Prevent the Panic: Blocking Unmanaged Customizations in Your production Power Platform Environment

Imagine this: you’re in the middle of a crucial project, and someone accidentally makes a customization directly in the production environment, creating an unmanaged layer. Panic sets in as you scramble to mitigate potential issues. This scenario is a nightmare for any Power Platform administrator, but the good news is it can be prevented. By blocking unmanaged customizations, you can ensure that only managed and controlled changes are deployed in your production environment. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to block unmanaged customizations in Power Platform.

Why Block Unmanaged Customizations?

Power Pages Integrations: Payments using Stripe

After DocuSign, Microsoft Portal team has added another integration to the Power Pages portal, this time its Payments using Stripe, unlike DocuSign Integration the Stripe Integration only works with Enhanced Data model.

Enhanced Data model is new data Model for Power Pages. The standard data model in Power Pages uses custom tables for website component configuration, leading to longer load times for site provisioning and manual updates. In contrast, the enhanced model integrates system, nonconfiguration, and virtual tables, offering faster site creation, improved design studio experiences, and more efficient application lifecycle management and update processes

Sorry for deviating, but back to the Topic, In this blog we will review how Stripe integration works with Power Pages

Step 1: Set Up Your Stripe Account, If you don’t already have a Stripe account, go to Stripe’s website and sign up.

Step 2: Get API Keys : Once your account is set up, navigate to the Developers section in your Stripe dashboard.
Under API Keys, you will find the Publishable Key and Secret Key. You will need these keys to connect Stripe with Power Pages.

Step 3: To get started open the Power Pages Portal in designer editor for editing and navigate to External apps under the “Setup” area.

Step 4: Under Integrations, select External apps (preview). Find Stripe in the list and select the Install action.
Once the package installation is complete, restart the website from the Site Actions in the admin center.

Step 5: Add Stripe Keys to Power Pages: In the design studio, under Integrations, select Manage for Stripe.
You can choose to store your Stripe keys either in Dataverse (supports test mode only) or in Azure Key Vault (supports both test and live modes).

Step 6: Configure Azure Key Vault (Optional)

If using Azure Key Vault, follow these steps:
1. In the Azure portal, navigate to Key Vaults.
2. Create a new key vault or use an existing one.
3. Add your Stripe restricted key as a secret.
4. Assign the appropriate permissions to your Power Pages site app registration.

Step 7: Enter Stripe Keys in the Configuration Panel: In the design studio, enter the necessary keys in the Enable integration panel. Save and sync your settings.

Enable Payments on Your Form

Step 8: Create a Multistep Form: In the design studio, go to Pages and navigate to the webpage where you want to enable payments. Add or edit a multistep form, and create a step for payments.

Step 9: Configure the Payment Step : In the form settings, go to Step settings.
Select App Integrations and toggle Enable digital payments to on.
Choose the amount field that represents the payment amount you want to collect.

Step 10: Set Up Permissions : Ensure you have the appropriate table permissions and web roles for the Dataverse tables used in the form.

Step 10: Test Your Integration

Use Stripe’s Test Mode : Test your setup using Stripe’s test mode and test cards to ensure everything works as expected.
Switch to Live Mode : Once testing is complete, switch your Stripe keys from test mode to live mode and update the keys in your Power Pages settings.

Step 11: Go Live

Publish Your Changes : After verifying that the integration works, publish your Power Pages site with the new payment features enabled.

By following these steps, you can successfully integrate Stripe with Power Pages, providing a smooth and secure payment experience for your users. For more detailed information, refer to the official Microsoft documentation and the Stripe documentation.

Happy integrating!

Power Pages Integrations: E Signatures -DocuSign

Power Pages Designer Studio has revolutionized the editing and building process of Power Pages by introducing an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, eliminating the need for complex coding. This innovation has made web development more accessible, allowing users to easily craft and customize their sites with real-time visual feedback.

