This article addresses some of the most frequently asked questions around previews for AppSource apps.
What should I do to enable previews of my AppSource apps?
Preview support is now enabled for all submissions of Business Central offers. It uses the hide key specified on your offer in Partner Center under Availability > Preview Audience > Hide Key. Partner Center automatically generates a key when creating a new offer, but you can override it with any string using only lowercase letters and/or numbers.
On which environments can I install preview versions?
Preview versions can be installed on Sandbox environments running on Business Central 2023 release wave 2 (version 23.0), or newer.
How can I install preview versions for selected customers?
Selected customers can install the preview version of the extensions in your submission after the "Preview creation" step of the submission flow in Partner Center. In order to trigger the install, customers must receive and use the preview app install URL:
https://businesscentral.dynamics.com/[TenantID]/?noSignUpCheck=1&filter='ID' IS '[AppID]' AND 'PreviewKey' IS '[PreviewKey]'&page=2503
Where
[TenantID]is the Microsoft Entra ID of the customer environment,[AppID]is the app ID defined in the manifest of the main extension for this offer, and[PreviewKey]is the key specified in Partner Center for your offer underAvailability > Preview Audience > Hide Keyat the time of submission.
After the "Preview creation", a preview listing of the offer is available in the AppSource marketplace. This preview listing can be accessed from Partner Center by checking off the "AppSource preview" option at the "Publisher signoff" step of the submission flow. However, installing the corresponding preview version of the extension from the preview listing isn't supported and the above mentioned preview app install URL must be used instead.
How can I install preview versions of my library apps for selected customers?
When installing the preview version of an extension, the latest preview version of its dependencies is installed only if the minimum version required isn't satisfied by the extensions already installed on the customer environment.
You can ensure that your library apps are installed on your customer's environments by providing them with the install URL documented above using the app ID of your library app, or by increasing the dependency version in the manifest of the main app for your offer.
How can I see if customers are using my preview versions?
If you're using Azure Application Insights for your extension, you can see which customers installed it as a preview version by selecting signals LC0010 and LC0022 where the custom dimension extensionAvailability is set to Preview. You can also see which customers used a preview key when installing your extensions by filtering on the custom dimension extensionPreviewKeyProvided. Learn more in Analyzing extension lifecycle trace telemetry.
Note
If you see some extensions installed with extensionAvailability set to Public even if extensionPreviewKeyProvided is set to True, this means that the customers used the preview key they received after you selected Go Live in Partner Center to make the extension public.
How do I go live with my preview version?
You can make your preview version publicly available in the AppSource marketplace by clicking "Go Live" at the "Publisher signoff" step of the submission flow in Partner Center.
Is the preview key per submission or per offer?
The preview key specified in Partner Center under Availability > Preview Audience > Hide Key at the time of the submission is the one that must be used by customers to install this preview version.
If you change the preview key for your offer in Partner Center, the submitted preview version isn't automatically updated and will still use the previous preview key. For example, if you submit version 1.0.0.0 with the preview key key-1, then version 1.0.0.0 can be installed by customer that adds the key key-1 in the install URL. If you change the preview key for your offer in Partner Center to key-2, this key won't be used until you start a new submission. If you submit version 1.0.0.0 again, customers are able to install it using either key-1 or key-2. If you submit version 2.0.0.0, then customers are able to install it with version key-2 only.
Similarly, if you submitted the same library version 1.0.0.0 as part of two offers using two separate preview keys key-1 and key-2, customers are able to use either key-1 or key-2 to install the library on their environment.
Are preview versions also validated for breaking changes?
Preview versions are validated for breaking changes against the latest publicly available app. However, preview versions aren't used as baseline for validation of breaking changes of other submissions.
For example, if you have version 1.0.0.0 as publicly available in AppSource and you submit version 2.0.0.0, then version 2.0.0.0 will be validated for breaking change against version 1.0.0.0. If you don't press "Go Live" for your submission of version 2.0.0.0, and decide to start a new submission with version 2.1.0.0, then version 2.1.0.0 is validated for breaking change against 1.0.0.0.
Note
Since there can be breaking changes between a preview version that was never made public and the next version of the app, the schema update mode ForceSync is used when upgrading from a preview version.
Can the submission for one offer depend on preview versions of libraries from another offer?
Dependencies, which aren't included in the submission will be downloaded automatically if they're publicly available in Business Central for the targeted countries/regions.
Your submission fails during the "Automated Application Validation" stage if you didn't include the dependencies for your app and they aren't publicly available. The submission will also fail if the dependencies are only available as Preview and aren't included in the submission. Failing to find the dependencies for an extension results in error messages with the diagnostic codes AVS0005 or AVS0101.
What happens to preview versions during environment upgrades?
During the upgrade of an environment to the next major, the latest publicly available version of AppSource apps are installed on the customer environment. If there's a higher version is available for your preview app, this version is installed. If the preview version is the highest version, the preview version is preserved.
During the upgrade of an environment to the next minor, AppSource apps versions are preserved unless the environment settings specify to update apps to the latest version available.