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The Deployment Framework for BizTalk's Visual Studio add-in provides a number of commands besides application deploy/undeploy that help make your BizTalk development time more productive.


Here's a screenshot of the Deployment Framework for BizTalk menu:



As with the Deploy and Undeploy commands, the output of every command will appear in the Visual Studio Output window, and the commands are only available when your BizTalk solution is open and a Deployment Framework project folder exists below the solution root folder.


The Bounce BizTalk command will restart one or more local BizTalk host instances.  The command respects the BizTalkHosts ItemGroup in your deployment project file (.btdfproj), which allows you to limit the hosts affected by host instance restarts.


The Terminate All Service Instances command will terminate all service instances associated with the current BizTalk application (the one your deployment project targets).  The most common usage is to terminate all suspended messages in the application so that you can undeploy it.


The GAC Output of Selected Project command will install (or reinstall) in the GAC the .NET assembly built by the project currently selected in Solution Explorer.  The command respects the current solution build configuration (Debug, Release, etc.).


The Export Environment Settings command will export one environment-specific XML file for each environment defined in your Excel settings spreadsheet, usually located in EnvironmentSettings\SettingsFileGenerator.xml.  That process always happens during deployment, so this is not a commonly used command.


The Import BizTalk Bindings command allows you to quickly re-import your project's bindings XML file.  This can be useful if you've accidentally altered a port configuration or orchestration binding.


The Preprocess BizTalk Bindings command, which is only useful when using a master (template) bindings XML file, will preprocess the master bindings XML file (usually PortBindingsMaster.xml) to produce the final bindings file (usually PortBindings.xml).  That process always happens during deployment, so this command is often used for testing.


The Update SSO from Settings Spreadsheet command, which is only useful when IncludeSSO is set to True, will load the most current environment settings XML into SSO for the Local environment.  The environment settings XML file originates with the Excel settings spreadsheet mentioned above.


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