What is the best practice to create a solution?

[tom555]

Hello,

What are the best practices of creating a solution in Power Platform?

Are there any limitation on number of apps/flows/connection references per solution? What are the criteria that should be considered to create a solution?

Thanks,

[HSheild · Accepted solution]

HI @tom555 ,

In general, it is best to make sure your solutions don't get too big as it takes a long time to deploy between environments the bigger your solutions get.  I don't think there is a limit on the number of components per solution but there used to be a limit on the solution file size (which I think is now removed).  There is a fine balance between making sure your solutions are not too big and then having too many solutions that it makes deployments and the dependencies between solutions difficult to manage.  Unless you are building a huge line of business app with potentially 100s of components I would start by putting all of your components for an app in one solution.

If your are going to split your app into different solutions then I would advise splitting on functionality rather than component type.  For example, I have seen in the past people split their solutions but component types e.g. flows in one solution, Canvas apps in another, Tables in another.  This, in my experience, becomes too hard to manage the dependencies.  Rather split the solution by function, e.g. if you are extending Dynamics 365 and are using both Sales and Customer Service apps I would create 2 different Solutions - one for Sales extensions and one for Customer Service extensions.

As another example, take a look at how the Microsoft CoE Starter Kit solutions are split up microsoft/coe-starter-kit (github.com) - the Core solution has nearly 200 components which I would consider to be a 'large' solution.

I hope this helps.

[ChrisPiasecki]

Hi @tom555,

In general you should always use Solutions if you plan on moving the customizations to another environment like test or production.

There is no limit to the number of components in a solution. The more components a solution contains, the longer it will take to import into another environment, so just keep that into consideration when you're planning scheduled downtime/change windows for users.

If you're using Custom Connectors, current limitations require you to put those in a separate solution and import before a solution containing any flows or connection references using the custom connector.

There is an in depth section in documentation around Solutions that are worth a read. 

---
Please click Accept as Solution if my post answered your question. This will help others find solutions to similar questions. If you like my post and/or find it helpful, please consider giving it a Thumbs Up.