PCF Controls solution dependencies

I have definitely managed to mess up my PCF controls solution a few weeks ago, since I put some test entities into that solution, and, then, I missed to include a few dependencies. Definitely my apologies for that to everyone who tried to deploy that solution while I was happily spending time on vacation, but, hopefully, this post will help.

First of all, there are two different solutions now. In the main solution, I have those PCF controls and a plugin to support N:N.

Then, in a separate solution, I have all the test entities and forms to set up a quick demo.

Those two solutions should be imported in exactly this order, since, of course, you won’t be able to install “demo” solution having not installed the PCF solution first:

• https://github.com/ashlega/ITAintBoring.PCFControls/raw/master/Controls/Deployment/Solutions/ItAintBoringPCFControls.zip
• https://github.com/ashlega/ITAintBoring.PCFControls/raw/master/Controls/Deployment/Solutions/PCFControlsDemo.zip

This is a good lesson learned, though. I guess it does make sense to always create a separate solution for the PCF controls?

If you are an ISV, and you are using those controls in your own solutions, you would probably want to be able to update the PCF controls without having to update anything else.

If you are developing PCF controls internally, it’s, essentially, the same idea, since you may want to reuse those controls in various environments internally.

Although… here is what looks a little unusual here. I can’t recall any other solution component that would be so independent from anything else. In the past, we used to put workflows into separate solutions to ensure we can bring in required reference data first. We might use separate solutions for a set of base entities since we’d be building other solutions on top of that core entity model. We might use dedicated solutions for the plugins, since plugins might make our solution files really big.

Still, those were all specific reasons – sometimes, they would be applicable, and, sometimes, they would not be. As for the PCF, when all the entity names, relationship names, and other configuration settings are passed through the component parameters, it seems we have a solution component that will be completely independent from anything else most of the times.  Instead, other components in the system will become dependent on the PCF components as time goes, so it probably make sense to always put PCF into a separate solution just because of that.