Dataverse Archives - Microsoft Power Platform Blog Innovate with Business Apps Mon, 13 Jan 2025 17:26:26 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Work with existing tables in data workspace http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/power-apps/work-with-existing-tables-in-data-workspace/ http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/power-apps/work-with-existing-tables-in-data-workspace/#respond Mon, 13 Jan 2025 17:26:25 +0000 Data workspace, the ERD table designer empowered by Copilot, now supports using existing tables to build your data model.

The post Work with existing tables in data workspace appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
We are excited to announce that makers can now visualize and manage existing tables in the ERD table designer, data workspace! Now, 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.

Overview of existing tables in data workspace

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.

Demo - adding existing tables to data workspace

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.

Demo - managing existing tables in data workspace

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

The post Work with existing tables in data workspace appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/power-apps/work-with-existing-tables-in-data-workspace/feed/ 0
Introducing Git Integration in Power Platform (preview) http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/power-apps/introducing-git-integration-in-power-platform-preview/ Mon, 11 Nov 2024 16:00:00 +0000 Now in public preview, Git Integration provides a streamlined experience for developers and citizen developers to build solutions together using the same development processes and best practices. Fusion teams are more productive with familiar Git functionality available directly within their environment. This native integration provides faster setup and iterations, developer and feature isolation, change tracking

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

]]>
Now in public preview, Git Integration provides a streamlined experience for developers and citizen developers to build solutions together using the same development processes and best practices. Fusion teams are more productive with familiar Git functionality available directly within their environment. This native integration provides faster setup and iterations, developer and feature isolation, change tracking and auditing, version control, rollback, and more.

Animated Gif Image

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.

]]>
Data Workspace is Now Generally Available! http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/power-apps/data-workspace-is-now-generally-available/ Thu, 10 Oct 2024 21:54:51 +0000 Data workspace, the ERD data experience with Copilot is now generally available in 9 languages supporting solution and model-driven app.

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

]]>
We’re thrilled to announce that Data Workspace is now generally available. It is your one-stop-shop to create complex data models in an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) view with the assistance of Copilot. After receiving incredible feedback during the public preview, this feature is now ready for all users, delivering a more robust, user-friendly, and powerful experience for creating and managing multi-table data models. You can seamlessly create tables using natural language and bring in data from Excel files and SharePoint Lists through simple drag and drop experiences. You can find more details about the functionality here.

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.

Screenshot_10-10-2024_105812_make.preview.powerapps.com

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.

Creating tables using Data Workspace within your custom solution.

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.
Animated Gif Image

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.

]]>
Announcing public preview of Power Platform Managed Identity support for Dataverse Plug-ins http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/power-apps/announcing-public-preview-of-power-platform-managed-identity-support-for-dataverse-plug-ins/ Mon, 12 Aug 2024 18:19:56 +0000 We are excited to announce public preview of Power Platform Managed Identity support for Dataverse plug-ins. This feature allows customers and partners to connect Dataverse plug-ins to Azure resources supporting managed identities, eliminating the need to manage credentials and reducing the risk of unauthorized data access. Power Platform Managed Identity leverages workload identities based on

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

]]>
We are excited to announce public preview of Power Platform Managed Identity support for Dataverse plug-ins. This feature allows customers and partners to connect Dataverse plug-ins to Azure resources supporting managed identities, eliminating the need to manage credentials and reducing the risk of unauthorized data access. Power Platform Managed Identity leverages workload identities based on Federated Identity Credentials (FIC) providing enhanced security and control. Additionally, it enables you to apply Azure policies without the hassle of credential management.

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.