As Power Pages continues to evolve, we’re seeing an exciting rollout of new features, enhancing its versatility and functionality. Notably, the recent integrations with DocuSign and Stripe stand out, offering users seamless external capabilities for electronic signatures and online payments directly within their Power Pages sites, further broadening the platform’s applicability in various business scenarios.

In this Blog, we will review , How DocuSign Integration works

Power Pages and Editable Grids!! PCF Controls in Portals !!

Since PCF controls have been released for Portals it has unlocked lot of ability which used to be custom built on portals earlier. Today we will diving into one such feature Editable grids using PCF controls on Power Pages Portals.

This feature is super handy for making your web pages more interactive and user-friendly. It allows users to view, edit, and interact with data directly on your webpage, much like they would in a spreadsheet.

Let’s break it down into simple steps, so you can follow along and get this set up on your site without any fuss.

For this blog we will use an example of adding a Courses list on a power pages site and making it editable.

Why Power Pages licensing changes are so significant!!

Power pages went GA at Ignite, and amongst the slew of new features, one of the most significant is the new licensing model. The new model not only makes the product cheaper in most cases. It opens the door for new use cases with Power Pages.

Two major updates change how Power Pages/Power Apps Portals have been used in the past.

One of the biggest change is that Power Pages is its product, and With it being its product, It brings less dependency on Power Apps Licensing.
Power Apps Portals have predominantly been used for use cases where users are external to your organization. Power Apps(Canvas & Model Driven ) were primarily used for Internal user use cases. Earlier, even if you built Power Pages for internal users, they would need a Power Apps license.

With the new change, internal and external users fall under the same licensing model. Power pages are viable for many internal use cases, such as Request management/ HR use cases. Many of the HR services are used by employees only a few times a year, and building them on Power pages provides better licensing and customization support.
Continue reading “Why Power Pages licensing changes are so significant!!”

Power Pages goes GA – Adx Studio Portal to Power Pages

No alternative text description for this image — Sangya Singh announcing the General availability of Power Pages at Ignite 2022

Within Business Application & Power Platform space, Portals have always been my favorite product. About a decade ago, I started my Dynamics/CRM/PowerApps Journey with Adx Studio. I remember the first Project implementation I was doing was for a large insurance organization for claims management, The requirements were very complex and being a developer first, I took the obvious route of code customization to start with. At that time, Grant, a Partner at Adx Studio, asked us(Nice way of saying Challenged us) if we could explore the option for configuration over customization for the Portal. Dhina and I took a step back and started brainstorming & whiteboarding on how we could approach the requirements through configuration. We scrapped all our custom code and finally built the Portal through configuration only, we did have a few JavaScripts for front-side validations, and we stretched the limits of the platform, especially the webforms, but we were so proud of what we built with a Low Code approach.

Since Microsoft acquired the product in 2015, it has continued to evolve the product. Over the course of years, it changed to CRM Portals, to Power Apps portals and now Power Pages. Microsoft’s approach has always been to make it easier for Makers to build and deploy Portals. With Power Pages, the product has really evolved into a true Low Code Maker platform, Power pages are in GA now, and that means you can edit and manage all your existing PowerApps Portals as Power Pages.

Let’s dive into the Power Pages and see what has really changed and how it makes a compelling Platform to build websites:

Licensing :

Power Pages Licensing has been completely revamped, the new licensing model is focused on MAU(Monthly Active Users) vs tracking each login in 24 hours window. The licensing model for external and internal users are same as well as the new license model includes Dataverse and CDN . You can find more details on Power Pages License here, I will post another blog around some of the licensing strategies for Power pages.

Bring your Power Bi to Power Apps Portal – Part II

In the previous blog we covered how to embed Power BI Report in Power Apps Portal using “Publish to Web” and “Embed for organization” mode, In this post we will cover “Embed for your customers” mode and then applying Row level security(RLS) on the report.

Method 2: Embed for your Customers- Power Bi Report for private customer reports.

