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HOWTO_deploy-to-heroku.md

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Instructions for one click deployment to Heroku

  • Create a Heroku account (if you don't have an account). For more questions on Heroku and what it does, please visit here
  • The form you fill out in Heroku has a lot of values. These are configuration values (also known as environment variables). Each value is essentially a setting. Some are necessary for deployment and others customize the experience in your instance of Spoke. For more questions about configuration values in this application visit our documentation on environment variables and what they do. For more questions in general about configuration variables in Heroku, visit Heroku's config variable explanation page
  • Do not start any of the processes/dynos besides web (see below for non-Twilio uses)
  • The default setup is a free tier for processing and the database. See below for scaling and production requirements

Important Note for First Time Deployers:

  • There is a variable named SUPPRESS_SELF_INVITE in your configuration variables in Heroku. When this is set to nothing, anyone can visit your app and create an organization. When it is set to true, this changes login/signup behavior - when a person signs up and visits your app, they will not create an organization. On first deployment, it should be set to nothing to ensure that you have the ability to create an organization and view the full functionality of the application.

Instructions for Auth0 configuration variable setup

  • Follow the instructions at Auth0 for authentication
    • Where the instructions mention yourspoke.example.com, replace it with <YOUR SPOKE APP>.herokuapp.com (or in production, possibly the domain you aliased to it in your DNS config)

Notes about Twilio configuration variable setup

If you need to use Twilio in development but with live keys, click here for instructions. When using instructions, please remember that references to NGROK urls should change to your Heroku app url.

Visit here to configure messaging service features

Setting up for production scale (Database, etc)

The default deployment from the Heroku button is free, but has a processing and database limit of 10,000 messages total. This may be sufficient for a single small campaign, but if you intend multiple/regular campaigns, we recommend upgrading the database and possibly the web 'dyno' instance (to Hobby or Standard). At the time of this writing a 'hobby basic' level for the database is ~$9.00/month.

For production scale, the best time to upgrade the database is before you start using the app, because the easiest path erases all previous data. If you have existing data, please refer to Heroku docs on how to upgrade a database (it's complicated).

If you have not used the app, after you've created the instance (filled out the variables, and 'deployed' it) follow these steps:

  1. Go to the 'Resources' tab for your app and scroll to the bottom
  2. Under 'Add-ons' to the right end of the "Heroku Postgres::Database" line, click the little up-down carrot
  3. Choose 'Remove' and follow the procedure for removal
  4. Then, in the 'Add-ons' search box (where it says 'Quickly add add-ons from Elements'), type "postgres"
  5. Choose the "Heroku Postgres" option and then choose the tier you desire (see Heroku Postgres tier documentation for details)
  6. At the very top of the page for your app, in the upper right click the 'More' button and choose 'Restart all dynos'

Non-Twilio Processes/Dynos

When using Twilio we recommend keeping the configuration variable JOBS_SAME_PROCESS enabled and only running the web process/dyno. There is another mode mostly for non-Twilio backends, where you may need to run the additional processes to process messages and sending. Most times, even at high scale, you will want to keep JOBS_SAME_PROCESS on and increase or upgrade the dynos for the web process.

Email configuration

See this guide for instructions.

Data exporting

In order to export data from campaigns (such as contacts' responses to questions), you need to configure S3 or Bucketeer. See this guide for instructions.