Get Started with Lifecycle Center

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• List the requirements for setting up Lifecycle Center.
  
• Create team members with the correct license and profile.
  
• Assign the required permission sets to team members.
  
• Connect your org to a source control provider.
  

Before You Start

Before you start this badge, make sure you complete this content. The work you do here builds on the concepts and work you do in that content.

• Git and GitHub Basics
  
• Lifecycle Center: Quick Look
  

To complete the hands-on challenges in this badge, you need a GitHub account. Lifecycle Center connects to GitHub to track your changes. To create a GitHub account, check out Creating an Account on GitHub. It's free and takes just a few minutes.

Get to Know Lifecycle Center

Lifecycle Center, previously known as DevOps Center, brings modern DevOps practices to everyone on your team, whether you’re an admin or a developer. It automatically manages source control branches behind the scenes and provides a single source of truth for the entire team.

With Lifecycle Center, you can track work, manage, and promote changes with confidence from one centralized location. The result? Full visibility, predictable releases, and more time building value for your users.

Meet the CalcPro Team

You’re a Salesforce admin at AW Computing, a company that builds productivity tools for small businesses. Your team is developing CalcPro, a calculator app that helps sales reps estimate deal values, discounts, and commissions.

Currently, the team deploys changes manually. You export metadata from one org, import it into another, and hope nothing breaks. This process is slow, error-prone, and impossible to trace.

Your task is to set up Lifecycle Center to bring governance, a defined release path, and a clear audit trail to the CalcPro project.

You’ll work with two teammates on the CalcPro project.

Now that you know who’s on the team and what you’re building, let’s launch Lifecycle Center and get started.

Sign Up for a Developer Edition Org with Lifecycle Center

To complete this badge, you need a custom playground that contains Lifecycle Center.

• Click Create Playground, and then click Yes, Create Playground.
  
• Your new org is automatically attached to your Trailhead account.
  
• Make note of your org's expiration date and complete this badge before then.
  
• Click Launch to open the playground
  

Launch Lifecycle Center

Lifecycle Center is available in your Trailhead Playground.

1. Once signed in, from the App Launcher () , search for and select Lifecycle Center (DevOps Center).
   

Lifecycle Center opens to the Home tab. You'll see options to connect to source control, create projects, and manage pipelines. Don’t worry about these yet, you explore them as you build the CalcPro setup.

Add Your Team Members

Add two of your team members who will use Lifecycle Center. You’ll create Cassie Evans (Developer) and Ryan Jackson (Lead Programmatic Developer).

Here are the details you need for each user:

1. From , select Setup.
   
2. In the Quick Find box, search for and select Users.
   
3. Select New User.
   
4. Enter the user details:
   
   • First Name: Cassie
   • Last Name: Evans
   • Alias: cevan
   • Email: cevan@example.com
   • Username: <YourInitials>_testuser_<YYYYMMDD>@example.com (Usernames must be unique across all Salesforce orgs.)
     
   • Role: Western Sales Team
     
   • User License: Salesforce
   • Profile: Standard User
5. Uncheck Generate new password and notify user immediately so it is not selected.
   
6. Select Save and New.
   

Repeat the steps for the second user, Ryan Jackson.

You've created both team members! Next, you assign them the correct permission sets.

Assign Permission Sets

Permission sets manage access levels for Lifecycle Center. Let's assign the appropriate permission sets to you and your team members. Here's exactly what to assign to each person.

Let's start by assigning yourself the Lifecycle Center Admin permission set.

1. In the Quick Find box, search for and select Permission Sets.
   
2. Select Lifecycle Center Admin.
   
3. Select Manage Assignments.
   
4. Select Add Assignment.
   
5. Select the checkbox next to your name (the logged-in user).
   
6. Select Next.
   
7. Leave No expiration date selected.
   
8. Select Assign, then Done.
   

You may experience some errors but refreshing the page should clear those out.

You now have admin access to set up Lifecycle Center. Next, you'll assign the Lifecycle Center User permission set to your team members.

1. Go back to Permission Sets.
   
2. Select Lifecycle Center User.
   
3. Select Manage Assignments.
   
4. Select Add Assignment.
   
5. Select the checkboxes next to Cassie Evans and Ryan Jackson.
   
6. Select Next.
   
7. Leave No expiration date selected.
   
8. Select Assign, then Done.
   

Both Cassie and Ryan now have basic access to Lifecycle Center.

Next, you give Ryan the Lifecycle Center Deployment Manager permission set.

1. Go back to Permission Sets.
   
2. Select Lifecycle Center Deployment Manager.
   
3. Select Manage Assignments.
   
4. Select Add Assignment.
   
5. Select the checkbox next to Ryan Jackson.
   
6. Select Next.
   
7. Leave No expiration date selected.
   
8. Select Assign then Done.
   

Your team members now have the correct permissions. Cassie can work on features, and Ryan can manage releases and deployments.

Next, you connect Lifecycle Center to GitHub so your team can track changes.

Connect to Source Control

Lifecycle Center tracks changes through a source control system. Connect to your GitHub account to get started.

If you don’t have a GitHub account, create one before continuing. Review the “Before You Start” section for details.

1. From the App Launcher () , search for and select Lifecycle Center.
   
2. On the Home tab, in the section titled Connect to Version Control, select Connect
   
3. Select GitHub as your source control provider. This opens a new window to confirm external access.
   
4. Select Confirm.
   

If you don’t have GitHub details stored in your browser session, you may need to review permissions and grant access. In the GitHub authorization window, log in to your GitHub account if prompted.

5. Review the permissions Lifecycle Center is requesting.
   
6. Select Authorize to grant Lifecycle Center access to your GitHub account. After authorization, you return to Lifecycle Center automatically.
   
7. Verify you see the connection banner at the top of the Home tab. If you don’t, select Connect again and authorize access.
   

You’ve successfully set up Lifecycle Center with team members and source control connected. In the next unit, you create the CalcPro project to organize your team's work.

Resources

• Salesforce Help: Lifecycle Center
• Salesforce Help: Assign Lifecycle Center Permission Sets