Scenario illustrating Managed identity support for Dataverse plug-ins

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

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

]]>
Developer environment and plan now available in Sovereign clouds http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/power-apps/developer-environment-and-plan-now-available-in-sovereign-clouds/ Thu, 27 Jun 2024 15:00:00 +0000 We’re thrilled to announce that the Power Apps Developer Plan is now available in sovereign clouds starting with GCC and later this year will be available in GCCH and DOD. Developer Plan is needed to get Developer Environments, which offer personalized spaces for makers to experiment, innovate, and build. They provide premium capabilities like Dataverse and

The post Developer environment and plan now available in Sovereign clouds appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
We’re thrilled to announce that the Power Apps Developer Plan is now available in sovereign clouds starting with GCC and later this year will be available in GCCH and DOD.

Developer Plan is needed to get Developer Environments, which offer personalized spaces for makers to experiment, innovate, and build. They provide premium capabilities like Dataverse and premium connectors at no additional cost. These environments also adhere to your organization’s default Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policy for security. Striking a balance between control and empowerment.

How to get started?

As a Tenant level admin can create a developer environment on behalf of the maker and assign them as an owner. The owner will get a developer environment which they can use as personal space to explore and build. An admin will be able to create up to 3 developer environments for each owner. If no owner is selected the developer environment is created for the admin that is using this experience. These environments also get auto cleaned up in in case of 90 days of inactivity, making it easier for admins to manage. These multiple environments can be used to try capabilities like Pipelines and Application Lifecycle Management.

Tenant Level admin experience

These environments are unmanaged by default and can be made managed on tenant admin’s choice. On doing so managed environment policies will apply to Developer environments.

If your tenant admin has turned on developer environment creation for ‘Everyone’, you can also get environment through your Power Platform Admin center. By default, it is set to ‘Only Specific admin’. In addition, these environments can be reset in order to start fresh and can also be directly copied to other developer or sandbox environments. Learn more.

It’s important to note that these environments require a developer plan. If the developer plan is blocked by an admin, the developer environment won’t be created. Admin can manage this plan

Learn more: 

The post Developer environment and plan now available in Sovereign clouds appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
Work with complex data models in an ERD view assisted by Copilot http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/power-apps/work-with-complex-data-models-in-an-erd-view-assisted-by-copilot/ Thu, 20 Jun 2024 16:48:29 +0000 Introducing the new ERD-view data experience that streamlines the management of complex data models with Copilot assistance.

The post Work with complex data models in an ERD view assisted by Copilot appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
To build meaningful business applications, data models consisting of multiple tables are almost always essential. Today, we’re excited to announce the public preview of a brand-new data experience that simplifies working with complex data models in an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) view with the assistance of Copilot. This innovative feature allows you to seamlessly work with data from a variety of sources, including natural language inputs, Excel files, and SharePoint lists, all through a simple drag-and-drop interface akin to how you currently interact with app visuals.

What’s more, Copilot will be at your service, ready to handle the tedious and repetitive tasks such as populating sample data, configuring table metadata, or updating columns, freeing you up to focus on creativity and strategy. With this new data experience, a single sentence can be transformed into a comprehensive multi-table data model, complete with a Copilot-ready business app, streamlining your workflow like never before.

ERD editor overview

Accessing the ERD data experience

The feature is currently available in English. To access it, simply enable Copilot (preview) features for your environment. Then, go to the Power Apps home page and turn on the ‘Try the new data experience’ toggle.

Once enabled, the new data experience can be accessed through various entry points. This includes the home page, tables page, app designers, and more. Essentially, it’s available anywhere you can create new tables today, offering a seamless integration into your workflow.

Multi-table in ERD view

Drag and drop interaction in ERD editor

The new data experience now enables you to interact with multiple tables in an ERD view through intuitive drag-and-drop actions. This visual ERD framework allows for a clear understanding of how your tables interconnect to form a robust data model. Moreover, it simplifies table and relationship management, empowers you to establish relationships between tables with just a few clicks.

Data drawer

Data drawer and ERD side by side

In addition to the ERD view, the new data experience introduces a data drawer, which allows you to view the schema and tabular representation of your data model side by side. The data drawer enables direct editing of tables—columns, rows, table properties, and more. For an immersive experience, you can also switch to full-screen mode to concentrate solely on individual tables.

