Blueprints is an excellent tool to get help get started with FlexDeploy. Blueprints assist users with creating FlexDeploy projects and the associated configuration, accelerating the journey to the ultimate goal: automating the process of building and deploying software! A blueprint has the understanding of the end goal, and gathers the information necessary to auto-generate the underlying componentry. See more details at FlexDeploy Blueprints.
In this blog entry, I will introduce the blueprints concept in the context of DevOps for an Oracle APEX application. We will set up to export the APEX application from the Development environment and deploy it to the Test environment.
Here we will assume that you have installed FlexDeploy. We recommend zip installer to get started with FlexDeploy installed on your laptop. Before we get started, let’s make sure that:
- FlexDeploy is installed, no configurations necessary after installation.
- SQLcl is installed on the FlexDeploy server.
- You know the JDBC URL, User, and Password for Oracle APEX database.
Let’s start our roller coaster ride now. Click on the Blueprints icon 
on top right corner. Note that the first start of FlexDeploy with zip installer may take 15 minutes before you can get started.
First, we will enter application details and select App Builder as a build option as we would export the application from the development environment. You can decide to source the application from Git or Subversion, where you will use SCM Repository as a build option.
See numbered steps in the image below.
As we selected App Builder as a build option, we will provide details of the development environment to export application. We are using localhost endpoint, which means build (export) will run on FlexDeploy server and connect to the database remotely.
The next step is Deploy options. Once again, we will deploy on Test environment using localhost endpoint.
All we need to do now is click Create, and all configurations will be done automatically. Configurations created will depend on the type of blueprint selected. Once completed, you are ready to perform build and deploy activities.
Click Open Project on the popup. You can now export APEX application from the development environment.
After the successful execution of build workflow, FlexDeploy will have exported the APEX application and stored it in the artifact repository with a unique version.
Now let’s deploy to the Test environment.
You can review the status of deployment on the project execution page.
You can launch the APEX application in your Test environment.
FlexDeploy team will continue to add more blueprints over time to expedite the configuration process so that customers can be even more productive in their DevOps journey.
Reference FlexDeploy Loves APEX blog series for more details on DevOps and CI/CD for APEX.