Connecting T-Mobile to 4X Faster Salesforce Deployments

The Challenge

Overcoming Merge Conflicts, Manual Steps and Slow Deployments for T-Mobile

T-Mobile, a telecommunications giant with over 67,000 employees and annual revenue nearing $80 billion, has a vast network reach and a customer base of over 98 million postpaid customers. However, their Salesforce DevOps processes were bogged down by manual steps and operational inefficiencies. The team, consisting of over 100 developers managing numerous scrum teams and parallel projects, faced several significant issues:

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• Merge Conflicts and Long Commit Times: Developers frequently faced merge conflicts, especially as changes moved towards staging. Large commits were common, making code management even more difficult.
• Manual Processes: Essential updates for layouts and profiles were done manually, adding to the complexity and error rate of deployments. Many pre and post-deployment steps required manual intervention, slowing down the entire process.
• All Hands on Deck for Deployments: Deployment periods were intense, requiring extra time commitments from the entire team, which upset work-life balance and reduced overall job satisfaction.‍
• Inconsistent Back Promotions and Ad-hoc Practices: There was no consistent strategy for back promotions, leading to environments that were often out of sync, which could override code and result in loss of functionality.

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These challenges slowed down T-Mobile’s ability to deploy new features and fixes efficiently and impacted the developers' morale and trust in the tools they were using.

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The Solution

Salesforce DevOps Upgrade: Recharging T-Mobile’s Development Process with Copado

Recognizing the need to use more of Copado’s enhanced DevOps capabilities at T-Mobile, Lakshmi stepped in to help dial-in their processes and maximize efficiency. The goal was clear: leverage Copado’s robust DevOps features to transform T-Mobile’s existing practices.

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Strategic Implementation

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First up, T-Mobile leveraged in-depth Copado training to fully equip the team to handle the complexities of Salesforce CI/CD with confidence. Next, by implementing Copado’s advanced branching features, the team drastically reduced merge conflicts. Next, they automated their deployment processes, cutting out the manual static that used to slow them down. 

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Operational Improvements

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By enhancing integration with existing tools such as Jira, Git and Salesforce, Copado helped ensure that all development environments were consistently synchronized, reducing errors and improving deployment outcomes. Increased use of Copado’s automated features meant fewer missteps and allowed the T-Mobile team to focus on more strategic tasks.

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Why Copado Became Their Go-To Tool

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The decision to fully implement Copado was solidified after demonstrating its ability to efficiently manage and mitigate common DevOps challenges faced by T-Mobile. The platform’s capacity for managing complex deployments and its integration capabilities made it the clear choice.

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The Outcome

Next-Level DevOps at T-Mobile: Connecting a Telecom Leader to Mature Agile Development

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What happened after T-Mobile teamed up with Copado? Here’s the results of the DevOps transformation:

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• Deployment times were cut down from four hours to one hour, a 75% reduction. T-Mobile went from bi-weekly deployments to several times a week.

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• The introduction of smart branching strategies reduced merge conflicts significantly. This meant fewer disruptions and a smoother development process.
  
  
• With streamlined deployments and reduced manual labor, T-Mobile’s team saw a significant improvement in work-life balance. No more late-night deployments meant happier, well-rested developers.

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• Deployment success rates soared to 95%, drastically reducing the need for rollbacks and ensuring stable, reliable releases.

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• Copado provided end-to-end visibility across the DevOps pipeline. This transparency allowed teams to monitor and manage deployments more effectively, ensuring everything stayed on track.

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By fully integrating Copado, T-Mobile automated 28 critical deployment steps. They moved to a continuous deployment model, which means they push updates faster than you can say ‘unlimited data plans.’ Plus, their back promotion strategy now keeps all environments in perfect harmony — no more last-minute surprises.

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The Future

Planning for the Future: Continuous Improvement with Copado

T-Mobile plans to delve deeper into Copado’s advanced automation features to free up their team for higher-value tasks and further reduce the risk of manual errors. They will continue investing in regular training sessions to keep the team at the forefront of DevOps innovation. T-Mobile aims to expand the use of Copado across more operations, creating a unified, efficient approach to technology development and deployment.

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