On CommCare HQ, Publishing refers to the process of making a new version of your application, determining which version of the application your users should be using, and sending the application to the a mobile device.
After building form(s) in the application builder and once you are ready to test out your application, navigate to the Publish (or Release) page. You can access this page by selecting the Application Name at the top left hand side of the page.
On the Publish page, you will manage the different versions of your application. You can think of a version as a complete snapshot of your application. You can make lots of updates to your application without making a new version, but every time you want to release those changes to a phone or other mobile advice, you will need to make proceed to the Publish page and select Make New Version.
Making a New Version
To make a new version click on the Make New Version button.
Any time you have made changes to your application and have pressed the save button, App Builder will let you know that you have new potential changes to publish with a message just below the application name.
You will see a "processing" message while your application builds. If your application is large it could take several minutes to make a new version.
After your new version is ready it will appear at the top of the list:
Click on the Publish button to release the application to a mobile device.
For every build that you make a new version for, you are able to put comments. These comments are useful to track the changes you have made to your application or to denote a specific version that you might like to use. It does not matter what you put in the comments and you can change them later.
Best Practice: Creating Application Checkpoints
While you are application building, it can be a good idea to create "checkpoint" builds throughout the process. Checkpoint builds are created to provide stable checkpoints in the application development process in case serious problems necessitate the need to revert an application completely.
For example, if you are actively building and testing a complex application, it may be a good idea to periodically deploy (but not release) a stable build. In the notes, you can write "this is a checkpoint build as of [date and time] by [your name]". Now, if you continue app building and run into errors that you are unable to fix or pinpoint why they are happening, you always have this checkpoint build you can revert to. You can revert an application by clicking on the "Revert to this Version" button on the application deployment page as shown below:
This will change your application (including all forms and application settings) back to the way it was when you created this checkpoint build.
Publish an Application to a Phone
If you click on the Deploy button for an application you will see several options for deploying:
When publishing a build for the first time for a phone, you will install the application. Details of phone installation can be found at the following pages:
CommCareODK for Android (ODK): Installing CommCare on Android Devices
Logging into your application: In order to log into an application you must use a mobile worker account. Information on creating mobile worker accounts is at Create and Manage CommCare Mobile Workers
Remember, you cannot log into your application using your CommCareHQ email account and password. You will need a mobile worker ID as well.
Updating your application: Read more here: Update Your Application