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.

This update and other data workspace features are now available in 20 languages worldwide. These include English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified), Czech, Finnish, Greek, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Russian, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish.

For more information about the availability of data workspace, see Create and edit tables using Power Apps.

Build data model with existing tables

You can now add existing tables to your workspace either manually or with Copilot recommendations. Copilot will suggest the most relevant tables based on the set of tables currently in your workspace. Additionally, when working within a solution, you can also filter to show only tables in current solution, promoting better ALM practices.

Manage existing tables in the enhanced ERD view

The ERD view and interaction of data workspace have also been enhanced to streamline the management of your data model. You can now review column details about your tables, as well as to show and hide columns and relationships of your tables.

Limitations

While we are working on enabling a full editing experience of existing table within data workspace, currently you can only add existing tables to data workspace in read-only mode. To edit existing table, you will need to open the table in a new tab. This also means that you will not be able to create one-to-many relationships to existing table in the data workspace.

You can find more information about limitations of data workspace in this doc: Limitations using the table visual designer

Learn more about data workspace

• Create and edit tables using Power Apps – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
• Data Workspace is Now Generally Available! – Microsoft Power Platform Blog
• Work with complex data models in an ERD view assisted by Copilot – Microsoft Power Platform Blog

The post Work with existing tables in data workspace 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

Experience the latest innovations for AI transformation

Explore the event

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.

Introducing smart paste

Smart paste is the latest capability of Copilot form fill assistance for model-driven apps, designed to make the time-consuming and frustrating task of form filling easier. Imagine this: you have some text in an email, document, or note that you need to enter into a form. Instead of manually typing it all in, you can now simply copy the text to your clipboard. Without selecting any specific field, just click the smart paste button or use the standard paste shortcut (CTRL+V or CMD+V). Copilot will reason over the form and the pasted text to suggested what text could be used to fill specific fields, and provides suggestions inline in the form. You can review and accept the suggestions that work for you—as always, nothing gets saved until you confirm. Ignoring suggestions will automatically discard it, and we are also introducing a new capability to clear all suggestions in the form.

And if you prefer the traditional way, you can still paste directly into a specific field by clicking on it first and then pasting.

You can use smart paste in your model-driven apps by updating the following two settings in Power Platform admin center, under Settings > Product > Features > AI form fill assistance section:

1. In the Enable this feature for field, make sure that All users immediately is selected.
2. Set Enable smart paste (Preview) to On.

Discover the suggestion source using new citations

We are introducing a new capability that adds even more transparency to Copilot’s suggestions. With the new citations, you can now learn more about the source of the suggestions provided by Copilot. These citations clearly identify the source, for example “Records you have updated recently” or “Clipboard”, giving you more clarity and confidence in the suggestions you receive.

Form fill assistance now available in quick create forms

Form fill assistance, including the new smart paste capability, is now available in quick create forms as well. This means you can enjoy the same time-saving benefits across even more of your forms.

Expansion to 21 languages

Form fill assistance in model-driven apps is rolling out in the following 21 languages in addition to English (US):

1. Arabic
2. Chinese (Simplified)
3. Czech
4. Danish
5. Dutch
6. Finnish
7. French
8. German
9. Greek
10. Hebrew
11. Italian
12. Japanese
13. Korean
14. Norwegian (Bokmål)
15. Polish
16. Portuguese (Brazil)
17. Russian
18. Spanish
19. Swedish
20. Thai
21. Turkish

We want to hear from you

Learn more about this feature in the documentation. We look forward to you trying out these capabilities in your model-driven apps and sharing your feedback through the form fill assistance survey in your model-driven app.

The post New smart paste makes filling forms as easy as copy & paste appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Extended language and geo availability

As part of general availability, data workspace is now accessible in 9 different languages worldwide, including English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese. This allows more users around the world to take advantage of the enhanced data experience in their native language. We’ve also ensured that this feature complies with geo availability policies. Thus, it can be accessed reliably across regions, expanding the feature’s global reach.

Latest GPT models for enhanced Copilot assistance

To elevate your experience, we are now using the latest GPT models, GPT 4o mini and GPT 4o, in this GA release. These models bring enhanced AI-driven interactions, enabling more precise data model generation, improved natural language processing, and greater overall performance in Copilot’s ability to understand and act on your requests.

