Custom ribbon button does not deploy using tenant scope app deployment

Question

I am deploying custom ribbon button using SharePoint provider hosted app. It creates ribbon button without any issues when I deploy to the site manually (app scope). But it does not create a ribbon button when app is pushed through app catalog site to all sites (tenant scope). I have read on MSDN site that it is not possible. Any workaround to this?

Here is the xml of ribbon control.

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <CustomAction Id="33080663-4c4a-457f-aae5-d2185039bdb5.RibbonCustomAction_ConvertPDF"
                RegistrationType="ContentType"
                RegistrationId="0x0101"
                Location="CommandUI.Ribbon"
                Sequence="10001"
                Title="Convert to PDF">
    <CommandUIExtension>
      <!-- 
      Update the UI definitions below with the controls and the command actions
      that you want to enable for the custom action.
      -->
      <CommandUIDefinitions>
        <CommandUIDefinition Location="Ribbon.Documents.Copies.Controls._children">
          <Button Id="Ribbon.Documents.Copies.RibbonCustomAction_ConvertPDFButton"
                  Alt="Convert to PDF"
                  Sequence="11"
                  Command="Invoke_RibbonCustomAction_ConvertPDFButtonRequest"
                  LabelText="Convert to PDF"
                  TemplateAlias="o1" CommandType="OptionSelection"
                  Image32by32="~remoteAppUrl/Images/pdf32.gif"
                  Image16by16="~remoteAppUrl/Images/pdf16.gif" />
        </CommandUIDefinition>
      </CommandUIDefinitions>
      <CommandUIHandlers>
        <CommandUIHandler Command="Invoke_RibbonCustomAction_ConvertPDFButtonRequest"
                          CommandAction="~remoteAppUrl/Pages/Default.aspx?{StandardTokens}&amp;Action=pdf&amp;ListId={SelectedListId}&amp;ItemId={SelectedItemId}&amp;BookmarkField=Title&amp;SortField=Modified&amp;SortOrder=ascending&amp;Source={Source}"
                          EnabledScript="javascript:function multiEnable() {  var items = SP.ListOperation.Selection.getSelectedItems(); return (items.length > 0); } multiEnable();" />
      </CommandUIHandlers>
    </CommandUIExtension >
  </CustomAction>
</Elements>

Answer 1

Custom Actions are not supported for tenant-scoped apps (Look at the section "Limitations of Tenant-scoped apps").

One workaround to consider would be to add the Custom Action in code via the app installed event. Check out this sample, which runs in a page but you could use the same approach in an app installed event.