Group Sites with Solid Environments

Introduction

Making changes directly to a live website is risky. A professional workflow moves updates through a safe pipeline: building in Development, testing in Staging, and finally launching to Production.

If you have a Solid Central Pro plan, Solid Environments streamlines this process by organizing these related sites into Environment Groups. Think of a group as a folder that links a project’s different versions together. This keeps your dashboard clean, reduces list clutter, and allows you to switch between a live site and its staging copy instantly.

Key Concepts:

• Environment: A specific site labeled as Production, Staging, or Development.
• Environment Group: A collection of related environments linked together for easy management.
• Primary Environment: The main site in the group (usually your live Production site), though you can designate any site as primary depending on your project stage.

This guide will show you how to configure and manage your Environment Groups so you can build, test, and launch with confidence.

Prerequisites

• Log in credentials for a Solid Central Pro account.
  
• At least two WordPress sites connected to Solid Central.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Configuring Environment Groups

1. Log in to Solid Central.
   
2. Click on Sites in the navigation menu.
   
3. Select the first site that you wish to use to create the environment group; we recommend that you start with the Production site.
   
4. On the single site management page, click on the “+” icon in the Environments section in the top right.
   
5. Confirm which type of environment this site is, when prompted.
   
6. After confirming the first environment, you’ll be prompted to select another site to add to the environment group.
   
7. Using the field provided, select or search for a site to add as the next environment in the group, then select the type of environment you wish to add.

8. Click the Done button to complete setting up. Alternatively, click the Connect Another Environment button to add more environments to the group.

Add New Environments

Once you have completed the initial group setup, the window will close, and you will see that a new section has appeared at the top of the page containing the Environments Switcher and several icons to manage your groups.

If you wish to add more environments into a group:

1. Click on the “+” icon to the right of the switcher.
   
2. Repeat the process listed above.

Next Steps

Using Your Environment Groups

Now that your sites are grouped, your dashboard will automatically hide non-primary sites (like Staging or Development) to keep your list clean. To access or manage these environments:

1. Switch Environments: Click on your Primary site (marked with a star) in the Sites list. Use the Environment Switcher dropdown at the top of the page to toggle between Production, Staging, and Development views.
   
2. Manage the Group: Click the cog icon next to the switcher to open the management menu. From here, you can designate a new Primary site or Remove a site from the group entirely.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)