Access data workspace from within your solution

One of the major new features in this GA release is the ability to access the data workspace directly from within your solutions. This improvement streamlines how tables and apps are created and managed. It ensures they adhere to your solution-specific standards and governance from the very beginning. When you access the workspace from your custom solution, any tables and apps created using the data workspace will automatically apply the correct solution prefixes. They will also reside directly within your solution, removing the need for time-consuming adjustments and manual alignment.

Data workspace is ready to create model-driven apps

In addition to its data modeling capabilities, data workspace now enables you to create not only modern canvas apps but also model-driven apps directly from the workspace, all based on the data model you build.

• Canvas apps offer a highly customizable, design-first experience where you have full control over the app’s layout, appearance, and functionality. You can use drag-and-drop controls to build your apps. You can then configure them with Power Fx, making it easier to tailor apps exactly to your business needs.
• Model-driven apps, on the other hand, provide a more structured approach to app development. The data model itself determines most of the layout and user interface. With the new functionality in the workspace, you can now create model-driven apps directly from the data model you’ve designed. Once your data relationships and entities are in place, you can automatically generate a model-driven app. The app will reflect the structure and complexity of your data, without needing to be configured from scratch.

These new capabilities streamline the app-building process significantly. Whether you want the creative freedom of canvas apps or the structured approach of model-driven apps, the workspace now supports both. This makes it easier than ever to create business apps tailored to your data model.

Learn more about data workspace

Looking Ahead: This GA release is just the beginning. We continuously meet Microsoft’s promise for Copilot availability and expand the product’s capabilities based on your needs. Stay tuned for future updates, including more language support, integrations, advanced customization options, and even smarter Copilot interactions.

Try It Now: The new data experience is now live and available to all users. We invite you to try it out, explore the possibilities, and let us know what you think. Access the documentation below to learn more.
Create new tables
Build apps through conversation

The post Data Workspace is Now Generally Available! appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

SAP OData Connector: Single Sign-On through Microsoft Azure API Management 

In addition to Basic, Anonymous, and API Key Authentication, the SAP OData Connector, currently in public preview, now also supports Single Sign-On available through Microsoft Azure API Management. It enables SAP Principal propagation with SAP services such as SAP Gateway, S/4HANA Cloud, RISE, and many more using Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) as the Identity Provider. At the core of the solution is the proven OAuth2SAMLBearer flow. Organizations can harness the benefits of low-code development while maintaining the protection and compliance of their SAP environments. This way, users of your low-code solutions spanning the Microsoft and SAP ecosystem are mapped from their Microsoft Entra ID identities to their named SAP backend users. SAP authorizations are fully retained.

In addition to that, solving this challenge on Azure API Management level enables scaling the approach to many different consumer solutions. No more re-inventing the wheel for every developer. 

Find the policy on the Azure API Management repository here. 

To learn more about OAuth2 through Azure API Management, please visit Enable SAP Principal Propagation and SSO for Microsoft Power Platform. 

During public preview, we encourage you to explore the ability to create Microsoft Power Automate cloud flows that access SAP data through the SAP OData connector using Entra ID and provide feedback.  

This capability is available in all regions of Microsoft Power Apps and Power Automate. 

SAP ERP connector: Microsoft Entra ID using certificates 

We are excited to announce the release of a new authorization type for the SAP ERP connector: certificate-based Single Sign-On (SSO). Building on existing support for Basic Authentication, Microsoft Entra ID via Kerberos, and Windows Authentication, this latest enhancement introduces Microsoft Entra ID using certificates, further strengthening security and aligning with industry standards and SAP recommendations. 

With this new authentication method, users can leverage their Microsoft Entra ID credentials to access sensitive data within their SAP systems, eliminating the need to remember multiple usernames and passwords. By employing X.509 certificates, we establish a trusted environment that securely verifies user identity, streamlining the login process while safeguarding sensitive information. 

A crucial feature of Microsoft Entra ID with certificate authentication is principal propagation, which ensures that business users engage with SAP systems using their unique SAP user credentials. This approach eliminates the need for a service principal to act on behalf of users, satisfying critical audit policy requirements. 

