{"id":16678,"date":"2021-11-01T18:00:54","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T01:00:54","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-06-11T07:52:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T14:52:03","slug":"experimental-co-authoring-for-power-apps-studio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-platform\/blog\/power-apps\/experimental-co-authoring-for-power-apps-studio\/","title":{"rendered":"Experimental Git version control for Power Apps Studio"},"content":{"rendered":"
How many of you have seen this dialog in Power Apps Studio:<\/p>\n
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Argh.\u00a0 Somebody else has the app open.\u00a0 I’m locked out and now need to ask the other person to finish up and close the app.\u00a0 \u00a0If only we could work in parallel, two or more makers working in the same app at the same time, our team would be more productive.<\/p>\n
We have heard your collective Arghs loud and clear in Redmond.\u00a0 For some time now we have been actively working on co-authoring.<\/p>\n
As a first step, we are introducing a new experimental feature that eliminates the dreaded lock dialog.\u00a0 Two or more makers can load a Canvas app in Power Apps Studio, make independent changes, and save to merge those changes with other makers.\u00a0 Merges are semantically aware of the app structure, making for a much cleaner result.<\/p>\n
This is not the full real-time co-authoring experience that Microsoft Office enjoys.\u00a0 That is what we aspire to.\u00a0 This experimental feature is just a first step, to evaluate the user experience and our merge logic.\u00a0 Changes are merged asynchronously as each maker saves and syncs changes to the version control store.<\/p>\n
In the below animation, Emily and John are working on the same app at the same time.\u00a0 Each is making edits to the app and sharing with the other.\u00a0 Behind the scenes, Azure DevOps is the Git provider that is being used to manage the versions, and we can use ADO’s Blame feature to attribute changes to each maker in the Power Fx YAML file format<\/a>.<\/p>\n Note that these makers are working exclusively in Power Apps Studio, making and saving changes, and loading changes from others, as they normally would.\u00a0 They don’t need to be aware of the merges that are happening behind the scenes or the Git repo that is holding the versions (beyond entering their Git credentials to initially load).\u00a0 This enables fusion teams to work together, with a professional developer who sets up and manage the app, enabling citizen developers to work side-by-side in Power Apps Studio.<\/p>\n We are announcing this new functionality today, but it is not yet available as we are putting the finishing touches on it now.\u00a0 It will arrive by the beginning of December.\u00a0 We’ll announce when it is ready in the Power Apps community forum.<\/p>\n
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