Using Jenkins Deploy Dashboard Plugin for Visual Deployment Management

The Deploy Dashboard plugin (available at https://plugins.jenkins.io/deploy-dashboard/) provides a visual overview of which application versions are deployed to which environments, helping teams answer questions like "Which version is currently in production?".

By adding a custom view on the Jenkins dashboard, you can see a matrix of deployed versions and click on an environment to view its release history.

To record a deployment, call the addDeployToDashboard method from your Jenkins job, passing the environment name and the version (or build number). Example:

properties([parameters([
    string(name: 'version', description: 'App version to deploy'),
    choice(
        name: 'env',
        choices: ['dev', 'prod'],
        description: 'Environment where the app should be deployed'
    )
])])
node {
    // ...
    stage("Deploy") {
        // Deploy app version ${params.version} to ${params.env} env
        // add release information to the dashboard
        addDeployToDashboard(
            env: params.env,
            buildNumber: params.version
        )
    }
}

To create the dashboard view, click the "+" tab on the Jenkins home or a folder, name the view, select the "Deploy View" type, and optionally use a regular expression (e.g., .*) to include jobs.

If you prefer separate CI and CD steps, you can add deployment buttons to the build sidebar using buildAddUrl. Example:

node {
    stage("Build") {
        String builtVersion = "v2.7.5"
        // Build app with ${builtVersion} version
        // Add buttons to the left sidebar
        buildAddUrl(title: 'Deploy to DEV', url: "/job/app-deploy/parambuild/?env=dev&version=${builtVersion}")
        buildAddUrl(title: 'Deploy to PROD', url: "/job/app-deploy/parambuild/?env=prod&version=${builtVersion}")
    }
}

A declarative pipeline can also record deployments directly:

pipeline {
    agent any
    parameters {
      choice choices: ['dev','prod'], description: '', name: 'env'
      string defaultValue: '', description: '', name: 'version', trim: false
    }
    stages {
        stage('Hello') {
            steps {
                script {
                   addDeployToDashboard(
                        env: params.env,
                        buildNumber: params.version
                    )
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

This functionality aids quality‑assurance teams by allowing them to deploy any existing version to an environment with a single click, improving visibility and control over CI/CD processes. Contributions to the plugin are welcomed on GitHub.