Creating multiple ClickOnce deployments of a WPF windows application

Question

We have a WPF application which is distributed through ClickOnce deployments. We have around 400 different users (customers) using this application. The only thing that changes per customer is a Web Service Url which is present in the app.config of the application.

For each of these customers, changing the app.config and then signing the clickonce deployment using mage or mage UI is time consuming and error prone.

Are there any ways to do this in an automated manner, so that we can manage all of these customers and creating new signed deployments faster ?

EDIT: IF there is no straightforward way to manage this issue only at a deployment level, I am open to making application or first time flow changes.

Answer 1

You can add a parameter or parameters to your ClickOnce installation URL as described in this MSDN article. The parameter value will only be present during the initial install or update, so you'll have to store the web service URL locally if you allow the application to be run from the start menu.

Answer 2

Something along the lines of placing a variable in your top level window, and when your customer logs in or launches for the first time, you ask them to select a variable (Area? Website? Company? etc) and this sets that variable, which you then store and recall everytime the program starts up.