Category: Power Platform#

Establishing tenant hygiene with the CoE Starter Kit – Learn COE #04

Hi Folks,

In this blog post, I am going to talk about establishing tenant hygiene using COE Stater kit, in today’s world where there increasing Power Platform demand. Organizations have become mature, that every implementation is now looking for having some kind of governance being established.

If you were some one who want to get some knowledge of implementing governance, you were at right place.

In order to efficiently implement governance, we need to understand the environment strategy, your current implementation has used. Of course if you were looking for some guidance, there were examples of tooling available in the CoE Starter Kit and out-of-the-box capabilities to help CoE teams effectively manage and optimize their Power Platform solutions.

Few key steps to be considered for maintaing this in your environment, so let’s get started…

  1. Define Environment Strategy
  • Assign your admins the Power Platform service admin or Dynamics 365 service admin role.
  • Restrict the creation of net-new trial and production environments to admins
  • Rename the default environment to ‘Personal Productivity’
  • Provision a new Production environment for non-personal apps/flows
  • Define and implement your DLP policies for your environments
  • When establishing a DLP strategy, you may need multiple environments for the same department
  • When establishing your Power Platform environment strategy, based upon your licensing, you may find that you need to provision environments without a Dataverse (previously called Common Data Service) database and also use DLP policies to restrict the use of premium connectors.
  • Establish a process for requesting access or creation of environments
  • Dev/Test/Production environments for specific business groups or application
  • Individual-use environments for Proof of Concepts and training workshops
  • Use a service account to deploy production solutions
  • Reduce the number of shared development environments
  • Share resources with Microsoft Entra Security Groups.

2. Compliance and Adoption:

The Compliance page in the CoE Starter Kit’s Compliance and adoption dashboard can help you identify apps and flows with no owners, noncompliant apps, and suspended flows.

  • Rename and secure the default environment
  • Identify unused apps, pending suspension, suspended cloud flows and not without an owner or not in solutions
  • Quarantined noncompliant apps and clean up orphaned resources
  • Enable Managed Environments and establish a data loss prevention policy
  • Apply cross tenant isolation
  • Assign Administrator roles appropriately
  • Apps and flows with duplicate names not compliant with DLP policies or billing policies
  • Apps shared with everyone and apps shared with more than 100 users and Apps not launched in the last month and in the last quarter
  • Flows using plain text passwords and using HTTP actions
  • Cross-tenant connections
  • Environments with no apps or flows
  • Custom connectors using HTTP environments

3. Managing Dataverse for Teams environments

If you were not using Dataverse for Teams, you can safely skip this step, else please review

The Microsoft Teams environments page in the CoE Starter Kits dashboard provides you with an overview of your existing Teams environments, apps and flows in those environments, and the last launched date of apps.

Screenshot of a Microsoft Teams Environments overview.

By checking for new Dataverse for Teams environments daily, organizations can ensure they’re aware of all environments in use. 

State of Dataverse for TeamsPower Platform action
83 days after no user activitySend a warning that the environment will be disabled. Update the environment state on the Environments list page and the Environment page.
87 days after no user activitySend a warning that the environment will be disabled. Update the inactive environment state on the Environments list page and the Environment page.
90 days after no user activityDisable the environment. Send a notice that the environment has been disabled. Update the disabled environment state on the Environments list page and the Environment page.
113 days after no user activitySend a warning that the environment will be deleted. Update the disabled environment state on the Environments list page and the Environment page.
117 days after no user activitySend a warning that the environment will be deleted. Update the disabled environment state on the Environments list page and the Environment page.
120 days after no user activityDelete the environment. Send a notice that the environment has been deleted.

Please note a warning is displayed only if the Dataverse for Teams environment is <= 7 days until disablement.

4. Highly used apps

The Power BI Dashboard available out of the box with COE Starter Kit will provide you the necessary guidance over high performing apps and also your most active users.

