Convert Unmanaged Solution to Managed In Place

[IAmIntractable]

I have an unmanaged solution in a production environment. I want to first migrate it to a development environment as unmanaged then convert the production solution to Managed. I don't want to have to remove the production solution to do this and lose the assigned AppId. Basically, I want to in-place convert it to managed.

Can this be done?

It's also entirely possible I don't full understand the export/import. Lets say I migrate the unmanaged solution to the development environment. I then make changes. Can I migrate those changes back to the unmanaged production environment with an import?

[AlbertoCastro]

Hi!

You would follow this steps:

1. Export your prod solution like unmanaged type

2. Import it in dev environment

3. Export new dev solution like managed type

4. Delete prod solution (unmanaged)

5. Import in prod environment the managed solution.

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Alberto

[IAmIntractable]

This approach creates a new AppId for the app in the solution. I want to maintain the current AppId. 

Do you know if I can have both Dev and Prod be unmanaged and deploy changes from Dev to Prod?

[AlbertoCastro]

Oh sorry, yes, with my steps the AppId will change the first time.

Yes, you can to have unmanaged solutions in dev and prod environments and deploy changes. Use of managed solutions in prod environments is a best practices to avoid changes in the solution, but yo can use unmanaged solutions.

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Alberto

[IAmIntractable]

Thanks so much for the clarification.

So in your opinion I can:

1 Package the unmanaged solution in Prod and the import it into Dev.

2 Get the dev environment set up properly

3 Make changes to dev solution

4 Create an unmanaged export package in dev

5 Import that package into prod

The import into prod will sense the app is already there and deploy the changes but it will not replace the app in prod thereby generating a new AppId.

Correct?

I apologize for clarifying questions but I need to be sure the app in prod will not be replaced by repeated importing of the solution from dev. This is not documented anywhere and the only mention is in regard to managed deployments.

[AlbertoCastro]

Hi @IAmIntractable ,

to be sure I have checked these steps in a lab tenant and I can confirm you that following them your app id in prod environment doesn't change.

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[IAmIntractable]

Awesome. Thank you go for going the extra mile and checking to be sure!!

[AlbertoCastro]

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Regards

Alberto

[ChrisPiasecki]

Hi @IAmIntractable,

I would suggest reading this guide to convert from unmanaged to managed. 

The steps mentioned in the previous comments should work to get your solution into a dev environment, but you'll want to follow the guide after to get rid of the unmanaged layers in production when Importing the managed solution. 

A key point is you'll need to use the PAC CLI or Azure DevOps extension to use the convert-to-managed flag when Importing a managed solution. 

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[IAmIntractable]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the link and additional information. I am looking for explicit and detailed instructions for converting an unmanaged solution to managed in an environment. I want to be able to do this in place so that the App Id does not change, and nothing is lost. There appears to be no way to do it this way. 

So then I thought that I could export my unmanaged solution from the production environment and import it into a dev environment. I further thought that I could then export the solution from the Dev environment as Managed and then reimport it into production as managed. This is a bit of a problematic approach as it will require me to delete the solution in the production environment. I am hesitant to do that because one mistake may mean things are lost.

I have found zero instructions from Microsoft for making sure I do this right the first time. Your linked page is clearly not for citizen developers and outlines an approach that invalidates what I have said above. It uses a different product that has to be installed to access the "convert to managed" feature. I don't understand the advantage of following this new approach unless its actually the only way to properly convert an unmanaged solution to managed with no loss.

Ideally, I would like to follow the correct process but given my environment it seems overtly complicated for such a simple need. Therefore, if I am able to keep an unmanaged solution in sync between two environments, I thought this would be a good interim approach until I can find more explicit information on transformation, or Microsoft makes it part of the citizen platform.

While I understand this is not the preferred process is that any reason why I cannot sync between to unmanaged solutions?

Thanks