Bringing data for a unified model

You now have the power to create tables from a variety of sources, including natural language, Excel files, SharePoint lists, or from the ground up. Effortlessly establish relationships between these tables and observe as they amalgamate into a singular, comprehensive data model. This integration not only simplifies data management, but also provides a holistic view of your data ecosystem, enabling the creation of more meaningful business apps.

Describe new tables

Describe new tables

You can create tables by simply describing them. Whether you need one table or multiple, Copilot will generate the necessary tables along with relationships based on your instructions. Specify the number of columns for each table, and whether you want relationships included when requesting a multi-table data model. Copilot takes your configurations and turns them into reality.

Import an Excel file or SharePoint list

Import table from Excel or SharePoint list

You can also bring your own data by importing from external sources such as Excel or SharePoint listsCopilot streamlines the setup by recommending table names, descriptions, column data types and formats, as well as column headers, tailored to the data you upload. After the import, you’ll have the opportunity to review and tweak the tables, ensuring they accurately reflect your data and serve your needs effectively.

A full Copilot experience

Copilot is ready to assist you with a wide array of tasks beyond just creating tables. It can populate your tables with sample data:

Copilot to add sample data

Suggest and create new columns for your table:

Copilot to suggest and create new columns

Or even help you establish relationships between any two tables:

Copilot to establish relationship

These capabilities extend to tables created from all sources, ensuring a fully Copilot-powered experience for managing your data model. To get started, select ‘View prompts’ and explore the predefined Copilot prompts that can help bootstrap your data model.

Learn more about the ERD data experience

The post Work with complex data models in an ERD view assisted by Copilot appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
Unlock new levels of productivity with Microsoft Dataverse and Microsoft Copilot Studio http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/power-apps/unlock-new-levels-of-productivity-with-microsoft-dataverse-and-microsoft-copilot-studio/ Tue, 21 May 2024 15:30:54 +0000 Enhancing your AI business strategy with Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Dataverse enables organizations to simplify the complex data integration, third-party data extensibility, and security guardrails organizations must have in place to assist in the implementation and adoption of AI.

The post Unlock new levels of productivity with Microsoft Dataverse and Microsoft Copilot Studio appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
Microsoft Copilot is designed to enhance business productivity by leveraging AI to streamline routine tasks, allowing users to concentrate on strategic and creative endeavors. It boosts organizational efficiency by automating repetitive tasks, freeing up time for the workforce, and enriching solution capabilities with integrated experiences in Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Teams.

Enhancing your AI business strategy with Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Dataverse enables organizations to simplify the complex data integration, third-party data extensibility, and security guardrails organizations must have in place to assist in the implementation and adoption of AI.

At Microsoft Build 2024, we are excited to unveil Microsoft Copilot connectors. Microsoft Copilot connectors provide seamless and secure integration with your productivity, analytical, and operational data as well as empower users to activate existing business processes. Copilot Studio and Dataverse allow organizations to create actions, build knowledge, and integrate grounded data into their copilots with ease, all while easily meeting their compliance requirements with a rich set of security features.

Bridge the gap between enterprise data and Microsoft Copilot

The concept of enterprise knowledge in Copilot Studio is a groundbreaking addition that allows copilot makers to add specific contextually relevant knowledge sources to their copilots, thereby improving the reliability and accuracy of responses. Knowledge supports a wide range of data types, including public websites and Microsoft Dynamics 365 (powered by Dataverse) and brings simple discoverability and understanding of enterprise data, which is critical to scaling the delivery of agent copilots across an organization.

Modal image to add available knowledge sources
 

Figure 1: Makers can select enterprise data sources as their copilot’s knowledge.

Many Microsoft customers are seeing the benefits of adding grounded enterprise data into their copilot experience. From supply chain management, customer relationship management, and productivity insights, customers can increase the efficiency of business processes, make their workforce more productive, and provide rich customer experiences. Read below how Peppermint, EY, and Docusign have developed impactful solutions.

