Can site collections with its own app catalogue see apps from a tenant app catalogue?

Question

In my tenant I want to develop SPFx apps, but I also want to have a dedicated site to test them on first (and deploy to pages + on workbench). I'm thinking of making the tenant app catalogue the place for final deployment. And create a site collection with a site collection app catalogue for a dev environment. I'm thinking to deploy the apps to that site first, and if everything looks good, then deploy the same app to the tenant app catalogue.

Would this approach work? I'm wondering if I deploy the same app on the tenant app catalogue, is it visible on the dev site collection?

So if that same app is on the dev site collection app catalogue and the tenant app catalogue, would I see two of the apps when trying to add to the dev site, or would one overwrite the other?

Answer 1

Deploying at tenant level is not a good idea when you have multiple site collections.

Suppose you have develop site collection as:

1. HR
2. IT
3. Facilities

and each site collection has apps that are not relevant to other collection, deploying everything at tenant level will end up huge list of apps and it would be difficult for tenant administrator if for some reason in future, Administrator wants to categorize apps for each site collection.

Regarding your question if app is available at both levels (site collection, tenant level) please see the link below :

Priority:

If you have the same solution install on both app catalogs the Site app catalog will have priority over Tenant app catalog

App catalog

To test, you can always use local workbench as well as SharePoint workbench:

Local workbench: https://localhost:4321/temp/workbench.html 

SharePoint workbench: https://yourSharePointURL/sites/ABC/_layouts/15/workbench.aspx 

Once you test in SharePoint workbench, only then you can deploy that to app catalog.

To Test the app in catalog at site collection level or Tenant level:

1. I have created a Test SPFX and deployed at both tenant level and site collection level.
2. To add the app, Go to site contents, you will see "test" app two times. One is from tenant level and other is from site collection level.

3. At this point to know if the app is coming from tenant or site collection, click the App details:

App details will show you the path of SPFx package. For tenant level, it will be like:

App details for site collection level, it will be like:

1. I have found, from site content, you can add only one app (either from site collection app catalog or from tenant app catalog) so I am not sure how the Priority works here as I cannot add same app once added in the page.

Hope the above answer can give you some direction.

Again back to the point, to test the app use SharePoint workbench instead of local workbench.

Answer 2

I just tried this on my office 365 tenant.

• First deployed SPFx package to site collection app catalog
• Then deployed same SPFx package to tenant level app catalog
• Then edited a site page & tried adding web part on page

Findings:

1. I can see only one SPFx web part
2. If site collection app catalog is enabled & same package is deployed at both levels, I can see the package from site collection app catalog on developer site collection

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Then I removed SPFx package from site collection app catalog & now I can see the SPFx app from tenant level app catalog (deployed globally).