Enable Power Apps Portals for Power Bi integration and create your Power Bi report you want to publish under the Power Bi workspace you have defined during Power Bi Setup earlier. Refer the part I blog for steps.

Enable RLS on Power Bi Report:

Enable Report for Row level security by adding role, its required for embedded customers mode to function. On Power Bi Report under Modeling Click on Mange roles

Bring your Power Bi to Power Apps Portal – Part I

Power BI has become the choice of tool when we talk about Reports, Power Apps portal has built in reporting and charts but if are looking for modern dashboard and reports embedding Power Bi in Power apps portal is the way to go, In this blog we will look into the different ways that could be done,

Before any of this could be done we need to Setup and enable Portal for Power Bi Visualization, here is the detailed steps from Microsoft Documentation for enabling Power Apps portal for Power Bi Visualization and embedded service which allows powerbi liquid tag to work in Portal

Here is the list of Key steps involved, but refer to Microsoft doc for detailed steps

Power Platform & Azure – Better Together: Build Power Apps from Azure SQL

Power Platform and Azure connected together is such a powerful story of “Powerful alone, but better together”. When connected to Azure, Microsoft Power Platform enables you to quickly deliver value and build Enterprise solutions.

We always had the capability in App maker experience to connect to Azure SQL and build applications that interact or use data from Azure SQL using SQL connectors.

With the new Feature announced now, You can initiate/Build a Power Platform application using Azure SQL from within Azure Portal.

In this blog, we will look into how Azure SQL and PowerPlatform can be connected together.

What you need:

Azure SQL Database
Server firewall on database to enable Azure server and Power Platform services to access the database

How to set it up:

- Navigate to Azure SQL instance in Azure Portal
- Select the database you want to build on using Power Platform
- Click on the Power Platform application you want to build from the left sidebar

Power Apps:

Upon clicking on Power Apps, you would be presented with page to get Started, it will also provide learn resources.
Upon click of get started you will be presented with page to provide details for App you want to create and table you wish to use.

Upon Click of create you would be redirected to Power Apps studio with continue building Power Apps.

Power Automate:

Upon clicking on Power Automate, you would be presented with page with some of most popular SQL server templates

Clicking on them will present you with details on scenario and option to try it. If you choose to try, it will redirect to Power Automate studio to continue building.

Power BI:

Upon clicking on Power BI, you are presented with page to get started.

Clicking on get started will download the pbids file, which you can open in Power BI desktop and continue building on the sql database.

There are a lot of new features which enables Power Platform and Azure to work together, to find more check the blogs by following the tag #PowerfulAloneBetterTogether

Power Platform & Azure – Better Together: Azure APIM Connector

Power Platform and Azure connected together is such a powerful story of “Powerful alone, but better together”. In this blog, we will look into how Azure APIM and PowerPlatform can be connected together.

In this blog, we will look into how Azure APIM and PowerPlatform can be connected together.

Azure APIM: Digital transformation runs of APIs ( application programming interface). Api’s are abstractions, they allow you to decouple consumption and implementation based on standards which allow them to be available to work with any platform and any applications.`

Anyone can build api and publish them, but building api and running it as a strategic business is another thing. This is where APIM provides value, Azure API management provides a gateway for api using which organizations publish APIs to external, partner, and internal developers to leverage them and access different data and services.

Continue reading “Power Platform & Azure – Better Together: Azure APIM Connector”

Improved duplicate detection and data merge in Microsoft Dataverse

In case you haven’t followed the news, Microsoft Common Data Service has a new name, Its “Microsoft Dataverse”.

The change is just the name change at this time, behind the scene it’s the same CDS which has powered Dynamics 365 and Power Platform for years.

Dataverse Duplicate Detection and merge capabilities were due for a feature update in a long time, The alert and merge prompts were not optimized for UCI and looked out of Place on UCI apps.

The latest update( Release Wave 2 – 2020) to the platform provides new and improved Duplicate detection and merge capabilities as well as adds UCI compliant forms for merge.

