What’s new in Power Apps: November 2024 Feature Update
Get started with the latest updates today!
Jump into Power Apps to try the latest updates, you can use an existing environment or get started for free using the Developer plan.
AI-powered Development
Check out some of our latest improvements in this month’s Power Apps Pulse!
This month, it’s all about adding that shine! Power Apps Studio has a fresh new look, we’ve given you more ways to add web resources, and now you can customize your modern themes to get exactly the right color at each step of the ramp. Get in the know with this month’s Power Apps Pulse!
Power Apps Formula Creation with Natural Language Input
The latest update to the Power Apps formula bar introduces a new “Create a Formula” option, allowing users to craft Power Fx formulas using natural language. This innovation simplifies the formula creation process, making it more accessible for users of all skill levels. Enable this preview feature in your app settings, and then by typing a desired action in plain language, the AI suggests the appropriate formula, which can then be applied to the selected control and property.
Additionally, the update enhances the formula explanation capability, enabling users to select a portion of a formula and receive a plain language explanation of the selected part. This is particularly beneficial for understanding long or complex formulas. The Copilot in the formula bar now supports more languages, broadening the feature’s accessibility.
Modernization and visual update of the Power Apps Studio
In the effort to provide better out of the box accessibility, performance, and alignment with Microsoft product set we’ve updated the Power Apps Studio across both the canvas and model driven designers. This milestone creates a modern look and feel, as well as improved coherence throughout the Power Apps authoring experience for makers working across multiple app types, the plan designer and data workspace. No action is required to see the new updates, rolling out now.
Improved Studio performance with the new analysis engine
While you edit or play your app in Studio, a continuous analysis of app elements and their interactions is happening in the background. For example, this allows us to know that if you change an expression `Set(x, 5)` to `Set(x, {Lorem: “Ipsum”})` that the type of `x` is now a record instead of a number, and any references in your app to `x + 1` will therefore be marked as erroneous.
To improve performance and reliability while building apps, we released the updated analysis engine, Generally Available and will be on by default for all Canvas apps, starting February 2025. To migrate ahead of this, go to app settings, and turn on ‘New analysis engine’ setting under Updates > New.
Performance Boost: The New Analysis Engine optimizes how we approach that analysis, complex Canvas apps that previously took minutes to load should now load much faster. Note that this is an authoring load time and edit time performance improvement and has no impact on app run time performance.
Accuracy: The New Analysis Engine enables more accurate determination of variable and collection types, reliably identifies the columns used in your app, and enhances Data Source call performance in published apps.
Intelligent Apps
New smart paste available in your model-driven apps
Smart paste is designed to make form-filling in model-driven apps as simple as copy & paste. Now you can effortlessly fill forms based on the information you already have, transforming the tedious task of filling forms with a smarter, faster, and more intuitive way to handle forms. We are also introducing citations so you can easily identify where suggestions come from, and expanding form fill assistance (including the new smart paste) to quick create forms.
To learn more, read the blog at New smart paste makes filling forms as easy as copy & paste – Microsoft Power Platform Blog and documentation at Use Copilot’s form fill assistance feature in model-driven apps – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn.
Learning and Documentation Updates
Training Paths and Labs
Updated Training
- Create a Dataverse table for the machine ordering app – Online workshop – Training
- Integrate a Power Apps app with Power Automate – Online Workshop – Training
- Create a model-driven Power Apps app for machine ordering – Online Workshop – Training