5. Communicating governance to your makers

This is one of the important step while setting up COE and governance guidelines, follow the below approaches

  • Clearly communicate the purpose and benefits of governance policies:Explain how governance policies protect organizational data
  • Make governance policies and guidelines easily accessible:Place the policies and guidelines in a central location that is easily accessible to all makers
  • Provide training and support:Offer training sessions and resources to help makers understand and comply with governance policies.
  • Encourage open communication: Foster culture where makers can ask questions and raise concerns about governance policies.
  • Incorporate governance into the development process:For example, you can require a compliance review before deploying a solution.

6. Administration of the platform

Power Platform Administrator Planning Tool which comes with COE Strater Kit provides guidance and best practices for administration. Also the planning tool can optimize environments, security, data loss prevention, monitoring and reporting.

6. Securing the environments

It is critical to establish a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) strategy to control connector availability.

The DLP editor (impact analysis) tool is available for use before making changes to existing policies or creating new DLP policies. It reveals the impact of changes on existing apps and cloud flows and helps you make informed decisions.

Reference: COE Starter Kit Documentation

If you face issues using the COE Starter Kit, you can always report them at https://aka.ms/coe-starter-kit-issues

Hope this helps…. someone maintaining tenant governance with COE starter kit…. if you have any feedback or questions, do let me know in comments….

Cheers,

PMDY

Fix Plugin Registration Tool Connection Issues with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Enabled in Power Platform

Hi Folks,

It’s been a since I posted on Power Platform Plugins, so this blog post talks about one small tip when connecting to your Power Platform Environment from Plugin Registration Tool either if you were connecting from Standalone Plugin Registration Tool or using Plugin Registration Tool from XrmToolBox.

If you were looking to install plugin registration tool itself, you can check the below post or if you want to learn about all Plugin related issues at once, you can check the references at the bottom of this post, else you can continue reading this post.

Another way to install Plugin Registration Tool for Dynamics 365 CE from Nuget

If you don’t know this tip, it will be difficult and least you will spend many minutes figuring out the error message you see in the Plugin registration tool.

This is applicable for applications who have MFA enabled, even if you haven’t enabled, it was enabled by Microsoft by default to enforce security.

As usually, you select:

  1. Office 365
  2. Enable Display list of available organizations, Show Advanced
  3. Provide User Name, Password
  4. Click on Login

