We are attempting our first deployment from a dev sandbox to a qa sandbox and are experiencing major issues.

 

We have all sorts of files we are trying to deploy including visualforce pages, apex classes, custom objects, custom fields on standard objects, page layouts, record types, picklist changes etc.

 

We first tried to deploy as much as possible using a package. Because it is a sandbox we can only create unmanaged packages. If we add a class, any referenced fields are added to the package. When we try and deploy the package it fails if any fields already exist. Does using managed packages get round this?

 

Next we tried using the ant deployment tool. We need to use this for at least visualforce pages as they can't be packaged yet. Deployment order seems to matter hugely for ant deployments. If I try and deploy Class A that references Class B and Class B has not yet been deployed it fails. How do I tell ant what order to deploy things in? My manifest (package.xml) has wildcards for each type - should I name every file and order them? Surely not.

 

My main issue with ant relates to the page/controller cross reference - how can I deploy either pages or controllers when they cross reference each other?

 

Besides these two ways I can't see any other way of deployment. There is Eclipse but it used the same API calls that ant uses so same deployment order problem.

 

Surely someone must have worked through this. I have searched the boards but can't see suggestions.

 

Any ideas anyone?