One of the most common use cases for Tulip is comparing and deploying changes between different application connections. Tulip enables security teams to compare and deploy configuration changes across their connected security applications, such as Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, Intune, Defender for Endpoint, Cloudflare, CrowdStrike, Jamf, Splunk, and Ping Identity. This allows you to move small changes from a Sandbox app connection to Production, or complex changes from a Dev app connection to UAT and Production, all while maintaining compliance and security posture.

Comparing and deploying changes in Tulip is a simple process that consists of two steps:

Comparisons and deployments are collaborative, which means that team members can work together when comparing and deploying changes by adding their individual changes and reviewing the deployment plan.

To begin, go to the "Deployments" page and click on the “Compare & Deploy” button.

Choose the source and target application connections, give a name and description to your deployment and click the “Compare & Deploy” button.

Select which changes you want to deploy from the source to the target application connection. Tulip displays all differences between the two application connections, elements that exist only on one, or elements with different contents.

By clicking on an element, you can see how it differs between the source and destination application connections.

For elements which were modified (and not added or removed), you can also select specific changes to deploy within the element. That helps you deploy only changes within elements that are ready for deployment, while others may still be tested.

Use the table-tabs at the top to quickly browse to elements which, if selected, will be added, modified or removed.

You can also filter elements by using the filter text box, or clicking any of the table columns; for example, if you want to find a specific element type.

At some deployments, multiple changes have to be deployed together. For example, when deploying a new Okta policy that references a new group, you need to deploy both for the deployment to be successful.

Tulip helps you select all the necessary changes for a successful deployment.
In the element selection phase, when you select a change which relies on another one, the required change will appear in the "Required Dependencies" column.

When you’re done, continue to the deployment preview phase by clicking on the “Preview Deployment'' button. Note that while the element selection phase was collaborative, allowing different team members to add elements on their own, moving to the next phase (deployment preview) will lock the deployment. Only the team member who clicked on “Preview Deployment” will be able to approve and deploy the changes.

You can read about the rest of the deploy process, in the "Previewing and Finalizing your deployment" article.