You will be prompted this error in such case

======================================================================================================================
Source : Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory
Method : MoveNext
Date : 12/4/2025
Time : 5:09:52 pm
Error : AADSTS50076: Due to a configuration change made by your administrator, or because you moved to a new location, you must use multi-factor authentication to access '00000007-0000-0000-c000-000000000000'. Trace ID: 7a7cac23-056c-4e77-ba82-98d50c0b7001 Correlation ID: d8b32fe6-6197-4d9a-a460-3834c8dc292a Timestamp: 2025-04-12 09:09:52Z
Stack Trace : at Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.Connector.CrmWebSvc.ProcessAdalExecption(Uri serviceUrl, ClientCredentials clientCredentials, X509Certificate2 userCert, UserIdentifier& user, String clientId, Uri redirectUri, PromptBehavior promptBehavior, String tokenCachePath, Boolean isOnPrem, String authority, Uri& targetServiceUrl, AuthenticationContext& authContext, String& resource, CrmLogEntry logSink, Boolean useDefaultCreds, String& authToken, AdalException adalEx)
at Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.Connector.CrmWebSvc.ExecuteAuthenticateServiceProcess(Uri serviceUrl, ClientCredentials clientCredentials, X509Certificate2 userCert, UserIdentifier user, String clientId, Uri redirectUri, PromptBehavior promptBehavior, String tokenCachePath, Boolean isOnPrem, String authority, Uri& targetServiceUrl, AuthenticationContext& authContext, String& resource, UserIdentifier& userIdent, CrmLogEntry logSink, Boolean useDefaultCreds, SecureString clientSecret)
at Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.Connector.CrmWebSvc.DiscoverGlobalOrganizations(Uri discoveryServiceUri, ClientCredentials clientCredentials, X509Certificate2 loginCertificate, UserIdentifier user, String clientId, Uri redirectUri, PromptBehavior promptBehavior, String tokenCachePath, Boolean isOnPrem, String authority, UserIdentifier& userOut, CrmLogEntry logSink, Boolean useGlobalDisco, Boolean useDefaultCreds)
at Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.Connector.CrmWebSvc.DiscoverOrganizations(Uri discoveryServiceUri, ClientCredentials clientCredentials, UserIdentifier user, String clientId, Uri redirectUri, PromptBehavior promptBehavior, String tokenCachePath, Boolean isOnPrem, String authority, UserIdentifier& userOut, CrmLogEntry logSink, Boolean useGlobalDisco, Boolean useDefaultCreds)
at Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.CrmConnectControl.CrmConnectionManager.QueryOAuthDiscoveryServer(Uri discoServer, ClientCredentials liveCreds, UserIdentifier user, String clientId, Uri redirectUri, PromptBehavior promptBehavior, String tokenCachePath, Boolean useGlobalDisco)
at Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.CrmConnectControl.CrmConnectionManager.QueryOnlineServerList(ObservableCollection`1 svrs, OrganizationDetailCollection col, ClientCredentials liveCreds, Uri trimToDiscoveryUri, Uri globalDiscoUriToUse)
at Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.CrmConnectControl.CrmConnectionManager.FindCrmOnlineDiscoveryServer(ClientCredentials liveCreds)
at Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.CrmConnectControl.CrmConnectionManager.ValidateServerConnection(CrmOrgByServer selectedOrg)
======================================================================================================================
Inner Exception Level 1 :
Source : Not Provided
Method : Not Provided
Date : 12/4/2025
Time : 5:09:52 pm
Error : Response status code does not indicate success: 400 (BadRequest).
Stack Trace : Not Provided
======================================================================================================================
Inner Exception Level 2 :
Source : Not Provided
Method : Not Provided
Date : 12/4/2025
Time : 5:09:52 pm
Error : {"error":"interaction_required","error_description":"AADSTS50076: Due to a configuration change made by your administrator, or because you moved to a new location, you must use multi-factor authentication to access '00000007-0000-0000-c000-000000000000'. Trace ID: 7a7cac23-056c-4e77-ba82-98d50c0b7001 Correlation ID: d8b32fe6-6197-4d9a-a460-3834c8dc292a Timestamp: 2025-04-12 09:09:52Z","error_codes":[50076],"timestamp":"2025-04-12 09:09:52Z","trace_id":"7a7cac23-056c-4e77-ba82-98d50c0b7001","correlation_id":"d8b32fe6-6197-4d9a-a460-3834c8dc292a","error_uri":"https://login.microsoftonline.com/error?code=50076&quot;,"suberror":"basic_action"}: Unknown error
Stack Trace : Not Provided
======================================================================================================================
view raw PluginErrorLog.txt hosted with ❤ by GitHub 
======================================================================================================================
Inner Exception Level 2	: 
Source	: Not Provided
Method	: Not Provided
Date	: 12/4/2025
Time	: 5:09:52 pm
Error	: {"error":"interaction_required","error_description":"AADSTS50076: Due to a configuration change made by your administrator, or because you moved to a new location, you must use multi-factor authentication to access '00000007-0000-0000-c000-000000000000'. Trace ID: 7a7cac23-056c-4e77-ba82-98d50c0b7001 Correlation ID: d8b32fe6-6197-4d9a-a460-3834c8dc292a Timestamp: 2025-04-12 09:09:52Z","error_codes":[50076],"timestamp":"2025-04-12 09:09:52Z","trace_id":"7a7cac23-056c-4e77-ba82-98d50c0b7001","correlation_id":"d8b32fe6-6197-4d9a-a460-3834c8dc292a","error_uri":"https://login.microsoftonline.com/error?code=50076","suberror":"basic_action"}: Unknown error
Stack Trace	: Not Provided
======================================================================================================================

Based on the above inner exception, we can clearly understand that it is looking for Multifactor Authentication, so untick the Show Advanced checkbox, it then asks for Multifactor Authentication as shown below.