Certificate-based SSO enhances security and user convenience by utilizing digital certificates for authentication. Certificates offer a more robust form of verification compared to traditional username and password combinations, leveraging cryptographic techniques that are challenging to compromise. Each certificate is uniquely tied to the user and issued by a trusted authority, ensuring that only authorized individuals can access the system. Furthermore, certificates can be configured to expire automatically, adding an additional layer of security by guaranteeing that only current and valid credentials are utilized. 

Requirements for setup 

To implement certificate-based SSO, the following components are necessary: 

• On-premises data gateway: Microsoft Power Platform’s connection bridge software. 

• S-user account: Needed for SAP NCo and other supporting content/downloads. 

• SAP Connector for Microsoft .NET (NCo): Essential for establishing SAP connections. 

• SAP cryptography library: Install and verify in SAP and the Windows VM for the OPDG. 

• Public-key infrastructure solution: Required for managing certificates. 

• SAP GUI installed: Necessary for SAP configuration. 

• SAP administrator account: Required for administrative tasks. 

For more information and greater detail on the configuration of Microsoft Entra ID using Certificates please refer to the Microsoft Learn documentation. 

Microsoft Entra ID using Certificates—Data flow diagram

Starting August 14, 2024, this capability is available in all regions of Power Apps and Power Automate. 

Coming Soon (Q3/Q4 2024) 

SAP ERP Connector 

• RFC v3 Action: RFC v2 action is being deprecated in favor of the newer v3 version, which is currently in preview. It includes localization fix to handle numerals.  
• SAP Setup Assistant: The SAP Setup Assistant is designed to simplify the setup of connectivity between SAP and Microsoft Power Platform by guiding customers and partners through a step-by-step process. It provides instructions, automations, and testing for each necessary component along the way.  

RFC v3 and the SAP Setup Assistant will be generally available late third quarter of 2024. 

SAP OData Connector 

We have listened to your feedback during the public preview period and driven several enhancements to the connector. The SAP OData Connector will be generally available fourth quarter of 2024. At general availability, in addition to Single Sign-On support through Azure API Management, we will plan to support the following: 

• Microsoft Azure Virtual Network: Enable support for interacting with private virtual networks, eliminating the need for usage of gateway machines and software on Microsoft Azure. 

• Microsoft Power Fx: Native support for Power Fx queries providing the ability to generate OData queries using natural language. 
• Single Sign-On with the API Management capability of SAP Integration Suite: Allows SSO authentication to SAP OData services via OAuth flow. With SAP API Management being in the mix, customers can configure their APIM policies to match what they need for integrations and OAuth flows using SAP Business Technology Platform and can utilize the SAP Cloud Connector to connect to their SAP system. 

The future of SAP and Microsoft Power Platform

SAP and Microsoft Power Platform are areas of continued investment for Microsoft. To learn more, see these other useful resources: 

• SAP OData – Connectors | Microsoft Learn
• SAP ERP – Connectors | Microsoft Learn
• Microsoft Power Apps – Build Apps with AI | Microsoft
• SAP Procurement template for Microsoft Power Platform – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn  
• Connect Microsoft Power Platform to SAP on Azure – Training | Microsoft Learn  
• Install and configure an on-premises data gateway
• SAP Connector for Microsoft .NET

The post Announcing public preview of expanded Single Sign-On authentication options for SAP Connectors  appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Overview

Power Platform Managed Identity utilizes workload identities based on Federated Identity Credentials (FIC). You have the option to provision either a User Assigned Managed Identity (UAMI) or an Application Registration and configure Federated Identity Credentials (FIC). Application Registration enables you to apply Azure policies to Power Platform resources, such as Dataverse plug-ins.

You have two options for provisioning of managed identities:

1. User Assigned Managed Identity (UAMI): You can provision a User Assigned Managed Identity (UAMI) in Azure. Dataverse plug-ins can use this identity to connect to Azure resources that support managed identity. In this case, you cannot enforce Azure policies.
2. Application Registration: By provisioning the application in Microsoft Entra ID, you establish an application context and Identity that can connect to Azure resources supporting managed identity.  This allows you to apply Azure policies to the application, ensuring that Power Platform resources, such as Dataverse plug-ins, adhere to these policies.

You need to configure Federated Identity Credentials (FIC) in both options to enable managed identity.

Supported scenario

Currently, Power Platform Managed Identity supports Dataverse plug-ins. This means that Dataverse plug-ins can connect to Azure resources that support managed identities without the need to manage credentials. By leveraging managed identities, the connection process becomes more secure and streamlined, as it eliminates the risks associated with credential management. This feature ensures that Dataverse plug-ins can access necessary Azure resources seamlessly and securely, enhancing overall efficiency and security.

