1. Overview

1. Development: The only environment where application edits and modifications can be made. By default, all changes occur here, making it the primary space for building or updating the application. While live access is available for previewing changes, this environment is primarily intended for development. Once development is complete, unit testing and internal reviews can be performed using the development live access.
   
2. Stage: This environment is used for testing changes before they go live in production. Once modifications are made in the development environment, they are published to the stage environment, where they can be tested to ensure proper functionality.
   
3. Production: This is the live environment where end users interact with the application. Changes are published to production after successful testing in the stage environment. Data in production remains independent of the development and stage environments to ensure integrity and prevent unintended disruptions.
   

Note: The data stored in an environment is restricted to that specific environment. It cannot be transferred during publishing process or accessed from other environments.

1.1. Business use case

1. Implement and refine the changes in the Development environment, which allows multiple developers to collaborate simultaneously. New development can continue here without affecting currently deployed versions, enabling teams to work in parallel and maintain a steady delivery pipeline.
   
2. Publish the changes to the Stage for testing, verifying the module’s functionality, and email notifications
   
3. Once testing is successful in the staging, publish the updates to the Production environment, ensuring a smooth transition for users.
   

1.2. Navigation guide to environments

1.3. Environments dashboard

1. Applications in environments: This section lists all applications added to environments, along with the status, which helps to track application progress and ensures transitions between development, stage, and production. Click here to learn more about the status messages displayed.
   
1. The horizontal ellipsis menu that is adjacent to each application lets you manage the app-specific configurations in each of the three environments, as shown below.
   
   
   
   
   

   Environments	Edit/ Create&Edit	Access	Settings	Logs	Remove Environment
   Development	Edit: Allows editing and making changes to the app (Or) Create & Edit: Allows you to create the application manually in the development environment if it is not created automatically due to the scenarios mentioned here.	Access the application in the development environment to use the development live mode, which allows you to interact with the application in real-time while building or modifying it.	Configure the following features in the respective environments, Demo users: Add pre-defined demo users and assign different permissions and roles to test how the application functions for users with specific access levels. Learn more Notifications: Since the development and stage environments are used for testing, this option allows you to disable or reroute notifications to prevent unintended alerts. Learn more Variables: View variables along with their respective values for the selected environment. Learn more Workflows Schedules: Suspend schedules specific to an application in a given environment to prevent continuous execution after testing in the development and stage environments. Learn more	Tracks form actions, schedules, emails, and integrations with timestamps in the respective environment. Learn more	Removes the application from the environment. Click here to learn more about the changes that occur when an environment is removed in an application.
   Stage	-	Access the application in the stage environment for testing purposes.
   Production	-	Access the live production version of the application.	Variables: View variables along with their respective values for the selected environment. Learn more

   
   
2. Stage panel: Displays the version number and the date of the most recent publish of the application if it has been published to the stage environment.
   
3. Production panel: Displays the version number and the date of the latest publish of the application if it has been published to the production environment. This version is live and accessible to users.
   
4. Version History: Displays a log of all previous versions of the applications. Learn more
   
5. Add Application: Allows adding a new application to the environment.
   
6. Publish: Allows publishing the application versions to the other environments.
   
1. Stage: Publishes the changes in the application from the development to the stage environment, provided there are changes in the application.
   
2. Production: Publishes the application version from stage to the production environment and makes it live for the users to access.

2. Points to note

1. Environments cannot be enabled for:
   
1. Applications listed in the marketplace (except certain old applications developed by Zoho) and apps published from the developer zone.
   
2. Applications that have dependencies with other applications in a circular path that forms a loop by depending on each other. (e.g., App A --> App B --> App C --> App A)
   
2. When an application is added to or removed from environments, users with the Developer role will be removed from the application. They can be re-added in the development and stage environments after the application is added to environments or re-added in the application after its removal from environments. Click here to learn more about adding a developer to the application.
   
3. You can add a maximum of 10 applications to the environments at once.
   
4. The application can only be edited in the environments only after the successful creation of the development environment.
   
5. The application in the environments can only be published after making changes in the application from the development environment.
   

3. Related links

1. Adding applications in the environment
2. Environment limitations