What’s new since preview?

While the most impactful improvements are better reliability, performance, and usability, there’s many new and noteworthy capabilities.

• Disconnect from Git – You can easily disconnect your environment or solution from Git and reconnect to a different source code location or branch.
• Support for existing solutions and large solutions – These critical preview limitations are now addressed. Connect existing solutions in your environment and you won’t be limited by solution size when committing large solutions.
• Public API’s – Now you can interact with Git using Dataverse API’s and build automations to scale the process.
• Support for more object types – most solution components are now supported and we’re incrementally onboarding the remaining legacy components / objects.
• Delete when pulling – when an object is deleted in Git, you now have the option to delete it from your environment or remove from your solution on pull.
• Better user experiences – Git integration is available in Copilot studio (and other maker portals), with improved discoverability, usability, and columns showing who changed what and when.
• Geo availability – Git integration is GA in all public geos and coming soon to sovereign clouds.

Source Control your Canvas Apps

Dataverse Git Integration is the new standard, replacing the experimental Power Apps integration. If you’re still using the old setup, we recommend migrating to the new integration as soon as possible.

With Dataverse Git Integration, you get complete visibility into your source code – no conversions required. You can use pa.yaml files in your repository to manage source control and review changes made in Power Apps Studio, all without the clutter of noisy diffs.

The schema for canvas source code (pa.yaml files) is now published, and no breaking changes are anticipated moving forward.

What’s next?

General availability doesn’t indicate a feature is done – or that it’s without limitations. Rather, Microsoft is confident in the quality for production use. It’s important to evaluate whether current functionality meets your requirements.

Next up is unlocking code-first development. Soon, developer tools will support the new (YAML) format, which is easier to read, understand, and merge. Modern developers can then build and deploy solutions and code from source control with less effort and without prior domain knowledge.

For canvas apps, we will also start to enable (as preview) the capability to edit pa.yaml files directly in your repository.

We’ll be showing code-first demos at Microsoft Build next month, plus many other new and exciting Managed Operations and other capabilities.

Learn more

Setup Git Integration

FAQ

Source Code files for canvas apps

The post Git Integration is Generally Available appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

• Smart paste now supports images – paste screenshots or handwritten content, and AI will extract relevant details for your form.
• Expanded file support – add .txt, .csv, .docx, .pdf, or image files (.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .bmp) to get inline AI suggestions.
• New form fill toolbar – review and manage AI-generated suggestions more easily.
• More control for makers – makers can now specify fields that should always require human input, ensuring AI assistance focuses on where it’s most valuable.

Let’s explore how these updates can help you work smarter.

Paste images and extract insights

Have a handwritten note, a scanned document, or a screenshot with key data? Now, smart paste can extract text and tables from images and suggest relevant field values—no retyping needed.

Where this helps:

• Extract invoice details from a receipt image to log expenses effortlessly.
• Update inventory records by pasting images of handwritten stock counts or delivery receipts.
• Convert maintenance logs or inspection checklists from images into structured form data.
• Digitize whiteboard notes from a sales planning session to update an opportunity record.
• Capture contact details by pasting a scanned business card into a CRM form.

Smart paste can be enabled using the Smart paste setting in Power Platform admin center by going to Environments > [select an environment] > Settings > Product > Features.

Add files to fill forms

Adding a document makes data entry even easier. Simply select or drag and drop a supported file type—.txt, .csv, .docx, .pdf, or image files (.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .bmp)—and AI will intelligently extract key details to populate your form, reducing manual effort.

Files is only available when the new form fill toolbar experience is enabled, see how to enable both in the section below.

New form fill toolbar: manage suggestions with ease

We’ve made it easier than ever to see where AI-generated suggestions come from and manage them effortlessly. The new form fill toolbar provides:

• A clear view of all AI suggestions in the form.
• Sources of suggestions, helping you understand where the data is coming from.
• A real-time count of open suggestions, allowing you to track pending reviews at a glance.

The new form fill toolbar and files capabilities can be enabled using the Form fill assist toolbar setting in Power Apps app designer when editing a model-driven app.

More control for makers: define where AI assists

While AI form fill assistance speeds up data entry, some fields should always require human input. Based on your feedback, we’ve introduced a way for makers to opt specific fields out of AI suggestions by configuring the Allow form fill assistance setting in column properties.

Try it out and share your feedback!

These enhancements are available in production today—so try pasting images, uploading files, and using the new toolbar to streamline your workflow. And as always, we’d love to hear how these updates help you—share your feedback and help shape what’s next for AI data entry!

