Agent APIs

The Agent API provides a robust set of methods that allow makers to programmatically interact with topics created in Copilot Studio. Available through both the Xrm.Copilot and PcfContext.Copilot namespaces, these APIs enable two core operations:

• executeEvent: Triggers a topic based on a registered event name and returns a structured response.
• executePrompt: Sends a natural language prompt to MCS and receives a response based on trigger phrases defined in the topic.

These APIs are designed for use within model-driven apps and can be embedded in XRM event handlers or custom PCF controls. They return rich JSON responses that include markdown, adaptive cards, and media giving makers full control over how to use and display Copilot-generated content.

During Microsoft Build, we demonstrated adding a custom PCF which provided rich interaction of the content in the model-driven form.

Agent response component

The Agent response component allows a maker to easily add the Copilot Studio content into a model-driven form using a provided component. The component supports rendering markdown, adaptive card, image or video content.

The Build session showed how to render a rich adaptive card for a polished experience.

For more information about the capabilities, see

• Bring intelligence into your component using Agent Xrm APIs (preview)
• Bring intelligence into your app using Agent Xrm APIs (preview)
• Use Agent Response component in the model-driven app forms (preview)

Please reach out using our community forum Agent APIs and Component – Public Preview to ask questions or report issues.

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With the new capabilities for managing release channels, we will start gradually increasing the usage of Monthly Channel. The first step is to default the release channel for new model-driven apps to Monthly Channel. This rollout will be done more slowly so check for status at Release channel overview.

Setting App release channel

Makers will be able to set the App release channel in the App Designer within the Settings > General dialog. The choices are Auto, Monthly channel, or Semi-annual channel. The default value for existing apps is Auto which currently uses Semi-annual channel but with a future release will change to Monthly channel. The Monthly channel and Semi-annual channel values allow an explicit choice.

In December we will start gradually defaulting new model-driven apps to use Monthly channel when the app is created. After the app is created, you can change this to Semi-annual channel if you need a slower cadence. The new app channel defaulting can be disabled by change the app setting “Allow new app channel default” to no. See Changing release channels for more details.

Setting User channel override

To control the release channel at a level other environment or app level, an admin can override the release channel for one or more users. The Power Platform admin center Users list supports changing the channel. See Changing the user channel for more information.

Channel from environment, app, or user

When the model-driven app runs, the release channel uses the app channel if defined otherwise uses the environment channel. When an admin needs to configure a set of users with a different channel, the user channel override allows defining the channel for specific users overriding the app or environment channel. These can be managed either through the admin/maker UI or through API calls.

Monthly release validation

Monthly release changes are published four weeks before the features will be enabled by default within the monthly channel. To make the validation easier, we have added a new URL parameter to pick the next release instead of using the specific release name. See Validating the next monthly release for more details.

Please share any feedback on release channels at Monthly Channel Feedback.

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Release channel support is bringing Power Apps and Dynamics 365 in line with the channel capabilities already available in Microsoft 365. Through Microsoft 365, we have found business users are happier on the monthly (vs semi-annual) update channel.  Based on extensive studies, we believe this is due to the combination of getting more frequent feature enhancements as well as features being delivered in smaller increments, rather than all coming in two semi-annual updates.

Managing Release Channels

In the initial release, we are providing the ability for an admin to set the environment’s release channel and it applies to all users and apps within that environment. In coming releases we are looking to provide user level override, app level override, and deferring a feature.

The default setting is Semi-Annual Channel, which is the current twice-yearly updates in the release waves. The new release cadence applies when an admin switches an environment to Monthly Channel. The same build has all the semi-annual and monthly features within it. It is the release channel that controls which updates are enabled for a user. An environment can switch between channels at any point and the user will see the experience for the selected channel when the session is started. Learn more about release channels at Release Channel Overview.

The features in a monthly release are published 4 weeks before arriving in production to allow validation. See the features listed in Model-Driven App Monthly Channel Releases.

The ability to change the release channel through Power Platform Admin Center (PPAC) is gradually rolling out now. When the PPAC update arrives, the release channel can be changed in the environment’s Settings > Behavior page.