Today we support Managed Identity for Independent Software Vendor (ISV) plug-ins within the context of their environment. For example, an ISV plug-in installed in the environment, will have access to the resources within the scope of the environment. However, it will not have to access resources within the ISV tenant.

Availability

Power Platform Managed Identity support for Dataverse plug-ins is available in public preview to all our customers in public cloud.

Call to action

• Start by following the step-by-step instructions – Set up Managed Identity support for Dataverse plug-ins
• Learn more about Power Platform Managed Identity
• Share your feedback

The post Announcing public preview of Power Platform Managed Identity support for Dataverse Plug-ins appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Getting started

To use this feature, you need to either create a new SQL connection to your app or already have one in your app. In the table selector, choose the ‘Stored Procedure’ tab and select all of the stored procedures you want to access in your app. Then you can directly access the stored procedure in your app by referring to the data source name and then ‘dot’ into the specific stored procedure in a Power Fx formula.

This feature is an extension to the tabular model. We allow the ability to execute stored procedures, but we do not allow the ability to run arbitrary SQL. This helps provides an additional level of security. Additionally, you can bind a stored procedure directly to a gallery or table by checking the ‘Safe to use for galleries and tables’ checkbox.   

See the article Connect to SQL Server from Power Apps for a discussion of how and when to select this option and other details on how to use this feature.

The post Call SQL Server procedures directly in Power Fx (GA) appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

An improved static analysis made this speed up possible

While you edit or play your app in Studio, a continuous analysis of app elements and their interactions is happening in the background. This lets Studio determine the types of all the variables and collections in your app, maintain a real time dependency graph of relationships between different expressions, and keep track of what columns your app uses from every data source. 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.  

What’s New? 

• Performance Boost: The New Analysis Engine optimizes how we approach that analysis, ensuring that we can get it started faster when you load your app in Studio, and that we keep things up to date quicker while you edit. The new analysis algorithm scales linearly with app size, eliminating complex cases that previously caused performance issues. Complex Canvas apps that previously took minutes to load should now load much faster. 
  
  While this performance boost will be most noticeable for the largest apps that you build, we see improvements across the board when switching to the New Analysis Engine.
  
  Note: These improvements have no impact on app run time performance of a published app.
  
  Here are some statistics from real apps showcasing the performance improvement on app load for existing analysis and new analysis: 
  

• Accuracy: The New Analysis Engine is not only faster but also more accurate. It enables more accurate determination of variable and collection types. When analyzing field usage (Explicit Column Selection), the New Analysis Engine reliably identifies the columns used in your app, addressing several long-standing bugs and enhancing Data Source call performance in published apps. Additionally, it facilitated the development of the User Defined Functions feature, which would not have been feasible with the previous engine.

• Preview No More: Thanks to your valuable feedback during the experimental and preview phases, we’ve fine-tuned the engine. It’s now ready for prime time!
  

What You Need to Do 

• New Apps: For all new apps you create, the New Analysis Engine will be turned on by default. Enjoy the improved performance right from the start! 
• Existing Apps: If you have existing apps, we recommend enabling the New Analysis Engine. Here’s how:
  • Open your app in Studio. 
  • Go to Settings. 
  • Go to Updates. 
  • Look for the “New Analysis Engine” toggle on the New tab. 
  • Turn it on. 
  • Test your app thoroughly to ensure everything works as expected. 
    

Important Note: Starting February 2025, all Canvas apps will be migrated to use new analysis engine. We recommend testing your canvas apps with the New Analysis Engine to ensure they function as expected prior to migration.

A Word of Caution

While we’re confident in the New Analysis Engine’s capabilities, please refrain from using it for existing apps in production environments until you’ve thoroughly tested your app. Subtle behavior differences may arise, and we appreciate your vigilance. 

Your Feedback Matters

As always, your feedback is invaluable. Let us know how the New Analysis Engine performs for you. Share your experiences, report any issues, and help us fine-tune this feature further on the community forum. 

Thank you for being part of our Canvas app community! Together, we’re making app development smoother, faster, and more delightful.

Happy app building! 

The post New Analysis Engine Now Generally Available!  appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.