Demystifying re-installation process for Business Central Apps. Without uninstall

This is the third blog post on series.

The beginning is here: 

• Demystifying installation process
• Demystifying upgrade process

...In the previous series

We ended up with the summary: what's going on during the upgrade of the app.

• Upgrade codeunit was triggered
• Install codeunit was not triggered

The result of this scenario can be displayed in the next picture

Figure 1. Upgrading app

Re-installing App

Re-installing means that we will publish the app, with the same “version” as it is already installed on the tenant.

This is a usual situation when we are in development-testing process. 

There are several ways how we can achieve app re-installation.

Option 1: Without uninstallation 

Container Sandbox

VSCode > AL:Publish without debugging (Ctrl+F5)

Online Sandbox

VSCode > AL:Publish without debugging (Ctrl+F5)

Online Business Central Production Tenant

>Web client > Extensions Page >Upload .app file

Not possible. When you try to upload the same version of the app to a Cloud Production Business Central tenant you receive an error

You cannot re-install app in production without uninstallation

Summary

• Upgrade codeunit was not triggered
• Install codeunit was triggered
• Not possible for Online Business Central Production Tenant

The result of this step can be displayed in the next picture

Figure 2. Re-install without uninstallation 

What's next

Next blog will be about the re-installation process (with uninstalling option). Stay tuned.