Learn more at Use Copilot’s form fill assistance feature in model-driven apps – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn

¹ Internal Microsoft testing conducted in November 2024 on sample of 22 subjects.

The post Paste images and add files to quickly fill forms with AI appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Summary: Welcome to the Power Apps monthly feature update! We will use this blog to share what’s new in Power Apps. A summary of product, community, and learning updates from throughout the month so you can access it in one easy place.

AI-powered Development

Code View is now Generally Available

We are thrilled to announce that Code View in Power Apps Studio is now generally available! This milestone marks a significant step forward in our mission to enable citizen developers and professional developers to collaborate seamlessly, enabling everyone to build faster.

Key features introduced during the public preview:

Sharing: Makers can use code snippets to share their work using Microsoft Teams, email or forums, facilitating collaboration and reuse.

Code View: Developers can view the code for each control, making it easier to understand the app’s functionality

Copy and paste: The ability to copy any control within Studio as YAML + Power Fx code and paste it into a code editor for modifications.

Elevate your Power Platform development experience with Power CAT Tools

We are thrilled to announce the launch of Power CAT Tools, a comprehensive suite of features designed to enhance your development experience within the Power Platform. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just getting started, Power CAT Tools community offering provides valuable resources to help you build robust and efficient solutions with greater ease.

Power CAT Tools feature suite is designed to streamline your development workflow with capabilities that automate essential tasks and provide insightful guidance based on real-world best practices. This powerful suite of features includes:

• Code Review Tool: Automatically reviews your code to ensure adherence to best practices and standards, helping you identify and rectify potential issues early in the development process.
• AI generated solution documentation: Leverages artificial intelligence to create detailed and accurate documentation for your solutions, saving you time and effort.
• Risk assessment: Evaluates potential risks in your solutions and provides actionable mitigation strategies, ensuring the stability and security of your projects.
• API playground: Offers a Postman-like experience for testing and exploring APIs, simplifying the process of integrating and debugging APIs.
• Plugin monitor: Monitors and analyzes plugin performance and behavior, providing insights to help you optimize your plugins for better efficiency and reliability.

The Power CAT Tools solution is a distinctive community offering provided by the Microsoft Power CAT team, designed to elevate your development experience beyond what the native platform offers. Built on the low code platform itself, this open-source repository ensures transparency and offers unique insights into development best practices that are not available natively. The tools suite helps build robust and efficient solutions by making it easier for makers to adhere to best practices.

Create and Use Power Fx Functions Public preview

We are introducing the public preview for Create and Use Power Fx Functions in Power Platform. This preview will streamline the process for creating business logic as Power Fx functions to be used in your Canvas apps and Power Automate.

Previously, you were able to create business logic using the low-code instant plugins or using custom classes compiled in .Net framework. With the new public preview, you will now be able to create this business logic as Power Fx functions with minimal or no coding required on the Power Apps portal.

Functions are customized business logic that run a set of specific commands within Dataverse. These are server-side business logic and can be reused across multiple apps and solutions within Power Apps. This allows you to standardize business logic to promote consistency and scalability across your organization.

Enterprise-Grade Governance

Govern Critical AI Settings and More with Environment Groups

What’s new: we’re excited to introduce 3 powerful new rules for Environment Groups, designed to give tenant administrators greater control over critical environment settings, including those for Copilots and Agents. You can now configure at scale:

AI prompts

AI-powered Copilot features (preview)

Power Apps component framework for canvas apps

Why this matters: as the adoption of Power Platform soars in your company, maintaining control over key environment settings becomes increasingly crucial. These new rules allow IT to apply settings in bulk across many environments, locking them at the environment level to prevent unauthorized changes by administrators of individual environments. This approach empowers IT to delegate administration and governance to other teams without relinquishing control over key environment settings.

How the new rules work: the new rules function exactly like existing ones. When you publish a rule, it is applied uniformly to all environments within the group. These rules also lock the settings at the environment level, preventing administrators of individual environments from modifying them.

Next steps: these additional rules are automatically available within each environment group and tenant administrators must explicitly configure these rules for them to take effect. And the excitement doesn’t stop here—more rules will be added periodically, so stay tuned for continuous enhancements!