That’s it, with this simple tick of unchecking the Show Advanced, you were able to overcome this error, how cool is it…?

I have written lot of articles with respect to Plugin registration tool, you can check them below

Issues related to Plugins and Plugin Registration Tool

Hope this helps…

Cheers,

PMDY

Get your Power Automate Flow Metadata – Quick Review

Hi Folks,

Well this post talks about pretty basic but an important tip, it is the best way to get the flow Metadata.

Have you every got a requirement to get the Metadata about the flow you were running in…yes, then this post is for you.

Let’s say you were running a flow, you want to report out from when this flow has been running and Flow Guid etc…then Add the below action to get the details in a Compose step…

Run the flow to see the details retrieved…

If you carefully review the parameters returned..

{
"id": "/subscriptions/689ae050-9b02-4149-8b91-e748fd66aca1/resourceGroups/97AE7E352F87418B94326733950F3D5C-B3AADDB182B5EDD9A5AEBDFED80A2DD7-ENV/providers/Microsoft.Logic/workflows/f6dbb4bf-a18c-0908-d3a2-37e60692e32b",
"name": "f6dbb4bf-a18c-0908-d3a2-37e60692e32b",
"type": "Microsoft.Logic/workflows",
"location": "centralindia",
"tags": {
"flowDisplayName": "Child Flow ",
"capabilities": "Premium",
"environmentName": "b3aaddb1-82b5-edd9-a5ae-bdfed80a2dd7",
"logicAppName": "f6dbb4bf-a18c-0908-d3a2-37e60692e32b",
"environmentWorkflowId": "b3aaddb1:2D82b5:2Dedd9:2Da5ae:2Dbdfed80a2dd7-e0a7a57f:2D8c22:2Df011:2D998a:2D7ced8d27b0be",
"xrmWorkflowId": "e0a7a57f-8c22-f011-998a-7ced8d27b0be",
"environmentFlowSuspensionReason": "b3aaddb1:2D82b5:2Dedd9:2Da5ae:2Dbdfed80a2dd7-None",
"sharingType": "CommonDataService",
"state": "Enabled",
"createdTime": "4/26/2025 10:53:22 AM",
"lastModifiedTime": "4/27/2025 4:20:21 AM",
"createdBy": "31c73073-3c18-441d-a060-38b8a852f56e",
"triggerType": "Instant"
},
"run": {
"id": "/subscriptions/689ae050-9b02-4149-8b91-e748fd66aca1/resourceGroups/97AE7E352F87418B94326733950F3D5C-B3AADDB182B5EDD9A5AEBDFED80A2DD7-ENV/providers/Microsoft.Logic/workflows/f6dbb4bf-a18c-0908-d3a2-37e60692e32b/runs/08584558792611390446057643394CU13",
"name": "08584558792611390446057643394CU13",
"type": "Microsoft.Logic/workflows/runs"
}
}
view raw gistfile1.txt hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Inorder to read the JSON Object, let’s use Parse JSON..

Note that there were few important properties to take note..

  1. capabilities : It identifies whether Flow needs Premium Subscription
  2. environmentFlowSuspensionReason : It indicates if the exact reason when the flow had intermittenly terminated
  3. state:
  4. trigger type: It tells about the type of trigger which was used for the flow.

Hope this way, you can send email notification to support team to further investigate if there is any issue with the flow.

Cheers,

PMDY

Creating In-App Notifications in Model Driven Apps in an easier way – Quick Review

Hi Folks,

In App notifications are trending these days where many customers are showing interest in implementing these for their businesses.