In addition to PPAC, the environment can be set programmatically by updating a configuration table or with a URL parameter &channel=monthly. These additional ways to change the channel are fully rolled out already. Learn more at Changing Release Channels.

For diagnostic purposes, end users can see the channel and channel release in the About dialog available from Settings.

Coming soon

We are delivering the updates for the monthly channel release process gradually and looking for feedback along the way to make this easy to use.

User level override: Next up is enabling the environment admin to override the release channel for an individual user through PPAC or programmatically. This provides flexibility to start with a smaller group of users when the environment is set to semi-annual channel or setting some users to semi-annual channel the overall environment is on monthly channel.

App level override: After that we are looking at enabling makers to override the release channel. App level control enables new apps to start with monthly channel or targeting a part of the environment.

Defer a feature: With changes coming every month and enabled by default, there will be some features that might need more time for validation, training, or updating customizations. We are looking at allowing makers or admins to temporarily deferred a feature in monthly channel.

We look forward to your feedback on making the Monthly Channel easier to use! Let us know your thoughts and suggestions within the community post Feedback on Monthly Channel.

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In-app notifications enable a user to receive a notification while they are working within the web or mobile model-driven app.  Notifications can be sent from Power Automate, app logic or web service calls allowing flexibility in where notifications are triggered.

Since public preview we have improved the scalability for in-app notifications by using non-relational data tables and changing the polling approach for new notifications.  The polling approach is based on user navigations which means the notification delivery is not suitable for time-sensitive notifications.  In the future we will look to improve notification delivery time.

Model-driven apps can be enabled in-app notifications within the modern app designer.  Open the settings dialog and toggle “In-app notifications” feature to Yes under “Features”.  Depending on your release, it may still be under “Upcoming” with a preview tag while the update is rolling out.

You can learn more in Send in-app notifications, In-app notifications in web, and Notifications in mobile. Please continue to send us feedback on in-app notifications through the community post Feedback on In-App Notification.

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Capabilities reaching General Availability include runtime for custom pages, solutioning/ALM, all connectors, code components, controls listed here, and monitor. Some capabilities staying in public preview include authoring with the modern app designer and canvas designer, canvas components and mobile online players. Custom pages will have new capabilities added incrementally as public preview and these capabilities will move to general availability as they are ready. We will indicate the status of different capabilities at the beginning of Custom Page Overview in a table and also mark sections with “preview”.

Custom Pages are traditional Power Apps canvas apps that fit into this new application model. Since these custom pages are traditional Power Apps you can access external data via connectors.  In addition to native access to Dataverse, authors can access over 400 connectors including SharePoint, Microsoft SQL Server, and Excel. Note that cross-environment Dataverse references will be available very soon.

A custom page uses the layout containers to support responsiveness and zooming. The flexible containers use wrapping and scrolling to allow the page to fit within a narrow space. Learn more about responsive custom pages.

The custom page authoring experience added the ability for the modern app designer to monitor the async parts of the publish process and refresh the preview when it completes. This allows makers to continue editing while custom page publish finishes.

Additionally, the app designer now supports the ability to refresh the preview. If the custom page shows as a blank screen after the publish completes, refresh the preview to display. We are still working to improve the initial rendering in app designer or in the browser after a publish completes.

Navigation from either a custom page or app action is improved with Power Fx Navigate function. Using this function, you will be able to open a specific model form and pass a new record with defaulted field values.

Coming soon to custom pages are capabilities to build global apps including support for retrieving localized strings, data formatting using the user or org locale settings, and Right-to-Left layout.

Custom pages now support the benefits of integrated low-code authoring within model-driven apps.  Learn more in the Custom Page Overview and check out Custom Page Known Issues for issues we are tracking.  This announcement is the next step in bringing together the best of model and canvas apps into a single Power Apps app.

We look forward to your continued feedback on using custom pages! Let us know your thoughts and suggestions within this community post Feedback on Custom Page.

