local repo updated with the latest changes in your Azure DevOps repo, run the following Git command: git pull

Run updated logic app CI and CD pipelines

  1. In Azure DevOps, run the CI pipeline, and then run the CD pipeline.

  2. If prompted, provide the permissions necessary to run the pipelines.

Now that you've completed deployment for your business processes and updated logic apps, test your solution to check that transactions are captured.

Troubleshoot problems

If you experience problems when running transactions, check the following areas to make sure that your setup is correct.

  • When you run pipelines and enable system diagnostics and extra logs, you get more verbose error messages, which might help you troubleshoot and resolve problems.

  • After you run a logic app CD pipeline that includes tracking profiles, your deployed logic app includes a new parameter that starts with the following prefix:

    VersionForBusinessProcess-<business-process-name>

  • Make sure that the following app settings exist in your logic app resource:

    1. On your logic app resource menu, under Settings, select Environment variables.

    2. On the App settings tab, find the following new settings:

      • Workflows.BusinessEventTracking.DataExplorer.<BusinessProcessName>.TableName
      • Workflows.BusinessEventTracking.DataExplorer.<BusinessProcessName>.IngestConnectionString
      • Workflows.BusinessEventTracking.DataStore
      • Workflows.BusinessEventTracking.Enabled

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