Updates for "Available" Custom Applications

[Damian]

Hi Guys!

I recently started testing the updates functionality for Custom Applications, and I'm not sure if I fully understand it, so I'm wondering if someone could help. So what I want to do is, I want to deploy the Custom Application and set the assignment to "Available" so users can download the app from the Company Portal itself, but then if the new version is released, I would like to force it to install on user's devices without any interaction. I kind of managed to get it working correctly, but I'm pretty sure that I did something wrong. Here is what I did :

- I created a custom app (v4.2.0.0 - just for reference) on the PatchMyPC Cloud portal.
- Then I went to the "Deployments" tab, and I deployed the application to a test group as Available.
- The app was successfully deployed, and I managed to grab it and install it from the Company Portal.
- I then went to "App Catalog", found the app, and added a new version (v4.3.0.0) by selecting the "Add Version" button.
- I then went to the "Deployments" tab again, found the app, and added a new assignment with the same test group (and I set it to "Update Only", so now I have two of the same groups with different assignments - Available and UpdateOnly), then saved it and synced it.

By doing the above, I ended up having the Old and New versions of the app in Intune, which is correct, but I'm also getting two updates, one for version v4.2.0.0, but I have no idea why it also created the update for v4.3.0.0 (I attached the screenshot), as I believe there should only be one update, so I'm probably doing something wrong.



I'm just worried that if I do another update to, let's say, version v4.4.0.0, it will get a bit messy, so I want to ensure that I know the correct procedure. It's probably me adding version/syncing/adding deployment group not in the right order or something. After the update, I removed the assignments that weren't assigned (first and third on the screenshot), as they did not disappear after an hour, and I left the other two that were assigned (although the name for the update isn't correct, as it should say Update for v4.2.0.0, not v4.3.0.0, but everything worked as expected.

Thanks,

Damian.

[Michiel (Patch My PC)]

Hi Damian, it looks like you followed the correct procedure. An app that's assigned as Available will also need an UpdateOnly assignment, to make sure any existing installations are updated to the latest version. If you like, you can create the UpdateOnly assignment for All Users or All Devices, as it will only update existing installations.

If you add a new version to an existing custom app, during the next sync, new apps are created in Intune, and all assignments are copied and then deleted from the old ones. During the next sync after that, the old (unassigned) apps are deleted. However, if you also modify the assignments for the app while adding a new version, this results in a new app, and in that case, the old ones aren't deleted. If you want, you can delete them yourself.