Teams App deployment – skybow Portal

Table of contents

Initial App Deployment
Import Teams App package to Developer Portal
Publish Teams App to Microsoft Teams admin center
Open Microsoft Teams app to add an app
- Teams Demo request flow
- Teams Installation flow
Update Team App Deployment

This article outlines the steps required to install the Teams App.

Initial App Deployment

1. Register an App: In Solution Studio on the Publish tab -> App Deployment -> click on the 'Publish' button. In the publish wizard make sure the 'App Deployment' type is selected.

Specify the App title and select the Package version you want to publish.

The Title of the Teams App will be 'TeamsApp_<AppTitle>_v1.0.0.0'

Click on the Next button to redirect to the Deployments tab where you can select: Standard Deployment or Selective deployment. The Standard Deployment option is selected by default, and it deploys all solution elements in the package to the target site.

The Summary step includes information about the App title, package version, deployment type with logs of what will be included in the deployment.

2. After the App is registered you can download the Teams App Package in the right panel.

In the Teams App Package dialog, you can either download the Teams app without demo URL or specify your own demo URL. If a demo URL is provided, the Demo tab will be available within the team

After downloading the .zip archive, extract its content. The archive includes the following files:

readme.txt - instructions and information about the package
teamsapp_<apptitle>.zip - Teams App Package ready for upload to Developer Portal
update-demo-actions.json - a configuration file for update demo request status

Note: Before you begin, ensure the following:
- You have administrative access to the Teams Developer Portal (https://dev.teams.microsoft.com/)
- You have administrative access to the Teams Admin Center (https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/)
- Allow users to upload custom apps in your organization. For more information read article https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-custom-app-policies-and-settings
- You have Teams License

Import Teams App package to Developer Portal

Redirect to Developer Portal for uploading app. Click on Import app button

When app is uploaded, go to Basic Information and update the App name, Description, Version, Developer Information, App URLs, and Microsoft Partner ID as needed.

In the Branding section you can update the Color Icon, Outline Icon, and Accent Color.

Go to Languages (optional). Add additional languages and specify schema values for names, descriptions and tab names.
Note: By default, tabs content supports next languages: English (en), German (de), French (fr), Spanish (es), Dutch (nl), Slovak (sk), Swedish (sv)
Go to App Validation and run a validation check to ensure the app meets publishing requirements.

Use Preview in Teams button to test App with your current organization.
Go to Publish to Org to publish the app within your organization.
Go to Publish to Store to begin the process of publishing your app to the Teams App Store (optional)

Publish Teams App to Microsoft Teams admin center

Redirect to Microsoft Teams admin center. Search for you teams app. Open it and click Publish. It may take some time before the status is updated.

Open Microsoft Teams app to add an app

Go to Apps -> Built for your org. Select published app and click on Add

Once you open added app you will be redirected to Home page with two options:

Install your app: Set up your app for your organization. This option is available only for Administrators
Request demo: Request a free demo for testing. This option is available to everyone if the Teams app was downloaded with a demo URL

Teams Demo request flow

Demo tab shows configured demo request form.

Demo request

1. The Demo Request page renders inside a Teams Tab within an iframe, including an additional parameter (e.g. demoId) in the URL. For example:

https://YOUR_DEMO_REQUEST_URL?demoId=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Note: Make sure the header of the page contains "Content-Security-Policy frame-ancestors 'self'" to avoid error during showing page in iframe.

2. Collect and pass the demoId parameter to your demo request deployment flow.

3. You can use actions from UpdateDemoActions.json to update the demo request status in Teams, providing users with real-time status updates. For example, import it into the Triggered action:

- [[DemoId]] and [[DemoSiteUrl]] -> placeholders of list fields to store Demo information required to update Demo request.

- Place the "Demo Request - In Progress" action before the demo deployment starts. (The demoId should be collected from the Demo Request page and passed to this action.)

- Place the "Demo Request - Completed" action after the demo deployment is finished. (The demoId should be collected from the Demo Request page and passed to this action. DemoSiteUrl refers to the demo environment where the solution is deployed.)

4. To enhance the user experience, your Demo Request page can send a post message to update the demo request status immediately and show progress updates. For example:

    ###CODE_BLOCK###
      var msg = "DEMO_INPROGRESS$$DEMO_ID";
     window.parent.postMessage(msg, "*");
    ###CODE_BLOCK###
       where DEMO_ID is value of demoId parameter

Teams Installation flow

When you go to the Installation tab, you will be required to log in with your Teams account to continue installation.

Once logged in, follow the steps to complete the installation of your app:

Step 1 - Trust the skybow App Deployment Connector. This should be done by tenant SharePoint Administrator once per tenant.

Step 2 - Specify SharePoint site: This is needed to install an app on the specified site

Step 3 - Assign Permissions: To assign Full Control permission in the site collection you can run the script using PnP PowerShell.

Import-Module PnP.PowerShell
Connect-PnPOnline -Url 'https://m365x46891638.sharepoint.com/sites/wineseller' -Interactive -ClientId <client id of your Microsoft Entra ID Application Registration>
Grant-PnPAzureADAppSitePermission -AppId 'f64d6c09-62be-4393-9ef8-45c581fc14e2' -DisplayName 'skybow App Deployment Connector' -Site 'https://m365x46891638.sharepoint.com/sites/wineseller' -Permissions fullcontrol

Read more about authentication for PnP PowerShell https://pnp.github.io/powershell/articles/authentication.html

Step 4 - Create site collection App Catalog: Run the following PowerShell script in order to create site collection App Catalog if it is not enabled using PnP PowerShell.

Import-Module PnP.PowerShell
Connect-PnPOnline -Url 'https://m365x46891638.sharepoint.com/sites/wineseller' -Interactive -ClientId <client id of your Microsoft Entra ID Application Registration>
Add-PnPSiteCollectionAppCatalog -Site 'https://m365x46891638.sharepoint.com/sites/wineseller'

Step 5 - Deploy the solution to the site.

Wait until the solution is installed

Step 6 - Trust additional connectors (optional): If your package contains actions that need to approve specific connectors you have to trust them to finish deployment properly.

Update Teams App deployment

If you make some changes to your solution after the initial deployment, you have to create a new package and then select the deployment definition in the Publish section in solution studio.

Click the Update button to open the wizard that guides you through updating a service. Additionally, you can configure different deployment configurations for Initial and Update deployments when updating skybow App registration. This means every new deployment on this service will use configuration from Initial deployments, while every update will use the configuration from the Update deployments.

This will not automatically update any deployments, you have now 2 options to update them separately:

- Select a deployment in Solution Studio and click on Update in the right panel

- Navigate to Teams app in Microsoft Teams -> open Installation tab and click on the Update your app button. The new version should be recognized.