Create an MSP App Set

Applies to: Patch My PC Cloud

Important

This documentation is under construction. Once it is finalized, this banner will be removed.

Creating an App Set is a two-stage process that involves defining:

  1. Which apps should be included in the App Set

  2. Where to deploy the App Set.

Note

We do not recommend creating a single App Set that you use to deploy all of the required apps to your customers. Instead, you should consider creating separate App Sets by app function, e.g., core apps (apps that should be installed or available everywhere), utilities that should only be deployed to certain groups or users, etc.

Adopting this approach reduces the impact of working with App Sets on your infrastructure and that of your child companies. Plus, if someone accidentally deletes the wrong App Set, the impact on the targeted users will be reduced, and the time taken to recreate and redeploy the App Set will be reduced.

Defining which apps to include in the App Set

To define which apps to include in the App Set:

  1. Sign in to the parent MSP Company at https://portal.patchmypc.com/

  2. Navigate to App Sets

    Navigating to “App Sets”

    The App Sets page shows any existing App Sets.

    “App Sets” page showing an existing App Sets

  3. Click Add App Set

    Clicking “Add App Set”

  4. On the Add App Set screen, enter a unique name for the new App Set in the App Set Name field and click Add The App Set is created and the <appset_name> screen opens (where <appset_name> is the name of the App Set).

Tip

You can click Edit Name beside the App Set name if you want to rename it.

App Set name screen

  1. To add an application to this App Set, click Add Application

Note

You can add up to 100 apps per App Set, but each app can only be added to an App Set once.

You can also add an MSP Custom App to an App Set, provided that app has been created and assigned to all customers.

Clicking “Add Application” to add an application to this App Set

  1. On the General Information page, select the relevant app you want to add from the Select Application dropdown or start typing its name.

Note

Only apps that have been deployed successfully will appear in the Select Application dropdown.

An MSP Custom App will only appear in the Select Application dropdown if it has been added and assigned to all customers. If the Custom App has only been assigned to a specific customer or only to the MSP, it will not appear in the dropdown.

Selecting the relevant app you want to add from the “Select Application” dropdown

  1. In the Display Name field, we suggest you add the name of the App Set as a suffix.

    For example, if the App Set’s name is Core Apps and you are deploying Adobe Acrobat Pro, we recommend changing the Display Name from just Adobe Acrobat Pro to Adobe Acrobat Pro – Core Apps.

Note

The reason for the above recommendations is that by default, when an app in an App Set is deployed, we automatically add the _AppSet<number> suffix (for example _AppSet7) to the deployment’s name, where <number> is the next available sequential number.

So in our Acrobat example, the default deployment name would be something like:

Adobe Acrobat Pro_AppSet7

This is potentially confusing as you won’t know which deployment belongs to which App Set. We are working on improving this.

Modifying the “Display Name” to include the App Set’s suffix

  1. Modify any other settings on the General Information page as required, then click Next

Note

In the current release, this page contains a subset of the options for creating a regular PMPC Cloud Deployment. See General Information (Deployments) for more details on each option.

Clicking “Next” on the “General information” page.

  1. On the Configurations page, configure the required options, then click Next.

Note

In the current release, this page contains a subset of the options for creating a regular PMPC Cloud Deployment. See Configurations (Deployments) for more details on each option.

Configuring any required options on the “Configurations” page

  1. On the Assignment Type page, select which assignment type(s) you want to apply to this App Set, then click Save to save your changes.

Note

As this is an App Set, only certain assignment types are supported compared to a regular PMPC Cloud Deployment. See Assignments (Deployments) for more details on each option.

Selecting the Update Only type (if available) will create an Update Only app in Intune alongside the Available or Required type selected.

Selecting the assignment type for this app and clicking “Save”

  1. Repeat steps 5 to 10 to add any additional apps to the App Set.

Defining where to deploy an App Set

Once you have added the required apps, next you need to define where to deploy the App Set.

To define where to deploy an App Set:

  1. Click the Assignments tab.

    Clicking the “Assignments” tab

  2. If you don’t want to use Update Rings, go to step 4.

  3. Click Enable Update Rings and configure them as required.

Note

In App Sets, we only support Immediate Update Rings.

You can add multiple companies to an App Set and to the same set of Update Rings.

A child customer also doesn’t need to be present in all rings. For example, if you create four Update Rings for an App Set, but a child customer only requires two rings, you only need to add that child customer to the two relevant rings. On the child customer side, only the rings they are part of will be created in the child company, not all four rings defined in the App Set.

Clicking “Enable Update Rings”

  1. Click Add Assignment

    Clicking “Add Assignment”

  2. Select the relevant company that has an Intune connection that you want to assign this deployment to and click Next

Note

You can only select a single company at a time (up to a maximum of 100), as every company’s Entra ID setup in terms of resources will be different.

Selecting the relevant company to assign this deployment to.

  1. On the Assignments tab, select the relevant resources you want to deploy this app to and click Save.

Selecting the relevant resources for this assignment

  1. Repeat steps 4 to 6 to add any additional companies you want to deploy this App Set to.

  2. On the App Set page, configure any required settings for the assignments.

Tip

If you are using Update Rings for this App Set, we recommend you create all of the assignments first, which adds all of them to the first Update Ring. Then drag and drop the assignments to the relevant rings.

Configuring any required settings for the assignments

  1. Click Deploy to deploy this App Set.

    Clicking “Deploy” to deploy this App Set

The App Sets page is redisplayed along with the Success – App Set created notification. The newly created App Set will show a Status of In Progress, followed by Success once all the deployments within the App Set have been completed successfully.

Note

The Status will show as Failed if one or more of the deployments fails.

“App Sets” showing the newly created deployment

Tip

You and the admins at the child company can monitor the status of each individual deployment from the Deployments node of the targeted company.

Important

You cannot Edit or Delete a deployment from the Deployments node if it belongs to an App Set (these options are unavailable when clicking on the ellipsis (⋮) beside the deployment). This is another reason for adding the App Set’s name as a suffix to the app’s Display Name so that when you are viewing all of your deployments, you and the admins at your child companies can easily identify which deployment belongs to an App Set.

Once the App Set has been deployed successfully, it will show a Status of Success on the App Sets page.

App Set showing with a status of “Success”

Note

Once successfully created, any deployments created as part of an App Set will be updated based on the Sync Schedule configured at each child customer. So even if you have a single App Set with deployments to multiple child customers, you can end up with different versions of the same app at different child customers depending on when the Sync Schedule runs. See Manage Updates for more information.

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