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The app side panes switch panes by clicking on a different tab and can be collapsed by clicking on the tab for the active pane.  A pane supports navigation in place as well as navigating back using the page back button.

Previously we only supported having a single pane opened which caused conflicts when different authors or customizers are adding a pane.  As part of the 2021 Wave 2 release, Customer Service workspace and Omnichannel users will begin using this for their three productivity panes.  In these model driven apps, customizers will be able add additional panes.

App Side Panes is replacing the existing single right pane from loadPanel Client API and the right panel used by the Channel Integration Framework v1.0.  This replacement allows multiple panes.  If only the legacy loadPanel is used, the behavior is the same has it has been.  However if one or more app side panes are also added, then the loadPanel is placed in a tab within the app side panes.

More information on the app side panes is in Creating side panes using client API. The feature has rolled out through the public clouds and will soon be available in additional regions. We look forward to your feedback through the community post Feedback on App Side Pane public preview.

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When new notifications arrive, the a badge count is shown on the bell icon in the header. Clicking the bell icon opens the notification center to show latest notifications first. To enable this feature, makers need to opt-in to show the notification center and toasts to users for each model-driven app.

Notifications are sent by creating a record in the Notification table for the user using any of the table APIs or Power Automate.  The notification sender also define navigation links, formatting, and custom icons to make a custom notification. Examples of different notifications are in Send in-app notifications within model-driven apps.

More information on the end user experience is in In-app notifications in model-driven apps. The feature has rolled out through the public clouds and will soon be available in additional regions. We look forward to your feedback on in-app notifications through the community post Feedback on In-App Notification public preview.

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A custom page can be used in places where all pages are supported including main area, dialogs, and the new app side pane.  This allows scenarios like a pixel perfect landing page with data pulled from across the organization, data driven pages that use a record’s data to change the experience, dialog designed to optimize specific business actions, and productivity tools that support the main tasks for the app.

Custom pages can be opened from the sitemap for easy access or can be opened from existing model-driven app logic using the Client API. Custom pages can open other custom pages or model pages.  The custom page participates in the page stacking the browser or page back buttons.

Custom Pages in a model-driven app provide flexibility and ease of authoring which are difficult to accomplish within existing model pages.  App creation in Power Apps is no longer an upfront decision between the canvas and model.  When you start with the model-driven app you can easily add custom pages to take advantage of the power of canvas authoring.

The recently announced Introducing the Modern App Designer (Preview) is extended to provide the ability to create or add existing custom pages.

The canvas designer is used to author the custom page and has been updated to simplify the experience.  The command bar allows save and publish directly from main experience.  The insert pane shows the list of controls which are supported initially within the custom page.

For a custom page to work well within the responsive model-driven app, layout containers are the easiest approach providing resize and reflow without any formulas.  Most custom page designs can be accomplished with nesting either vertical or horizontal layout containers.

Navigation from the custom page is managed using existing functions to Navigate and go Back using tables and records as context.

The custom page will easily allow for data beyond Dataverse using the 400+ connectors available with Power Apps.  With public preview we have enabled the most used connectors such as SharePoint, SQL, Office 365, Outlook, Excel Online, Excel in OneDrive, Power Automate, and custom connectors.  The status of connectors is available in Add connectors to a custom page for your model-driven app (preview).  The connectors used within a custom page are consolidated to the PowerApps app (model-driven app) during the publish within the Power Apps app designer.  This enables sharing of consent across multiple custom pages.

Custom pages enable use of the most common out of box controls which includes the Fluent UI controls found in the canvas apps embedded in Teams.  You can also add custom canvas components to a custom page by authoring your own low code components inside a canvas library and reuse them across single or multiple model-driven applications. Additionally custom page also has support for recently announced general availability of Power Apps component framework for canvas apps.  This framework enables 1st and 3rd party professional developers to extend the custom page seamlessly with pro-dev controls. Code components for custom pages are able to take advantage of model app runtime and hence provide support for additional framework APIs like Web API, Navigation etc which are not yet supported on stand alone canvas apps. For more details please see add code components to a custom page for your model-driven app. Control on the custom page use the default Unified Client theme colors to ensure  consistent experience when running the new converged Power Apps app.

