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I am new to the AppExchange and I understand that I need to create a Partner Development Org and enable the Environment Hub to be able to start developing an app.

I have two questions:

  1. how can I tell if it is a Partner Development Org? Should it say that under company information?
  2. is it possible to use XML or any other way to deploy an app to the AppExchange without a Partner Development Org?
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Neither of these steps is strictly required in order to develop a managed package for the AppExchange.

If you're building a first-generation package, you can use either a regular Developer Edition or a Partner Developer Edition org as your packaging org. PDE is nice mainly because they come out of the box with more licenses.

The Environment Hub would be activated in your Partner Business Org (if you have one), and would allow you to create Partner Developer Edition orgs from there.

If you are building a second-generation package, you need a Dev Hub and a namespace org. Ideally, the Dev Hub will be your Partner Business Org, as it has substantially higher limits, but a regular Developer Edition will also work. You need to turn on the Dev Hub, enable 2GP, create a namespace org to reserve your managed package's namespace, and link the namespace to the Dev Hub to all the Hub to create scratch orgs and package versions with that namespace. Then you can start building your second-generation-package.

Once you've built your package, you'd need to start the process of linking it to the AppExchange and submitting for Security Review.

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  • ...with more licenses And more space, too!
    – sfdcfox ♦
    Commented Jul 14, 2021 at 20:01
  • Thank you this is helpful. I am trying to update to a package that is already published in the AppExchange. I am unable to pull up "Environment Hub" under the production environment which leads me to believe this was published with a developer edition. If I am looking to update with the developer edition, do I have go to the route of 2nd generation packaging? Also, is there a way to tell which route (1st or 2nd gen) they went to deploy?
    – Olivia
    Commented Jul 14, 2021 at 20:10
  • Environment Hub does not go in your packaging org. It's in your Partner Business Org. If your "production environment" is a packaging org, you're in 1GP-land. You can look at the Package Manager section of Setup.
    – David Reed
    Commented Jul 14, 2021 at 20:40
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how can I tell if it is a Partner Development Org? Should it say that under company information?

It's been a while, so I don't recall if the word "Partner" specifically appears anywhere in the org, but an easy telltale is to look at Setup > Storage Usage. If you have more than 20MB of record storage, you're on a Partner Developer Org (PDO); you can see the different features in the documentation. If you have the now-standard 20MB of record storage, you're on a Developer Edition Org (DEO).

is it possible to use XML or any other way to deploy an app to the AppExchange without a Partner Development Org?

Yes, you can use a regular DEO to publish a First Generation Managed Package (1GMP), or you can use a Dev Hub's Second Generation Managed Package (2GMP). You do not need a PDO to host your metadata, although many partners do use them for that purpose. PDOs are meant for things like testing and demonstration purposes as well as development, which is why they have larger limits than a regular DEO. You can also now use Scratch Orgs, which are arguably better than PDOs, but PDOs are still supported, of course.

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  • The production org has > 20MB of storage, the dev and test orgs have exactly 20mb of storage...but production doesn't feel like a PDO as there is no "Environment Hub". Is it possible that these are just regular prod/sandbox orgs?
    – Olivia
    Commented Jul 14, 2021 at 20:15
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    @Olivia You still need to check Setup > Company Information. It should say "Developer Edition" if it's a DEO, or it will say Professional/Enterprise/Unlimited edition when it's production. If it's 20MB of storage, it's definitely a normal DEO, a PDO should have 250MB of record storage. Environment Hub is turned on in production, not a PDO. You have to ask for this feature specifically, it doesn't come with production by default. If you became a Partner, they should have enabled EH for you, if not, submit a case in the Partner Portal.
    – sfdcfox ♦
    Commented Jul 14, 2021 at 21:27
  • thank you @sfdcfox - one more question if you don't mind - is it possible to see your orgs in your partner community under "organizations" AND have published via scratch orgs? or would they not be tied?
    – Olivia
    Commented Jul 15, 2021 at 13:16
  • @Olivia Scratch Orgs are listed in the Scratch Orgs tab (sObject name is ScratchOrgInfo). PDOs should be listed in the EH.
    – sfdcfox ♦
    Commented Jul 15, 2021 at 14:12

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