Clarification needed regarding publishing process

[RichardB]

Hello forum,

I understand the concept and logic behind the whole Saving/Publishing process, however I believe either the documentation is incorrect or the problem is related to my Android phone.

Documentation says 'Whenever you save changes to an app, you automatically publish them only for yourself and anyone else who has permissions to edit the app. When you finish making changes, you explicitly publish them to make them available to everyone with whom the app is shared.

So with my app,when I save the new version, it doesn't appear on my Android phone, so I can't test the changes. The only method to test (without publishing) is to run the app in the Web player

Android is my only mobile device, so haven't been able to test this on other devices.

If I publish the app, the updated version appears on the phone as expected.

Please could Microsoft provide clarification and has anyone else experienced this problem?

Thanks

[v-monli-msft]

Hi @RichardB,

I have reproduced your issue successfully, and will report this to the pg. If there is any update later, I will notice here.

Regards,

Mona

[RichardB]

Hi Mona,

Just wondering if there is any progress on this issue?

Thanks

Richard

[cherie]

Hi,

Thanks for bring our attention to this. In order for you to view your changes on Android or iOS, you will need to publish your app. If you only hit save, you will only be able to view the changes via create.powerapps.com

Thanks

Cherie

[RichardB]

Hi Cherie,

Thanks for the quick response and I understand what you are saying.

My issue is that Publishing implies all the development and testing has been completed for that version, however I don't understand how you can properly test the changes to your app unless they are tested on mobile devices before publishing.

Would like some clarification on when this will be resolved.

regards

Richard

[rc]

This is a great point, Richard, and one we are indeed tracking. Improved live preview for unpublished changes is on our roadmap and you'll see improvement here over the next several months.

In the meantime, developers who want to fully test their scenarios end to end before rolling out to users are taking advantage of multiple environments -- developing and testing in a unique environment then exporting to production when ready. Some documentation on what's possible here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/environment-and-tenant-migration