Law firms are challenged with optimizing workflow efficiency and delivering effective client services. Achieving this entails implementing a range of services, including case and matter management, document management, and client engagement. How can law firms, who are primarily focused on legal expertise, utilize technology to overcome this challenge and achieve their goals?

Peppermint Technology, a leading global independent software vendor (ISV) revolutionizing legal firms and departments, has built solutions that easily ground copilots with enterprise data stored in Dataverse and SharePoint to provide more relevant and secure business insights. Peppermint has been using Microsoft Power Platform to model their legal case process and storing their business data in Dataverse. With their existing integration, allowing Peppermint’s copilot to access enterprise knowledge and processes from Microsoft Power Platform, while maintaining user context security, requires minimal effort and allows rapid adoption of modern AI workloads for increasing productivity and automation

Screenshot of testing Copilot responses to custom connector.

Figure 2: Use natural language to retrieve matters stored in Dataverse.

Lawyers can now use LARA (Legal Analysis and Research Assistant for Peppermint) to efficiently prepare for upcoming meetings by identifying internal contacts for new accounts, accessing pertinent information, and taking necessary actions ahead of their meetings.

A cell phone with text on it from the LARA copilot


Figure 3: Use natural language to identify connections with new accounts.

“At Peppermint Technology, we are excited to utilize Copilot Studio’s enterprise knowledge to not only extract maximum value from corporate data but also significantly enhance our law firm clients’ ability to engage with their clients and increase billing efficiencies. This strategic adoption aligns perfectly with our business priorities of reducing risk and boosting client engagement, enabling our clients to offer superior service and achieve better outcomes.”—Mike Walker, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Peppermint Technology

Peppermint Technology's logo

Take your enterprise business processes further with Copilot connectors

With Copilot connectors in Copilot Studio, organizations can easily expand their copilot knowledge and actions with their business data. Copilot connectors allow organizations to bring together data from Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Fabric OneLake, public websites, and many other systems of record.

When incorporating Copilot connectors into your custom copilots, Copilot will work in the background on your user’s or organization’s behalf, and reason across structured and unstructured data to execute your business processes.

Microsoft Copilot connectors diagram
Figure 4: Microsoft Copilot connectors diagram.
Copilot connectors are part of the broader Copilot ecosystem, which includes Copilot Studio and Microsoft Copilot. They play a crucial role in the extensibility of Copilot, allowing developers to create custom AI solutions that are deeply integrated with Dataverse and Microsoft Power Platform. Some key benefits of Copilot connectors are:
  • Semantic search: Allows the connector to understand and interpret the text data, enabling more relevant and context-aware responses.
  • Data syncing and caching: Ensure your data is synchronized and cached efficiently, allowing for quick access, and reducing potential latency issues.
  • Extensive third-party service integration: With a few clicks you can access the ecosystem of more than 1,400 connectors so that even non-Microsoft data can be included.
  • Support for complex data types: The connectors can handle a variety of data types, including relational data and unstructured data, making them versatile for different business needs, and come with production-grade service levels.
  • Low-code and pro-code: Whether you want to create custom application programming interface (API) or existing prebuilt connectors, the choice is up to you.

Docusign expedites the workforce with Copilot connectors

By enabling the Docusign Copilot connector within Microsoft Copilot, Docusign delivers greater value to their customers by not only surfacing document details, steps, and processes, but also allowing users to ask queries with natural language, and drive results faster than before. Docusign’s integrations with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Copilot for Sales provide AI-powered agreement insights to help drive employee productivity, close deals faster, and manage renewals at scale. Customers across human resources (HR), sales, procurement, legal, and more can now use natural language to ask Copilot for agreement status and summarization, extract key information, send reminders to others, and more.

A screenshot of a enabling Docusign Copilot connector
Figure 5: Activate Docusign Copilot connector and find agreements with natural language.