The custom page is solution aware component that appears in the solution with type Page.  It can be created from the New menu of a solution or from within the Power Apps app designer.  A custom page can be included in one or more Power Apps apps and one or more solutions.  Moving from one environment to another is handled through the normal export and import process.  Importing a solution with the model-drive app and linked custom pages will publish both so it is ready to run.

Public preview for custom pages is a big first step in converging model and canvas which starts a journey that we can continue to build on.  More information is available through Overview of custom pages for model-driven apps.  The feature rollout is already in progress for early stations and will soon be available in additional regions.

We look forward to your feedback on making and running custom pages! Let us know your thoughts and suggestions within the community post Feedback on Custom Page public preview.

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Makers can enable Power BI embedding through a solution dialog that allows referencing the workspace that the report or dashboard is uploaded to.

To help with ALM for multiple environments, we support Environment Variables to allow each environment to reference a different workspace.  This allows configuring each environment using the standard current and default values.

This Power BI embedding in Power Apps builds on the existing capability to add a Power BI dashboard as a user dashboard.  However that is limited to the user adding or other users it is shared with.  By enabling through the system dashboard, rich data visualizations can be easily made available to all users within an environment.

Learn more at Create or edit Power BI embedded page.

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New data sources pane

The sidebar now includes a Data sources panel icon and pane which replaces many of the data panels that open over the right edge of the canvas area.  This panel allows adding data sources into the app or creating new connections without inserting a control.  It provides an easy way to see the data source in your app and perform actions like refresh or delete.

Entity view selection

When a Common Data Service entity is used as a data source, a view can be selected in the property pane and the Items property is updated.  The property pane will update the Items property to add the Filter function taking the the view name as the filter.

A big benefit of working with Common Data Service views is that the query for the view is run on the server – not locally on your device.  This means you avoid delegation issues with the core query.  In addition you have the flexibility to append other filter conditions that are delegated if supported.  For more advanced queries just nest the Filter function within other functions using the formula bar.

Combo box data source selection

The combo box control also supports the data source selection call out and view selection. This is the same as the Gallery and Data Table controls.

Change Common Data Service environment

Data source selection call out can change the environment to get a Common Data Service entity from another environment.  This works within the same tenant.  The Current environment is app’s environment and changes when the app moves to a new environment.  Other environment selections stay the same when the app moves to a new environment.

Improved data field defaulting

When a Gallery or Data Table control is bound to an entity, the fields are defaulted using the Default Public View.  This improves the initial fields used and can be controlled by editing that view.  Field defaulting only happens when the entity is set as the data source and after that fields are managed with the data panel.

Other improvements

In addition to the general experience improvements, this feature provides significant performance and stability improvements for working with the Common Data Service.   Customers will find that all of the functionality enabled with the “Relational data, option sets, and other new features for Common Data Service” preview switch is also enabled with this new feature along with additional bug fixes and improvements.

Lookup to second level tables

Currently this feature enables lookup to first level tables.  For instance, if you have the Accounts table with a lookup to Contacts (Primary Contact is the relation name).  This would work with

Accounts.'Primary Contact'.'Full Name'

If you want to access the Created By field which is a lookup to User, this formula will not work.

Accounts.'Primary Contact'.'Created By'.'Full Name'

Instead you will need to use a formula like the following:

Lookup(Contacts, Contact = ThisItem.'Primary Contact' .Contact).'Created By'.'Full Name'

Upgrade your app

This feature switch is now “on” by default for all new applications.  Note that if you turn on this feature switch for an existing canvas app that uses Common Data Service, we will not automatically upgrade your entity data sources.  To upgrade your app with existing entity data sources:

1. Remove your existing Common Data Service data sources
2. Turn on this switch (“Improve data source experience and Common Data Service views”)
3. Re-add your Common Data Service data sources using the new data source selection experience

Try out these the preview feature and its enhancement and give us feedback at PowerApps Community.

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