Intelligent Apps

Introducing Visualize with Copilot

Every business decision starts with insights backed by data. However, trying to spot trends while staring at rows and columns of data isn’t exactly the most efficient way to get insights. Manually exporting data, creating charts and adjusting filters can be time-consuming and frustrating, creating spreadsheet fatigue. What if you could skip all this busy work and get straight to insights? We’re introducing Visualize with Copilot, a new capability that instantly transforms your business data into a meaningful interactive chart. Whether you’re tracking sales or driving customer service excellence or managing inventory, Visualize with Copilot can help you see the bigger picture instantly.

Learning and Documentation Updates

Powerful Devs Conference – Available Now On-Demand!

The wait is over! Powerful Devs Conference is now available to stream on demand, bringing you the best insights on Power Platform for enterprise app development. Whether you’re looking for expert guidance or real-world demos, you can catch it all at your convenience.

Training Paths and Labs

Updated Training

• Create a Pipeline in Microsoft Power Platform – Training
• Deploy a Microsoft Power Platform Solution By Using a Service Principal – Training
• Use Dataverse choice columns with formulas – Training
• Customize the command bar – Training
• Design a Power Apps canvas app by using Figma – Training
• Get started with model-driven apps in Power Apps – Training

Documentation Updates

The post What’s new in Power Apps: February 2025 Feature Update appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Introducing Visualize with Copilot

Data exploration is a task that can involve manual steps like exporting data to a spreadsheet, creating reports, and fiddling with filters. But, with Power Apps’ data exploration agent, you can now visualize your view as a chart to spot trends, patterns and relations your data with just one click. Every visualization comes with an AI-generated title and clear reasoning, giving you full context of the thought process.

Effortlessly refine AI-generated chart to fit your needs

The data exploration agent works for you – that’s why we’ve made it easier than ever to refine and personalize the AI-generated visualization with just a few clicks. You can change the chart type or adjust columns or modify aggregation to tailor the chart AI-generated according to your preferences.

Interact with visuals that stay in sync with your data

Data exploration is most powerful when the visualization is interactive, supporting drill downs. With the AI-generated visualization dynamically linked to the grid, you can interact with your data without any friction. Select a chart segment to filter the grid, refine your focus, and analyze data in real time. Together with natural language filtering, just type what you need, and watch as the data exploration agent filters your grid and updates your chart turning raw data into meaningful insights.

Use Visualize with Copilot in your model-driven apps by updating the following two feature settings in Power Platform Admin Center.

1. Under Natural language grid and view search, set Enable this feature to All users immediately.
2. Set Allow AI to generate charts to visualize the data in a view to On.

Get started with Visualize

Visit our documentation to learn more and get started today. This feature, deploying with build 9.2.25013, is currently rolling out and is expected in all regions worldwide by the end of this month. We’d love to hear your feedback on this experience, please let us know in our community forum post.

The post Introducing Visualize with Copilot (preview) appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Summary: Welcome to the Power Apps monthly feature update! We will use this blog to share what’s new in Power Apps. A summary of product, community, and learning updates from throughout the month so you can access it in one easy place.

AI-powered Development

Check out what’s new in this edition of Power Apps Pulse!

Your productivity is sure to get a boost from these updates! We’re excited to share the new powerful and personalizable Power Platform Admin Center, experience added efficiency and expanded capabilities in the data workspace, and get hands on with the brand new Plan Designer!

Plan designer is now available in Public Preview

The Power Apps team is excited to announce the plan designer is now in public preview and available for makers worldwide! With the plan designer, it is now easier than ever to transform a simple business requirement into a complete, end-to-end low-code solution in minutes. It enables makers with Copilot and a team of agents, with rich domain skills across solution architecture, data modeling, and user experience generation. Designed to revolutionize the way you build business solutions, the plan designer empowers you to build intelligent, impactful solutions efficiently and effectively.

Work with existing tables in data workspace

You can now visualize and manage existing tables in the ERD table designer, data workspace. Instead of starting from scratch, you can use your existing tables to build more robust data models. Once you’ve assembled your tables, the enhanced ERD view will allow you to review your existing and new tables side-by-side more easily.

User defined functions, user defined types, and enhanced component properties

Power Fx formula updates to make reuse and maintenance easier than ever:

Enhanced component properties (ECPs) have moved to preview. With any remaining feedback, we plan to take them to general availability in the next few months. ECPs enable the ability to share logic across apps through a component library.

User defined functions (UDFs) can now include behavior functions with side effects, such as Set, Collect, Reset, and Notify. Declarative is always best, so use this facility only when you must. When you do, wrap the formula in { } and you can then use the ; (or ;;) chaining operator.