“Through our partnership with Microsoft, we are revolutionizing the way organizations do business. Docusign’s integrations with Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Copilot for Sales harness the power of AI to drive intelligent automation and innovation, leveraging Microsoft Power Platform plug-ins and Microsoft Copilot Studio. Meeting people where they work, these integrations empower organizations to accelerate revenue, reduce risk, and create better experiences from the agreements that run their business. Together, we’re not just streamlining processes, we’re redefining what’s possible in the digital era.”—Janine Grasso, General Vice President (GVP) of Partner Development and Alliances, Docusign

Docusign logo

Gain visibility and increase your security posture

As organizations increase the complexity of their solutions and incorporate data from multiple systems of record through Copilot connectors, gaining and maintaining visibility of the security of that data is critical. Previously, fragmented experiences created barriers to customers assessing risks, and a lack of clear, defined guidance in achieving the defense in depth that organizations strive to maintain. Without security tools for both proactive and reactive governance of both citizen and pro developers’ applications, administrators may resort to solutions that stifle modernization, productivity, and business growth.

The Security Hub is designed to solve these challenges and more, with intuitive experiences, and strategic guidance, administrators can navigate the complexities of managing security at scale. This centralized hub provides administrators with tools to assess the security posture of their tenant, identify and act on impactful recommendations, and proactively set policies to safeguard against vulnerabilities and threats all through the Microsoft Power Platform admin center.

The Security Hub for Microsoft Power Platform, in public preview, offers several benefits, including:

  • Enhanced security posture: Providing administrators with tools to assess and improve the security posture of their tenant, ensuring that data and applications are protected against vulnerabilities and threats.
  • Actionable recommendations: Identify impactful recommendations that administrators can act on to strengthen security measures.
  • Proactive policy setting: Proactively set policies to safeguard your environment, preventing potential security incidents before they occur.
  • Centralized security management: One centralized platform for managing security across Microsoft Power Platform, streamlining the process, and making it more efficient.

These features are designed to provide a comprehensive security solution that aligns with an organization’s security practices, contributing to the overall success of digital transformation efforts. For example, Security Hub identifies if minimum safeguarding is in place and guides you to set up the appropriate data loss prevention policies (DLP) around Copilot connector usage in your organization. In addition, administrators can expect to utilize the following generally available in the Security Hub: vNet for Dataverse plugins, privileged identity management (PIM), tenant isolation, IP firewall, IP cookie binding, and environment security groups, while the following features will be available in public preview: client application control and Dataverse audit enhancements.

Additionally, Copilot Studio makers can now ground generative answers to SharePoint site content—enabling copilots to surface labeled resources as labeled responses in Teams chat with Microsoft Purview Information Protection sensitivity labels.

Microsoft Purview Information Protection sensitivity labels are widely adopted by enterprises today to label and protect sensitive information in Microsoft 365 apps and Fabric, and they are coming soon to Microsoft Power Platform.

Watch our latest overview of Microsoft Power Platform and Dataverse security features.

EY prevents data exfiltration at scale with Microsoft Power Platform security controls

Data exfiltration prevention protects the unauthorized transfer of sensitive data from an organization to external parties. This allows a business to maintain business continuity, comply with regulatory requirements, and keep up with competitive advantage. This feature allows the security officer to allow or block what apps that their authorized users can run in a Dataverse environment.

“As an enterprise consumer of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform, I am thrilled to share my experience with the recent enhancements made by the Engineering team. Their diligent efforts have had a significant, positive impact on our Dynamics 365 launch with the necessary data controls to support our information security policies and data governance processes.
The introduction of data exfiltration permission controls was critical to comply with our Information Privacy and Data Governance policies. These controls allow us to grant permissioned access to the Dataverse while maintaining strict data security. Here’s why these features are crucial:

  • Foundation for Data Governance: The ability to control data exfiltration is at the core of our data governance strategy. With these controls, we can confidently manage how Dynamics 365 data is accessed and shared beyond our system boundaries.
  • Enterprise Data Controls: Microsoft Dynamics 365’s permissioned access ensures that sensitive information remains within authorized boundaries. We can now define granular permissions, restricting data flow to only those who need it. This level of control empowers us to safeguard our data assets effectively.
  • Privacy Compliance: Our member firms operate under stringent privacy agreements. The Engineering team’s work aligns perfectly with our commitment to data privacy. By enforcing permissioned access, we uphold our privacy standards and protect our enterprise information.

