Promotion variables (early access)

Use promotion variables to set configuration values that need to be different in each environment, such as third-party integrations or URLs. For example, an application might need one redirect URI in your testing environment, but a different redirect URI in your production environment.

You can specify configuration resource property values for either the source or target environment to be substituted for existing property values when you run a promotion. If you don’t set a promotion variable for a property, it will be used as is and the value will be the same in both the source and target environments.

Some properties require the use of variables. In most cases, however, variable use is optional. You can determine which properties should use variables based on your use cases and requirements.

Configure your promotion variables before starting a promotion. Update your list of variables regularly, particularly after you perform significant configuration changes that you might want to promote.

Not all properties for configuration resources can be set up as variables. You can find a complete list of configuration resources and the associated properties that can be used as promotion variables in Variable Resources (early access) in the PingOne API documentation.

Sensitive variables

Some attributes in PingOne are marked as sensitive, such as passwords or client secrets. These attributes require the use of sensitive variables for promotion. Sensitive variables are promotion variables that are encrypted, and, after they’re created, their values are hidden and can’t be viewed or copied from the PingOne admin console or in API operations. If you try to promote a resource that contains sensitive attributes without creating variables for them, you’ll be prompted to create the variables before continuing.

When you edit a sensitive variable, you must reenter the entire value. The existing value isn’t displayed for security reasons, and can’t be copied from the user interface. Ensure that you store the actual value of the sensitive variable in a secure location for future reference.

Additional considerations

Variable values are only processed and applied during a promotion. Changing variable values doesn’t affect the promotion resource until you use the new values in a promotion of that resource. You should review your promotion variables and update them as needed before running a promotion.
If you set up variables for configuration resources and then change those resources directly without updating the variables, the variable values will overwrite your changes during subsequent promotion operations. This is because the promotion operation will use the existing variable set.