PowerApps Portal Deployment.

[vishalpowerapps]

We are developing one power-apps portal. We have custom Web Pages, Web Forms, Page Templates, Custom CSS, JavaScript & Image files in the portal. Also having some portal configuration like, Website settings, Entity permissions, Web Roles, Bindings.

I wanted to know about, how to deploy all these portal files, customization & configuration from development environment to production environment? Below MSDN article is related to migrating portal configurations but I want to know about entire portal deployment.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/portals/admin/migrate-portal-configuration#export-p...

Any help will be appreciated

[sandeepd]

So there are typically 3 parts to ensure to get your portal deployed in a target environment with your customization and configuration  

1. Install the same portal type on your target environment (same type as the one you have on your development environment) You can do this from make.powerapps.com. This ensures that you get the a working portal on your target environment (with portal solutions and base configuration etc. installed).

2. Create a solution with all of the additional customization and / or custom entities (and their components like fields, forms, views etc.) that you have made use of in your portal pages. Export this solution from development and import into the target environment   

3. Use the configuration migration tool and the schema of your portal type to migrate your portal configuration. You'd have to export from dev and import into target as mentioned in the documentation.

[vishalpowerapps]

Thanks Sandeep for your reply. Now I'm more clear about it but still I have some queries. I appreciate if you help on that.

1) What do you mean by install same portal type on target? Do you mean that, First we have to manually create portal with same type (Blank portal, Community portal, Customer Self-Service portal, Partner portal, Employee Self-Service portal) on target? Right?

2) As I can see, We can create solution and add entities, apps, option sets etc into solution. But I don't see any option to add portal web pages, web files, roles etc into solution. How can we add such portal related files, customization & configuration into solution prior to export?

[sandeepd]

For #1- Correct, you have to create a portal of the same type
For #2- One thing to understand first is that portal configuration is stored in CDS as data. So you cannot use a solution to export import portal configuration. For portal components like web pages, content snippets, web files etc. are migrated using the configuration migration tool itself. If you download the respective schema file and open it into the migration tool you can actually review all the portal entity types for which the migration is done.

You would use a solution only for the metadata migration e.g. any custom entity you created, or any additional customisation you did in CDS on top of an existing entity. This metadata is not migrated using configuration migration tool

[vishalpowerapps]

Got it Sandeep. I will go through all steps you mentioned & try to deploy. Will let you know if any issue.

Thanks a lot Sandeep for your quick reply & providing this helpful information. 

[sandeepd]

Sure @vishalpowerapps - You can review the steps and pm me for the feedback. I'll see how the documentation on this aspect can be improved. In meantime you can close this thread and mark the response as solution so others can find it easily.

[v-xida-msft]

Hi @vishalpowerapps ,

Have you taken a try with the solution @sandeepd 's provided above?

I agree with @sandeepd 's thought almost. When migrating portal configurations from one Environment to another one, there are some notes you need to know:

a. The Configuration Migration tool uses schema to export and import configuration data. The tool does not migrate entities or entity schema. Migration may fail with missing elements such as entities and fields when configuration data has mismatch with selected schema.

b. During export, ensure the source environment contains portal entities as specified in Configuration Migration tool schema file. You can still alter the schema files to add, remove, and modify entities, attributes, and so on to migrate subset of configuration data.

c. During import, ensure the destination environment contains the same portal type already installed with any additional customizations such as entities, fields, forms or views imported separately as solutions.

In addition, the "Portal Records Mover" tool available in "XrmToolBox" is the best tool for deployment, please check and see if the solution mentioned within the following thread would help in your scenario:

https://community.dynamics.com/crm/f/microsoft-dynamics-crm-forum/250849/dynamics-365-portal---proce...

Please consider take a try with above solution, then check if the issue is solved.

Best regards,

[Charlie_Chen179]

Hi there, the tool in XRM toolbox is pretty good. However, can we do it in the manner of ALM, e.g. the Portal Customization like JS, Liquid can be extracted into VS, committed to source control, built and released from Azure DevOps?  @v-xida-msft