The Engineering team’s dedication to building robust permission controls has enabled our data landscape. We can confidently deploy Dynamics 365 and navigate the complexities of data sharing, knowing that our privacy agreements remain intact and grant access to only approved systems and usage.”—Erick J. Kirchner, Associate Director, Markets and Business Development, Ernst & Young LLP

Looking ahead

As we continue to innovate and push the boundaries of what is possible with data and AI, Dataverse remains committed to providing businesses with the tools they need to succeed in an ever-evolving digital world. These new features are just the beginning of what is to come, and we cannot wait to see how organizations will leverage them to achieve new heights of productivity and security.

Join us at Microsoft Build to learn more about these exciting developments and how they can transform your business.

The post Unlock new levels of productivity with Microsoft Dataverse and Microsoft Copilot Studio appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
Infuse any AI solution with your enterprise data, prompts and plugins http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/power-apps/infuse-any-ai-solution-with-your-enterprise-data-prompts-and-plugins/ Tue, 14 May 2024 20:42:36 +0000 AI models are improving rapidly, and customers need effective tools to integrate AI into their business solutions that provide precise, reliable and consistent information, and are easy to deploy. Today we are happy to announce our latest improvements to help makers integrate AI into their low-code apps and solutions. Now available as Public Preview in Microsoft Copilot Studio, data grounding with Dataverse tables allows makers to create powerful AI prompts that are grounded with their enterprise data while enforcing real time enterprise security. Additionally, we are excited to announce that low-code plugins now support five new AI Power Fx functions, and share  how Capgemini New Zealand, a global leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation, is leveraging these new capabilities to create value for their clients and solve business problems faster than ever before.

The post Infuse any AI solution with your enterprise data, prompts and plugins appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
AI models are improving rapidly, and customers need effective tools to integrate AI into their business solutions that provide precise, reliable and consistent information, and are easy to deploy. Today we are happy to announce our latest improvements to help makers integrate AI into their low-code apps and solutions. Now available as Public Preview in Microsoft Copilot Studio, data grounding with Dataverse tables allows makers to create powerful AI prompts that are grounded with their enterprise data while enforcing real time enterprise security. Additionally, we are excited to announce that low-code plugins now support five new AI Power Fx functions, and share how Capgemini New Zealand, a global leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation, is leveraging these new capabilities to create value for their clients and solve business problems faster than ever before.

Improve AI generated responses by grounding prompts with your enterprise data tables, now in Public Preview

As companies are rapidly adopting Copilot and conversational AI tools, they are increasingly introducing prompts as a foundational element to integrate generative AI capabilities within Microsoft Power Platform solutions, including Power Apps, Power Automate, and Copilot Studio. With Prompt Builder, already generally available, anyone can use natural language to instruct the GPT model to behave in a certain way or to perform a specific task. Typical scenarios include the ability to generate content analysis, summarize, classify, extract or transform information data.

Today, we are excited to announce the public preview of data grounding with Dataverse tables for Prompt Builder in Microsoft Copilot Studio, a new capability that helps makers create reliable and efficient AI solutions at enterprise scale.  With data grounding, customers can add a dynamic knowledge source to their prompts, using the model of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), to enhance the underlying AI model’s capabilities from being a general-purpose model to an enterprise specific tool that operates within the business context of an enterprise customer.

