Thursday, August 10, 2017

Global deployment of SharePoint Framework Parts and Extensions is now live!

With version 1.1.3 of the SharePoint Framework yeoman generator it is now possible to specify for a SPFx solution to be tenant wide available. This means that when you upload the solution to your tenant you have the ability to let the extension or web part be made available to all site collections in your tenant.

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Using Windows, in a console with administrative privileges you can get the latest version by re-installing the generator with: npm i @microsoft/generator-sharepoint -g

For web parts this means that the web part is available for use on all pages in all sites. For extensions, you still need to perform the part of registration using CSOM or REST per site collection/site/list where the extension is to be registered, but you don’t have to first add the extension to the site. For auto-provisioning scenarios this is huge!

Read the documentation over at https://dev.office.com/sharepoint/docs/spfx/tenant-scoped-deployment

YouTube video

Questions

Q: How can I make my existing SPFx solution be available tenant wide?

A: Update @microsoft/sp-build-core-tasks to v1.1.1.

> npm i @microsoft/sp-build-core-tasks

Open up config/package-solution.json and add "skipFeatureDeployment": true to the solution element.

{
  "solution": {
    "name": "tenant-deploy-client-side-solution",
    "id": "dd4feca4-6f7e-47f1-a0e2-97de8890e3fa",
    "version": "1.0.0.0",
    "skipFeatureDeployment": true
  },
  "paths": {
    "zippedPackage": "solution/tenant-deploy-true.sppkg"
  }
}

Q: Do I need this feature for web parts?

A: If you create web parts which should be globally available, this is the feature for you. If you create custom applications, then stick to the old way of adding it where needed.

Q: Do I need this feature for extensions?

A: Definately! This feature was made for SPFx extensions. You could for example create an extension with a company footer which you want available on all sites in your tenant. You would still need to figure out the best way to register the extension on the sites – but that is something we can deal with!