This feature could be enabled by In Power Platform Admin Center under Duplicate Detection settings.

Continue reading “Improved duplicate detection and data merge in Microsoft Dataverse”

Global Power Platform Bootcamp, a True global event

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As we start planning and getting ready for #GPPB2021, I look back at 2019 on how #GlobalPowerPlatformBootcamp got started. I started discussing the idea for a global event with Dhina Gajavarathan, Colin Vermander in June 2019 but it truly started taking shape and momentum in October 2019 after I and Kent Weare started planning logistics.

what followed was series for meetings, discussion brainstorming with Power Platform enthusiasts, Microsoft MVPs, #PowerAddict, and Microsoft. We had tremendous help and because of which we were able to go from drawing board to execution in 4 months!!

Special thanks to Jon Levesque and Brian Dang for their support.

The first edition for #GlobalPowerPlatformBootcamp happened on 15th February 2020 and it was nothing less than a festival happening across the globe. Power Platform enthusiasts across the Globe connected for one day to learn, share, and connect. A true Global Event: Organized Globally, Hosted Locally!

In this full-day boot camp attendees got to deep dive into Microsoft’s Power Platform stack with hands-on sessions and labs, delivered by Microsoft MVPs, RDs, and local expert community leaders. A BIG THANK YOU to everyone involved.

So, who participated:

45+ locations across 6 continents (From New Zealand to Colombia to Canada)
3500+ attendees
320 Speakers
68 Local Organizers
6 Global Organizers

and Social Media, The event widely shared on social media, and event hashtag #GlobalPowerPlatformBootcamp were trending at many locations.

Who was part of the Global Organizing committee?

Continue reading “Global Power Platform Bootcamp, a True global event”

Create Child Flows in Power Automate

With the new October release, Microsoft has added support for Child flows. This is awesome as this allows for flow to be better structured and broken down into a smaller set of reusable actions. Let’s dive into how it works.

Where can you build them: in Solutions, This feature is only available in CDS solutions as of now.

what is required for a flow to be a Child Workflow :

Trigger: Child flow needs a Trigger which can accept a request, two ways to do it is:

- - Manual Trigger: Using “Flow Button” trigger:
- - Request Trigger: Using Http Request trigger

Continue reading “Create Child Flows in Power Automate”

Flow: Connectors for Common Data Service Platform

Last week, I was prepping for my session at Dynamics 365 Summit on Logic Apps and noticed my Flow connector got few more features added. Often time Logic Apps connector is more advanced than the same connector in Flow, this is so not true when for CDS/Dynamics.

Flow currently has 3 Connectors for connecting to CDS/Dynamics 365:

Dynamics 365 Connector: was the first D365 connector published and has been around since Flow & Logic Apps were released. This connector went through a couple of revision and has been deemed deprecated since April 22nd in Favour of CDS Connector

Common Data Service: This was released when CDS was released this is the recommended connector to be used with Flow and Logic Apps when creating independent flow. This connector has parity with Dynamics 365 connector which has been deprecated.

Common Data Service (current environment): is the newest Flow connector, released earlier this year. As the name suggests this connector is Environment specific and solution aware. it also has a lot of new features(actions/Triggers).

Continue reading “Flow: Connectors for Common Data Service Platform”

Data Migration Part IV : Data Cleansing

Data quality is determined by 3 key factors: Accuracy, Completeness and Relevancy/Validity. Data Quality is the most important aspect for any enterprise as it enables a business to make more informed decisions, better audience target, effective usage, and better user experience.

As an enterprise, any opportunity to improve on Data quality should be leveraged and Data Migration is one the best time to do a reset and clean the data. So let’s look into what are a few common data quality issues and how we deal with them when using Dynamics 365. Continue reading “Data Migration Part IV : Data Cleansing”

Data Migration Part III : Data load strategy

Data migration deployment often happens along with D365 application Go-Live and it can take significant time to complete. Go-live deployment means downtime for application and adding data migration could really increase that downtime by tenfolds. So how do we do them together while keeping the application outages to a minimum? let’s dive in look at some of the strategies.

