Once the solution is successfully downloaded, it can be uploaded to the desired target tenant (test/production). You need to connect the studio to this tenant and hence need a PDI administration user in that tenant. After that, you can go ahead with the steps in the studio. The following graphic visualizes the steps:
During the upload process, the system runs integrity and compatibility checks. The most important aspect is that the source and the target tenant have the same four-digit release version (for example, 2308). Because of this, you can’t download a solution as an "offline backup" with the aim to upload it to a tenant at some stage in the future when the tenant has been upgraded. For such a use case you must keep the solution "running" in a tenant and download it when you need it.
Matching release versions are especially important during the tenant upgrade period. Test and development tenants are usually upgraded a bit earlier than production tenants. During this time, the transfer of an add-on solution is not possible due to different release versions of the source and target tenant. That is an important aspect for project planning!
After you have uploaded the solution, you can see all items in the Project Explorer. You will notice that most of them (except screens) show red dots that we know from items that are not activated yet. In contrast to "Assemble and Download", uploading a solution only uploads it.
The next step is the activation of the solution which is again started from the Implementation Manager. The activation can take a while and hence runs in the background. The status is shown in the Implementation Manager and needs to be refreshed manually.
After the solution has been activated, it needs to be enabled or scoped to make it available for business users. This depends on the type of tenant where you have uploaded the solution.
On test/development tenants you have to enable the solution from the Implementation Manager to make its features accessible to business users. That’s also necessary if you want to see the scoping entry for the solution.
Production tenants work differently. They don’t offer the option to enable or disable the solution from the studio. Once the solution has been uploaded and activated, the scoping entry shows up in scoping automatically and needs to be scoped in order to make its features available to end users.
The following video shows the upload process within a test tenant:
Scoping changes to production tenants usually require Change Projects. However, change projects can also be transported between test and production tenants, to test bigger changes to the scoping of a system. When you are developing a solution on a customer’s tenant that is also used for change projects, more circumstances need to be considered. You can read further details about that in this help page.