Selecting Dataverse Tables when grounding data for your prompt.
Learn more about prompt builder:

Infuse AI into your application’s business logic with AI-powered low-code plugins

Low-code plugins enable any maker to build complex AI-powered solutions in the Power Platform using the PowerFx expression language.  Capgemini New Zealand, A global leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation, saw the potential of low-code plugins from their announcement at Microsoft Build 2023 and quickly began upskilling on them in their local Dynamics 365/Power Platform practice. Low-code plugins provide the ability to create real-time, secure and scalable business logic for their customers, all without the underlying cost and added infrastructure of writing traditional code. As a result, Capgemini NZ can create value for their clients, solving their business challenges faster than ever before.

I’m particularly excited by the integration potential with Copilot Studio. Our clients are asking us to help them apply generative AI to their business challenges. Low-code plugins fill a crucial gap of automating business logic between the large language model in Copilot and the client’s underlying data. As such we’ve been showcasing our learnings from low-code tools such as low-code plugins in our regular internal Communities of Practice so that we’re ready to hit the ground running when this feature is generally available.
-Richard Anness, Power Platform Practice Lead, Capgemini NZ 
With low-code plugins now available in Microsoft Copilot Studio, customers can embed advanced business logic into their Copilots and AI-powered applications including triggering workflows & data updates within business processes modeled within Microsoft Dataverse. In addition to the existing set of supported Power Fx operators, variables and formulas, we are also excited to introduce low-code plugin support for 5 new Power Fx AI functions:

  • AIReply: Drafts replies to messages (e.g., customer reviews of a product).
  • AISummarize: Summarizes text (e.g., email messages or document content).
  • AISentiment: Detects sentiment (positive, negative, neutral) in text (e.g., customer reviews).
  • AIClassify: Classifies text into predefined categories (e.g., Problem, Billing, How To, Licensing).
  • AITranslate: Translates text from one language to another (source language is automatically detected).

After the development of low-code solutions using low-code plugins, monitoring their execution becomes an integral part of maintaining a high-quality, reliable, and performant solution. It empowers developers and administrators with the insights needed to ensure the best possible experience for end-users. We are delighted to announce that we are now enabling the preview of the new plugin monitoring report  inside Dataverse Accelerator with two key capabilities:

  • Centralized log viewer: Access and view trace logs from Dataverse Custom APIs, low-code plugins, and pro-code plugin executions in an environment from one central location.
  • Filtering capabilities: Conveniently filter log history to quickly find logs relevant to debugging needs.

For more information on how to try out low-code plugins:

The post Infuse any AI solution with your enterprise data, prompts and plugins appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
Next-Level Connectivity Security: Dataverse Plug-ins Embrace Virtual Networks! http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/power-apps/next-level-connectivity-security-dataverse-plug-ins-embrace-virtual-networks/ Tue, 30 Apr 2024 12:08:15 +0000 Virtual network support, now generally available for Dataverse plug-ins within Power Platform, enhances security for outbound connections to private network resources. Leveraging Azure Subnet Delegation, customers can delegate subnets to Power Platform, ensuring egress traffic management aligns with network policies.

The post Next-Level Connectivity Security: Dataverse Plug-ins Embrace Virtual Networks! appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
Introduction

We are excited to announce that the virtual network support for Dataverse plug-ins within Microsoft Power Platform is now generally available for all our customers in public cloud! This feature allows you to protect your outbound connections from Power Platform Dataverse plug-ins to resources within your private network. Virtual network support for Power Platform is based on Azure subnet delegation. With Azure subnet delegation, you can delegate your subnets to the Power Platform and configure it to run the services within your delegated subnet. This way, you can securely manage your egress traffic from the Power Platform according to your network policy.

Power Platform Approach to securing outbound connectivity.

Virtual network support for Power Platform is optimized to handle API (Application Programming Interface)-centric workloads, and hence is the recommended approach for outbound connectivity from Power Platform services to resources within your network when using Dataverse plug-ins and Power Platform Connectors. For Power BI and Power Platform Dataflows (PPDF), the recommended approach is to use virtual network data gateway, which is optimized to handle ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) workloads.

Overview of the feature

This feature is particularly useful for customers who have security and compliance requirements to secure their data by protecting outbound traffic from Power Platform.