Continue reading “Data Migration Part III : Data load strategy”

Data Migration Part II : Evaluation & Planning

As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” In terms of Data migration that is so true, according to Gartner, 83 % of data migrations fail outright or exceed their allotted budgets. A lot of this failure is attributed to a lack of planning.

Analysis of data migration projects over the years has shown that they meet with mixed results. While mission-critical to the success of the business initiatives they are meant to facilitate and support lack of planning structure and attention to risks causes many data migration efforts fail.
— Gartner, “Risks and Challenges in Data Migrations and Conversions,” February 2009, ID Number: G00165710

In the last blog, I mentioned about Data Migration stages. In this blog will do a deeper dive and look in the first 2 stages, So let’s talk about what planning and Evaluation look like.

Evaluate: Data

Data Sources: Identify all different data sources for Data migration, often time Dynamics 365 implementation replaces more than one applications as such you might be migrating data from multiple applications.
Data Quality: it’s important to analyze the quality of data at the source to avoid Garbage In, Garbage Out. Some of the common quality issues are
1. Inconsistent and incomplete Data: inconsistency is a big indicator that there’s a data quality problem. When data has not been entered in the system correctly like missing zip code, province or other information remaining data could be of less value.
2. Duplicates: In many circumstances, the same records might exist multiple times in a database, Common culprits are Account, Contacts.
3. Inconsistent Formats: if source application did not have much validation the data will have more typos of errors, Address is the most common place to find with City and provinces being named differently.
4. Obsolete Data: Every day, people move, marry, and change their names. Since Peoples’ information is rarely static, obsolete data is a common challenge which is hard to rectify as well.
Data Volume: Volume of Data could be a key factor in determining Data migration Tool/Process and the Deployment Plan.
Operational Data vs Archival Data: Legacy applications when replaced will often have a lot of historical data, you might not want to bring all of this data into Dynamics 365 as this data might be not be used for day to day operation but useful for Data Analytics and Reporting Purposes. Identify what data needs to be in Dynamics 365.

Continue reading “Data Migration Part II : Evaluation & Planning”

Dynamics 365 : Data Migration demystified-Part I

Data migration is often overlooked in Project implementation primarily because the project team is focussed on application development and customization which takes away the priority of data integration and data migration. As data migration is planned to be the last activity on the project it also gets most impacted from any budget cuts and application scope increase.

Talking about the budget, many implementation’s approaches to data migration is for data migration to be done using the Import and Export feature of Dynamics 365 CE over the weekend before Go Live, this works sometimes but is a recipe of disaster in most cases.

When implementing Dynamics 365 Project, configuration and customization to meet the users need is only half the battle. Data migration is key to getting the right head start for users to start using the application. In this blog series, I will focus on data migration, the challenges, strategy, Process, Tools and my own learnings over the years. Let’s start with what is Data migration?

Continue reading “Dynamics 365 : Data Migration demystified-Part I”

Unified View in Dynamics 365 without Data Duplication – Part 2

In the previous blog – we looked into how to achieve a unified view in Dynamics 365 CE using USD and Virtual entity, continuing on let’s look into other available options, today we will focus on Dynamics 365 CE Form embed options. Continue reading “Unified View in Dynamics 365 without Data Duplication – Part 2”

XrmToolBox: Portal Webform Cloner

When building/configuring Dynamics Portals for collecting data from users we generally use entity form or a webform.

Multi-Step webform is one of the key features of Dynamics Portals. It allows for multi-step conditional forms to be created in different modes clubbed together.

More often than not, you need forms to do things differently. Allow users to create and submit details. Allow users to edit the submitted details and present submitted details as read-only.

But this is difficult to achieve with one webform. The mode of the webform step is fixed. It can either be Insert, Edit, Read-only. Continue reading “XrmToolBox: Portal Webform Cloner”