Top Reasons to Try Automated Build Studio

Automated Build Studio helps companies automate their build, deployment, test and release processes throughout the application lifecycle and provides them with reliable scheduled, continuous integration and one-click builds. Here are the top reasons to use Automated Build Studio for build automation:

Run Builds With a Single Click

Automated Build Studio offers an easy way to automate even the most complex build scenarios, so that they can be performed by a single button click. Whether your team uses .NET, Java or native technologies, Automated Build Studio frees you from monotonous manual builds and lets you focus on more important activities. By adopting Automated Build Studio to automate your software builds and follow-up processes, you can build, deploy and release with confidence and release faster.

Automate a Variety of Tools and Tasks

Automated Build Studio includes over 750 built-in operations for automating common build tasks and provides an out-of-the-box integration with more than 170 tools that are used throughout the application lifecycle: compilers, source controls, installation builders, testing tools, issue-trackers, and many others. It can even re-use your existing Ant, NAnt, MSBuild and IncrediBuild scripts with no changes. And Automated Build Studio not only runs these tools, but also provides access to their options and collects their output into a single build log.

In fact, Automated Build Studio can integrate with any tool via the command-line interface. It is also possible to embed VBScript, JScript and DelphiScript scripts into build macros to automate specific tasks not provided by built-in operations, or develop custom operations for that purpose. See the complete list of supported tools and built-in operations.

Design Build Process Visually

The build process is designed entirely visually through Automated Build Studio’s rich yet intuitive UI. The build workflow is defined as a sequence of operations, each representing a specific task – like getting files from source control, compiling the project, building the installation package and much more. Operations can be grouped, arranged to run sequentially or in parallel; conditional branches, switches and loops can be added, so that you can logically structure the build process and tune its flow as your needs dictate. With every aspect of the build process configured visually, you can forget about complicated batch files, scripts, custom XML files as well as manual builds. Learn more about Automated Build Studio’s visual macro designer.

Distribute Builds Across Multiple Computers

Automated Build Studio enables you to create a distributed build infrastructure that harnesses your network’s hardware resources to dramatically accelerate builds and improve productivity. The benefits are achieved by distributing individual build tasks across multiple machines, with tasks being assigned to specific remote machines or the remote machines being selected dynamically among the dedicated ones. The results from the remote machines are collected into a single log on the computer hosting the build macro, so that you know whether the remotely performed operations succeeded.

You can even go beyond distributed application building and perform parallel builds of different product versions on multiple machines, deploy builds to multiple test environments and run different test types in parallel – all of this to provide faster feedback to the developers. Learn more about distributed builds with Automated Build Studio.

Manage Build Server Remotely

Automated Build Studio’s server component enables remote access to the build server and allows team members to monitor and manage builds remotely – through a rich web interface, local Automated Build Studio instances or a Windows Sidebar gadget. Team members can add, configure and remove builds to monitor, run and stop the builds, view the build progress in real time, access the build history and logs, set up automatic build notifications via e-mail or instant messengers and much more. Administrators can control access to the builds through group-based and per-build permissions and take advantage of the Active Directory (LDAP) integration for authenticating existing users.

The server component is included in the Automated Build Studio package at no extra cost. Learn more about remote build management with Automated Build Studio.

Benefit from Continuous Integration and Scheduled Builds

Automated Build Studio is a continuous integration server, allowing teams to improve the productivity using Agile best practices. Besides starting builds on demand, builds can be triggered automatically upon developer check-ins or file system changes, scheduled to run at a specific time or periodically – with no human intervention. Through an extensive set of trigger options, you can configure the polling interval and the quiet period for the build triggers, specify the timeout to detect and stop hanging builds, and also block the builds based on certain conditions. Learn more about continuous integration and build scheduling with Automated Build Studio.

Configure and Parameterize Builds

Automated Build Studio supports build parameterization through variables and constants and allows you to define multiple build configurations, making it possible to use a single build macro for different kinds of builds (such as release and debug builds), or even for building several similar projects. With any aspect of the build process being configurable – not only the data used on the build steps, but also the inclusion of specific steps in the build process – Automated Build Studio saves you a lot of time re-using and maintaining common build workflows while achieving the necessary diversity. Learn more about build configurations in Automated Build Studio.

Re-use Common Logic Through Submacros and Libraries

Automated Build Studio makes it easy to re-use common portions of the build workflow within and between build macros, improving their modularity and simplifying maintenance. Common operation sequences that are used throughout the build process can be placed in submacros and easily called from any build step, information being passed to and from submacros via parameters. Submacros can be organized into libraries and shared between team members, making them available for use in different build processes. Learn more about macro libraries in Automated Build Studio.

Troubleshoot Builds Easily

Whenever you need to troubleshoot your build macros, Automated Build Studio provides you with the features needed to identify and fix problems quickly. You can step through the build one operation at a time, set breakpoints to pause the build at particular points, add watches to track the values of macro variables and much more – in just the same way you would debug an application in an IDE. These debugging features are provided for both the build macros and embedded VBScript, JScript and DelphiScript code. Learn more about debugging build processes in Automated Build Studio.