--- title: "Preferences" date: "2024-02-14T06:18:38+00:00" summary: "Customize your Remote Administration settings for seamless security updates. Choose your preferred update method, set deployment schedules, and manage environment configurations to ensure optimal application performance and security." image: type: "page" url: "/acquia-cloud-platform/preferences" id: "4f7941bb-9bf8-4d17-a947-6a591cce6713" --- Remote Administration (RA) follows a [specific workflow](/acquia-cms/ra/workflow) implemented by [automation](/acquia-cms/ra/automation) that takes into account subscription-specific preferences. If you are a [Remote Administration](/acquia-cms/ra) customer, setting your application update preferences correctly ensures security updates can be smoothly integrated into your workflow. Reviewing your RA settings -------------------------- To review your RA application update preferences, completing the following steps: 1. [Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface](/node/55875). 2. Select the [application](/acquia-cloud-platform/manage-apps#app) whose RA settings you want to view. 3. In the left menu, click **RA**. Cloud Platform displays the RA update settings in place for your application. Modifying your RA settings -------------------------- RA customers have several available update methods, and whichever method you select influences subsequent options. To modify your RA settings (such as changing your update settings or removing RA from your application), complete the following steps: 1. [Go to the Remote Administration settings page for your application](#ra-review-settings). 2. In the upper right of the page, click the **Edit** icon. 3. In the **Update process** list, click the update method you want to use with your application, from the following list: * **Update and Deploy (default)**: When a security update is required, Acquia creates a new branch from the branch or tag currently deployed to production, applies security updates, and pushes the branch to the repository.  The new branch is then deployed to your [RA environment](/acquia-cms/ra/environment) for testing. Acquia notifies you using a ticket that the secure branch is available for testing. RA can deploy the updates to production for you, but will not do so without your explicit approval. * **Inform only**: Acquia informs you of pending updates using a security update notification. No further action is taken without your specific request. * **Do not inform**: Acquia does not inform you of any pending updates. No further action is taken without your specific request. Select the **Do not inform** method if your website uses continuous integration (CI). 4. Depending on your selection in the **Update process** list, Cloud Platform may display additional fields regarding the implementation details for your selected method. Update method Displayed field Description Default value **Update and Deploy** **Pause until** Enter a date and time to pause RA until that time. After that time, RA will resume its normal schedule. _not paused_ **Update and Deploy** **Update type** Select from **Core** and **Core and contributed modules** to determine the portions of your application you want to update.  If you have features that depend on certain versions of contributed or custom modules, you can [implement a locking functionality](https://acquia.my.site.com/s/article/360004180933-Using-Drush-lock-files-with-contributed-modules) to prevent those specific modules from being updated, and then use the **Core and contributed modules** update method. **Core and contributed modules** **Update and Deploy** **Secondary testing environment** Acquia deploys the initial security update branch to the RA environment. After you approve the branch for tagging and final testing, you can have Acquia place this tag on any environment (other than production) for final testing. A fresh copy of the production database will be copied into this environment as a part of this final, pre-production test. `Stage` **Update and Deploy** **Deploy on a specific Day/Time** Enter a date and time for RA to deploy the update tag created and approved during [Step 2](/acquia-cms/ra/security-update-process#ra-security-step-two) of the RA update process. Once you enter the date and time, update the existing RA update ticket so that the deploy can be queued to happen on the specified time. _**Not set**_ **Update and Deploy** **Copy files from production to testing environment** Acquia strongly recommends you click **Yes** to ensure accurate and up-to-date tests. **Yes** **Update and Deploy** **Copy prod database to testing environment** Acquia strongly recommends you click **Yes** to ensure accurate and up-to-date tests.  For information about creating scrub scripts to remove sensitive data and functionality from your testing environment, see the Databases section of the [Environment](/acquia-cms/ra/environment) page. **Yes** **Update and Deploy** **Merge update tag into development branch** Determines whether or not to merge the tested security update tag into your preferred branch after the tag has been deployed to production.  If you click **No** for this field, your team must ensure the updates are merged into your code on the main branch before your other development work goes into production. Failure to complete this merge could result in a schema mismatch between the recently updated production data and the code that does not include the core or contributed updates provided by RA. **Yes** **Update and Deploy** **Merge development branch** Acquia typically merges updates into `master` at the end of step three of the update process. If you use a different workflow, enter the exact name of the branch into which the security updates should be merged. `Master` **Inform only** **Pause until** Enter a date and time to pause RA until that time. After that time, RA will resume its normal schedule. _not paused_ **Do not inform**   _Does not display any additional preference fields_   5. Click **Save**. RA will now use your selected update settings for your application.