User defined types (UDTs) enable tables and records to be passed in and out of UDFs. UDTs also enable bulk conversion of JSON untyped objects to typed objects, particularly useful with web APIs. Welcome the new Type and RecordOf functions, an expanded role for the AsType and IsType functions, and a new parameter for ParseJSON.

Enterprise-Grade Governance

SQL Server environment variables are now available for Power Apps

Support for Entra SQL Server environment variables is now available.  They save you time moving your solutions from one environment to another.  For example, moving your solution from an environment used for dev or test to a different environment used for test or production.

You can either manually create environment variables in your solution or set a switch in your app to auto-create them for you when you add a data source to your app while in your solution. Note that this feature is specifically for Entra. Power Apps with shared connections (e.g., SQL Auth) continue with connection references.

Unlock Seamless Data Integration with PostgreSQL as a Virtual Connector Provider

In today’s fast-evolving data landscape, seamlessly integrating and relating data across multiple sources is more crucial than ever. We are excited to announce the General Availability of PostgreSQL as a Virtual Connector Provider in Dataverse!

With this capability, you can now access real-time data from PostgreSQL without duplicating it within Dataverse. Makers can virtualize PostgreSQL data, enabling a unified data experience that combines native Dataverse and PostgreSQL data. This feature empowers users to make informed business decisions with a comprehensive, connected data view.

This is particularly beneficial for organizations managing large volumes of critical data in PostgreSQL while wanting to leverage Dataverse’s advanced data relationship and visualization capabilities. Experience the power of a seamless, integrated data environment—without the complexity of data duplication!

Manage system views with security role Public preview  

We are announcing the Manage system views with security role preview.

Previously, the list of system views shown on each table form list is fixed for all users who have access to the table. The list of system views can be long for some of your tables, and they might not be applicable to users based on their role. Now Administrators can manage which system views to show on the table form list based on the user’s security role assignment. 

Prevent data exfiltration with client app access control Public preview  

We are announcing the Public preview of the prevent data exfiltration by securing app access feature.   

How does this affect me?  

This feature will allow admins and makers to protect against data exfiltration by controlling what apps can be run in your Dataverse Environment. This feature will help to prevent malicious users from creating or using unapproved apps to export sensitive data from your environment.  

Admins and makers will be able to utilize the following features from the Power Platform admin portal:  

• Create a list of approved applications that can access an environment.  
• Utilize enforcement mode to ensure that only the approved applications can access your environment.  
• Utilize audit mode to review the current applications that are approved or denied access to your environment. 

Intelligent Apps

React and Fluent based virtual code components are now generally available

React and Fluent-based virtual code components were announced to be generally available for Model-driven and canvas apps . This feature allows customers and partners to leverage the Microsoft Power Apps platform libraries for React and Fluent, enabling the creation of a diverse set of code components without the need to package these libraries. Key benefits include unified consistent Fluent styling across multiple apps, improved performance by eliminating the need for isolated React trees and smaller control bundles, and simplified development by removing the need to include React or Fluent libraries in individual component bundles, streamlining the development process.

Unlock new possibilities by customizing Copilot chat in your apps with Copilot Studio (Preview)

Customization is crucial for organizations implementing AI solutions at scale. With Microsoft Power Apps and Copilot Studio, businesses can design tailored experiences for each app, boosting productivity and user satisfaction. We are excited to announce the public preview of Copilot chat extensibility for model-driven apps, allowing partners and customers to make in-app chat more context-aware and aligned with their unique needs. By leveraging Copilot Studio, you can enrich your Copilot chat experience with additional topics, knowledge sources, connectors, and custom prompts, ensuring a tailored and scalable AI assistant for each model-driven app.

Learning and Documentation Updates

Training Paths and Labs

Updated Training

• Extend a Pipeline in Microsoft Power Platform – Training | Microsoft Learn
• Set Up Pipeline Environments in Microsoft Power Platform – Training | Microsoft Learn
• Build a Power Apps canvas app for a real estate solution with data from Excel – Training | Microsoft Learn
• Create a machine ordering app with Power Apps – Online Workshop – Training | Microsoft Learn (Learning Path)
• Get started with Microsoft Dataverse for Teams – Training | Microsoft Learn

Documentation Updates

The post What’s new in Power Apps: January 2025 Feature Update appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Maker Deployment page

Makers can now view all their deployments in one place, regardless of solution or pipeline. If their deployment began from (or was deployed to) the current environment, they will be able to view the run history status of it. Failed Deployments and Active Deployments are highlighted in a convenient overview, so you don’t have to go looking for them either!