With virtual network support, you will be able to solve following key problems.

  • You don’t have to expose private endpoint protected resources within your VNet to the internet to allow Power Platform services to connect to these protected resources, thereby protecting your data.
  • You don’t have to allow-list sets of Power Platform IP’s ranges or service tags to allow Power Platform services to connect to resources within your VNet, thereby protecting the resources from unauthorized access.

Currently, you can use secured private outbound connectivity from Dataverse plug-ins to enhance the security of data integration with external data sources within your secured private network from your Power Apps, Power Automate, and Dynamics 365 apps.

Unlocking Secure Data Integration with Microsoft Copilot Studio in Power Platform

In today’s interconnected world, secure data integration is crucial for organizations. Microsoft Copilot Studio offers robust solutions for fetching and processing data securely. Let’s explore scenario where Copilot Studio demonstrates the network security capability of Power Platform:

Scenario #1: Fetching Customer Data from a Web API Hosted in Azure

Imagine you need to retrieve customer data securely from your Web API hosted in Azure. Copilot Studio seamlessly orchestrates the process:

  1. Microsoft Copilot Studio Initiates a Power Automate Flow: Copilot Studio triggers Power Automate flows through a command that include Dataverse unbound plug-in action.
  2. Dataverse Plug-in Calls a Web API: The Power Automate flow makes a secure call using Dataverse Plug-in to a private endpoint-protected Web API. This ensures that customer data retrieval remains secure.

Learn more about this scenario through this video, please note the SQL connector VNet support is in preview.

Availability and Licensing

Virtual network support for Dataverse plug-ins is generally available to all our customers in public cloud and licensing information is available in this article Virtual Network support for Power Platform overview – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
Call to action.

The post Next-Level Connectivity Security: Dataverse Plug-ins Embrace Virtual Networks! appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
Easier than ever experience to import data from SharePoint List http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/power-apps/easier-than-ever-experience-to-import-data-from-sharepoint-list/ Thu, 04 Apr 2024 19:43:58 +0000 Announcing public preview of SharePoint List to table and app

The post Easier than ever experience to import data from SharePoint List appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>
We are excited to announce the public preview of easier than ever import from SharePoint List experience. You can easily transform your SharePoint Lists into Dataverse Tables and Copilot ready canvas apps in a single experience. Moreover, when Copilot is enabled, it will assist with your table creation by providing the best fitting table names, descriptions, along with selecting appropriate column data types based on the list data.  This makes it possible to bring your own data to the platform and establish your business apps in just a few clicks.

How does the new experience work?

Simply navigate to the home page, select Start with data, then Create with SharePoint List. Choose an existing SharePoint connection or establish a new connection to your desired SharePoint account. Next, enter your desired SharePoint URL or pick one of your recent sites and select a list.  You will then see a preview of your table, where you can review and edit your table schema before selecting Create app to create a Dataverse table and responsive canvas app.

Once you select Create app, we will create a Dataverse table based on your table configuration from the previous step, and then generate a responsive canvas app using that table. Depending on the size of your data, you might not see all of your data in the canvas app right away. This is because we want to unblock the creation of your app by uploading the top 20 rows of your data first. The remaining data will be uploaded in the background, and you can always proceed to the table hub or table designer to review the progress.

Import your data more easily with Copilot

When Copilot is enabled, it will assist with your table creation by selecting appropriate column data types. Copilot is able to detect different formats within text data types as well such as phone number and email. It will also auto-populate choices in the column metadata when bring over choice columns from SharePoint Lists.

When a table is generated leveraging Copilot, a card will show up to the left, indicating AI has assisted with the creation of this table. You can also give us feedback on how Copilot is doing so we can further improve our modeling in the future.

What’s next?

You can learn more about the experience here.

This is just the first step of the new import from SharePoint List experience. We are actively working on supporting more scenarios at scale towards general availability, and we’d love your feedback!

 

The post Easier than ever experience to import data from SharePoint List appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

]]>