In addition to deployment visibility, we’ve included a Get started section that will evolve over time. For now, it will link to documentation to help a maker begin their journey to healthy application lifecycle management (ALM).

To further improve understanding of what healthy ALM looks like, we’ll soon be adding recommendations, where makers are alerted to resolve any potentially unhealthy ALM-related behavior, such as housing high-use apps outside of a solution.

Admin Deployment page

The Deployment page in the new admin center provides a streamlined experience to help administrators learn about, setup, and operation best-in-class ALM. The initial preview provides a central location to view all deployments in the tenant, approve deployment requests, and troubleshoot failures.

Select a pipelines host from the picker to see all the pipelines and deployment history managed with that host. A dedicated Failed deployments view helps admins quickly identify and troubleshoot failures and trending issues.

Admins can approve or reject deployment requests assigned to them. First setup Delegated deployments with service principals as the recommended way to deploy securely.

It is important that admins review changes in the solution and the sharing request. With the help of Copilot-generated deployment notes visible in the request, this becomes easier, but if you want a more granular look, be sure to set up Source control integration and link the repository to the approval.

Managed Operations

The Deployment pages are an offering of Managed Operations, allowing all who make or administrate to gain further insight into their Application Lifecycle Management to ensure that business solutions are reliable and performant in production. Aside from just deployment pipelines, these maker and admin experiences will evolve over the coming months and include many more Managed Operations intersections to take advantage of. So, stay tuned for more updates and please leave your feedback below!

Learn more

Admin Deployment page

Maker Deployment page

Managed Operations

New Power Platform Admin Center

The post Introducing Maker and Admin Deployment Pages appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

We are thrilled to announce the public preview of Copilot chat extensibility for model-driven apps. This new capability empowers partners and customers to tailor and extend the in-app chat, making it more context-aware and more aligned with organization’s unique needs.

By harnessing the capabilities of Copilot Studio, you can incorporate additional topics, knowledge sources, connectors, custom prompt guide and more, greatly enriching your Copilot chat experience. A dedicated agent is provisioned when customizing the Copilot chat to ensure that each model-driven app has a tailored and context-specific AI assistant. This extensibility approach ensures that your AI solutions are not only more pertinent but also scalable in tackling your unique business challenges.

It’s easy to get started. Go to https://make.preview.powerapps.com in any early release environment. Open the model-driven app whose Copilot chat you want to customize. Click on the ellipsis (…) in the left navigation bar and then select Configure in Copilot Studio. You will be directed to Copilot Studio with the appropriate agent ready for customization.

The animation below demonstrates a use case where, with just a few clicks, makers can enhance Copilot chat capabilities to answer any question from the Power Apps official documentation. Additionally, they can easily customize the Copilot UI to assist end users through prompt guides.

For more information about the capabilities being made available with this release, please refer to the Power Apps documentation under Customize Copilot chat using Copilot Studio. Please use Power Apps Pro Dev forum or reach out via LinkedIn for any feedback or questions.

The expansive potential of extensibility is truly exciting. We look forward to this journey with our partners and customers, as we incrementally roll out additional features.

Note: This feature is currently available in early release environments and will be gradually rolled out to all makers over the coming weeks.

The post Unlock new possibilities by customizing Copilot chat in your apps with Copilot Studio (Preview) appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Summary: Welcome to the Power Apps monthly feature update! We will use this blog to share what’s new in Power Apps. A summary of product, community, and learning updates from throughout the month so you can access it in one easy place. This month we’re excited to shared a simplified approach to writing Power Fx with Copilot, Performance improvements to the Canvas designer, Studio visual updates, and smart paste for model driven apps!

AI-powered Development

Check out some of our latest improvements in this month’s Power Apps Pulse!

This month, it’s all about adding that shine! Power Apps Studio has a fresh new look, we’ve given you more ways to add web resources, and now you can customize your modern themes to get exactly the right color at each step of the ramp. Get in the know with this month’s Power Apps Pulse!

Power Apps Formula Creation with Natural Language Input

The latest update to the Power Apps formula bar introduces a new “Create a Formula” option, allowing users to craft Power Fx formulas using natural language. This innovation simplifies the formula creation process, making it more accessible for users of all skill levels. Enable this preview feature in your app settings, and then by typing a desired action in plain language, the AI suggests the appropriate formula, which can then be applied to the selected control and property.

Additionally, the update enhances the formula explanation capability, enabling users to select a portion of a formula and receive a plain language explanation of the selected part. This is particularly beneficial for understanding long or complex formulas. The Copilot in the formula bar now supports more languages, broadening the feature’s accessibility.

Modernization and visual update of the Power Apps Studio

In the effort to provide better out of the box accessibility, performance, and alignment with Microsoft product set we’ve updated the Power Apps Studio across both the canvas and model driven designers. This milestone creates a modern look and feel, as well as improved coherence throughout the Power Apps authoring experience for makers working across multiple app types, the plan designer and data workspace. No action is required to see the new updates, rolling out now.

Improved Studio performance with the new analysis engine

While you edit or play your app in Studio, a continuous analysis of app elements and their interactions is happening in the background. For example, this allows us to know that if you change an expression `Set(x, 5)` to `Set(x, {Lorem: “Ipsum”})` that the type of `x` is now a record instead of a number, and any references in your app to `x + 1` will therefore be marked as erroneous.  

To improve performance and reliability while building apps, we released the updated analysis engine, Generally Available and will be on by default for all Canvas apps, starting February 2025. To migrate ahead of this, go to app settings, and turn on ‘New analysis engine’ setting under Updates > New.

Performance Boost: The New Analysis Engine optimizes how we approach that analysis, complex Canvas apps that previously took minutes to load should now load much faster. Note that this is an authoring load time and edit time performance improvement and has no impact on app run time performance.

Accuracy: The New Analysis Engine enables more accurate determination of variable and collection types, reliably identifies the columns used in your app, and enhances Data Source call performance in published apps.

Intelligent Apps

New smart paste available in your model-driven apps

Smart paste is designed to make form-filling in model-driven apps as simple as copy & paste. Now you can effortlessly fill forms based on the information you already have, transforming the tedious task of filling forms with a smarter, faster, and more intuitive way to handle forms. We are also introducing citations so you can easily identify where suggestions come from, and expanding form fill assistance (including the new smart paste) to quick create forms.  

To learn more, read the blog at New smart paste makes filling forms as easy as copy & paste – Microsoft Power Platform Blog and documentation at Use Copilot’s form fill assistance feature in model-driven apps – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn.  

Learning and Documentation Updates

Training Paths and Labs

Updated Training

• Create a Dataverse table for the machine ordering app – Online workshop – Training
• Integrate a Power Apps app with Power Automate – Online Workshop – Training
• Create a model-driven Power Apps app for machine ordering – Online Workshop – Training

Documentation Updates

The post What’s new in Power Apps: November 2024 Feature Update appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

All of these announcements are entering preview by December 2024: 

• Plan designer is ready for preview. In September 2024, we opened early access for select users to a new AI-powered workspace for turning requirements into a robust Microsoft Power Platform solution—including user stories, data model, apps, and automations. In the next weeks, we’re expanding access to a full preview. Designing a solution plan with Microsoft Copilot will make it easier than ever to upgrade existing apps and processes into intelligent applications.   

• Makers can generate custom AI agents directly from Power Apps using the knowledge, logic, and actions built into existing apps to jumpstart the building of a Microsoft Copilot Studio agent. These custom agents will get work done on behalf of employees, which can reduce repetitive work, supercharge individual productivity, and drive overall business efficiency.¹ Makers will also be able to tune the out-of-the-box agents in Power Apps with custom knowledge and actions using Copilot Studio.

• Introducing managed security and managed operations in Power Platform. Just as we have simplified governance with managed environments, we are now making it easier than ever for organizations to apply advanced security to their Power Platform solutions and manage mission-critical workloads at scale. A completely redesigned admin experience now features focused capabilities for managing security, deploying solutions, monitoring telemetry, and more. 

Together, these advancements represent a major disruption to the traditional “build versus buy” tradeoff of business apps. By generating intelligent applications on a fully managed platform, technology leaders can get the best of both worlds—solutions that are purpose-built for exactly their needs but without the long-term costs of maintaining full stack projects. Forrester’s John Bratincevic argues that this is the beginning of a substantial shift.

“AI-powered enterprises will “build” software instead of “buy” it—and many applications in enterprise portfolios will consolidate onto low-code AppGen platforms.”

John Bratincevic, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Let’s dig into the details of how Power Platform is leading the AppGen transition with new capabilities rolling out now.

Build enterprise solutions, start with a plan 

In September 2024, we opened early access to a new Copilot-powered workspace in Power Apps that enables makers to design and generate a robust solution to nearly any business problem. With highly positive feedback from customers, we’re excited to bring the plan designer capabilities to preview.

Now developers will be able to start working on a business problem in an iterative process with Copilot, and keep better connection between the business requirements and the solution they are building.

The entire process of building a plan and generating solution components is iterative and collaborative. At any point makers can make changes to defined user roles, requirements, data model, or the proposed user experiences. The plan will live alongside the solution, changing with it and ensuring the understanding of the problem and requirements persist.  

The new plan designer experience will make a powerful tool for creating well-structured, adaptable, and collaborative solutions using Power Apps and Power Platform. 

Generate custom AI agents from existing app capabilities  

Makers can now easily generate agents from existing apps using the logic, knowledge, and actions built into those apps. Makers can leverage Copilot Studio capabilities directly in Power Apps to build custom agents that get work done on behalf of employees. Once these agents are deployed, users can review activity, manage complex cases, and focus on higher value work.

For instance, in a reimbursement management app, a maker takes existing process—categorization, compliance check, or rejecting requests—and builds an agent to execute these tasks. Makers can start from an existing app, and agent builder will suggest actions based on the app’s construction, like activating flows or running Power Fx functions. This significantly shortens the time to get to user value and makers can continue expanding agent functionality in Copilot Studio. For example, they can add the ability to process receipt images using the pre-built prompt with GPT-4o. 

For users, the benefits are clear: instead of requiring each request to be reviewed by a person, an agent handles it. Makers can also allow users to see which rows have been recently modified by the agent and view previous agent sessions. This transparency ensures that users can intervene when necessary, maintaining visibility and control. This functionality will be available to makers starting next month.

Improved in-app agents for data entry and summaries 

In addition to generating new custom agents, we’re also improving the out-of-the-box agents that end users leverage within Power Apps to get work done more efficiently.

Data entry is one of the tasks that many people consider tedious, and it’s no surprise that the Power Apps data entry agent, which helps users fill out forms, is highly valued by customers. At Power Platform Community Conference 2024, we announced the ability to copy text and let AI suggest form inputs from the clipboard. In a study with information workers, this Copilot assistance enabled 29% faster form filling, with 95% preferring it over manual entry.² Now, users in model-driven apps can also directly add an email or file and get field suggestions from them. The new context control lets users see what data is used to predict fields, giving them more control. In canvas apps, entering long text input with Copilot now allows for custom prompts and presents multiple options to choose from—just like people are used to from Microsoft Word.

Quickly find what you need and understand a summary of complex records. Searching, sorting, and filtering of records using natural language with the help of the Power Apps data exploration agent is now available to all users in preview. And to give users easy insights, makers can add custom AI summaries to apps with a summary card—the performance of which they can review in the monitoring page.   

Copilot chat in apps can also now be customized—starting from the app designer, makers can open Copilot Studio, provision an agent responsible for the app chat experience and add new topics, knowledge grounding, domain-specific glossaries, and actions. A customized chat agent is then ready to help users with more relevant and helpful answers. 

Introducing managed security and managed operations 

In 2022, we introduced managed environments, a suite of governance capabilities that brought more visibility and control to administrators of Power Platform. We see every day how these capabilities allow IT teams to efficiently govern hundreds of thousands of assets, making well-governed use of Power Platform available to millions of users around the world, including for customers like Deutsche Bahn, Lerøy, and Lumen. 

Today, we take another step forward. We know that large-scale app modernization and the transition of existing business processes onto intelligent solutions in Power Platform and Dynamics 365 will require even more than great governance. That’s why we’re introducing two additional, closely related capabilities: managed security and managed operations. This means that Power Apps, Power Automate, Microsoft Copilot Studio, and Dynamics 365 are now delivered on a fully managed platform. 

• Managed governance helps organize and administer professional and citizen development with more visibility, more control, and less effort on the part of central teams.  

• [New] Managed security makes it easier than ever before to apply advanced threat protections across the platform, helping security professionals assess and improve the security footprint of their business applications. Managed security includes industry-leading capabilities for proactive threat detection, access management, compliance, and more. Learn more in the Power Platform security and governance blog. 

• [New] Managed operations makes it easier for advanced development teams to deploy and operate mission critical applications to maximize an organization’s productivity. This suite of capabilities is designed to safeguard and tune your production workloads with the ability to safely deploy updates, detect service degradations, and provide recommendations to improve production health. Learn more about managed operations.  

All managed capabilities are benefits of existing licenses and surface directly in existing products. This includes the Power Platform admin center (PPAC), which has now been completely re-imagined around a set of new highly productive workspaces for specific tasks—including reviewing inventory in managed environments, configuring and monitoring managed security, and leveraging managed operations capabilities for deployment and oversight.

These workspaces will also now be visible in focused ways in maker experiences. For example, developers will be able to observe and improve on the active usage of their applications in the monitoring workspace. They will see apps with low app open success rates and drill down on reasons why users can’t open the app, or they can see high latencies for showing the initial screen or data and understand what’s contributing to the problem. This will help makers find and address apps that require attention for improved performance.  

Today, we’re also making an important clarification to the licensing requirements for managed environments. Managed platform capabilities are a benefit of existing premium licenses, and any environment with managed features requires the users of any of the assets in that environment to have a premium license. We’re clarifying that as long as each individual user in the environment is appropriately licensed with at least one premium license—Power Apps or Power Automate—managed features will work and customers will be compliant.

Learn all about the updates to governance, scale, security, and data management capabilities in the breakout session Enterprise Scale: The Future of Power Platform Governance + Security. 

Apps that help users with line-of-business tasks 

Power Platform boasts a massive 1,400+ connector ecosystem, many of those connecting to the line-of-business data, giving options to business leaders and teams to build functionality they are missing to run business smoothly.  

We’re happy to announce two advances for building line-of-business apps. First, the SAP OData connector is now generally available, allowing access to SAP’s modern product stack, improving productivity and innovation with Power Platform’s low-code capabilities. Professionals building solutions over SAP will also benefit from a new whitepaper dedicated to architecting of SAP extensions.

And second, new bi-directional integration between Microsoft Dataverse and Snowflake allows makers to build end-to-end apps that act directly on Snowflake data, including the ability to create Dataverse virtual tables from Snowflake data. Coming soon, Dataverse data will be accessible in Snowflake so that customer service teams using Snowflake can leverage powerful analytics over their data in Dataverse, gaining deeper insights into customer behavior and enhancing service quality.

Join us at Microsoft Ignite 2024

Power Apps solves thousands of problems for tens of thousands of customers in almost every industry. With agents working alongside users, greater productivity from AI in apps, and expanded enterprise-grade tools for management at scale, Power Apps is the place for organizations to drive tangible AI impact. 

Join us at Microsoft Ignite 2024 to see the newest announcements firsthand and understand how you can leverage them. Embrace the era of Copilot-first development and accelerate your company transformation into the age of AI with Power Apps. 

Microsoft Ignite 2024

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¹ New autonomous agents scale your team like never before.

² Internal Microsoft testing conducted in November 2024 on sample of 22 subjects.

The post Intelligent apps: Now created with a plan, optimized with agents, and scaled on a fully managed platform appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

It just takes a few seconds to connect your Dataverse environment to Git. You can connect and use Git integration within Power Apps, Microsoft Copilot Studio, Power Automate, and Power Pages. You’ll also need access to an Azure DevOps Git repository.

Rollout is in-progress. Git integration is currently available in public geos outside the US. Your environment must be enabled for early access and accessed at https://make.preview.powerapps.com.

As the team develops, Dataverse tracks everyone’s changes. When ready, commit your changes to a branch in the connected Azure DevOps Git repository. A commit link is provided to view the changes within the repository and compare diffs. You’ll notice solutions and solution objects are now stored in human readable formats in the repo.

Professional developers can work in source control while others work in one or more environments. It’s easy to pull others’ changes into other development environments which are connected to the same source code location. This allows team members to build without others editing in their environment and share changes once they’re ready. Connect multiple development environments using the same repo, branch, and folder. Then, in each environment create or import an unmanaged solution with the same name and publisher.

When committing and pulling changes, conflicts may be detected – meaning someone else made conflicting changes to the same object. You’ll need to choose whether to keep the version that’s in your environment or bring the version from source control into your environment. You can also revert changes in the repository, then pull the prior version into your environment.

When the team is ready to deploy to test or production, you can use Pipelines in Power Platform for the release. Building and deploying using developer tools isn’t available yet for this new format.

We hope you enjoy the preview. There are many current limitations and you shouldn’t use this feature in environments or Git folders where you’re developing production solutions. Please leave your feedback below, in the community forums, on social media, or another outlet of choice. We look forward to hearing what you’d like to see prioritized next.

Learn more

Overview of Power Platform Git integration

Setup Git integration

The post Introducing Git Integration in Power Platform (preview) appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.