So, in this blog post, I am going to show you the easiest way to generate In App notification using XrmToolBox in few clicks. Use the below tool to generate one.

So, let me walk you through step by step

Step 1: Open In App Notification Builder in XrmToolBox

Step 2: In App notification is a setting that should be enabled at App level, so meaning if you have developed few Model Driven Apps, you will be able to enable the In App notification individually for each one of them.

Step 3: In the above snapshot, we should be able to select the respective App for which we want to enable the In App Notification. Red bubble besides indicate that the In App notification is not enabled for this App.

So, we need to enable it by clicking on the red icon itself, you should then be able to get this prompt as below.

Step 5: Upon confirming the confirmation dialog box, the In App notification will be enabled for that App and you the red button turns to green as below saying that In App Notification is enabled.

Now that the In App notification is enabled in the App, we will proceed with the remaining setup.

Step 6: You can proceed to give a meaningful title, body for you In App Notification. Also mention the required toast type and specify the expiry duration, Icon. Also Click on Add icon and choose the action required to be performed when In App notification is clicked.

Step 9: You can even choose the type of action to be performed…

For example, let’s use to open as dialog and show list view

Your screen should look something like below

Step 10: Once done, you can click on create and that’s it you have now created In App Notification. Now let’s test this for the user who have priveleges to access this App.

If not, you will face this error..

Log in with user account for which the In App Notification is triggered.

Hurray!!!! That’s it, how easy it was to create In App Notification in Low Code manner.

You can even get the code behind this as well…

However, there were other ways to trigger the In App Notification from a Pro Code angle, let’s discuss those as well.

In this case you need to manually turn the In App Notification feature on by going to settings for the Model Driven App as below first.

Notifications can be sent using the SendAppNotification message using SDK.

You can either trigger from and can choose based on your convenience to trigger a similar notification.

Client Scripting

var systemuserid = '<user-guid>';
var data = {
"actions": [
{
"data": {
"url": "?pagetype=entitylist&etn=account&viewid=00000000-0000-0000-00aa-000010001002",
"navigationTarget": "dialog"
},
"title": "Link to list of notifications"
}
]
};
var notificationRecord =
{
'title': 'Learning In App Notificaiton',
'body': `In-App Notifications in Model-Driven Apps are messages or alerts designed to notify users of important events or actions within the app. These notifications appear directly inside the application, providing a seamless way to deliver information without relying on external methods such as emails.`,
'ownerid@odata.bind': '/systemusers(' + systemuserid + ')',
'icontype': 100000003, // Warning
'toasttype': 200000000, // Timed
'ttlinseconds': 1209600,
'data': JSON.stringify(data)
}
Xrm.WebApi.createRecord('appnotification', notificationRecord).
then(
function success(result) {
console.log('notification created with single action: ' + result.id);
},
function (error) {
console.log(error.message);
// handle error conditions
}
);
view raw JS hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Plugin/SDK

var notification = new Entity("appnotification")
{
["title"] = @"Learning In App Notificaiton",
["body"] = @"In-App Notifications in Model-Driven Apps are messages or alerts designed to notify users of important events or actions within the app. These notifications appear directly inside the application, providing a seamless way to deliver information without relying on external methods such as emails.",
["ownerid"] = new EntityReference("systemuser", new Guid("00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000")),
["icontype"] = new OptionSetValue(100000003), // Warning
["toasttype"] = new OptionSetValue(200000000), // Timed
["ttlinseconds"] = 1209600,
["data"] = @"{
""actions"": [
{
""data"": {
""url"": ""?pagetype=entitylist&etn=account&viewid=00000000-0000-0000-00aa-000010001002"",
""navigationTarget"": ""dialog""
},
""title"": ""Link to list of notifications""
}
]
}"
};
service.Create(notification);
view raw gistfile1.txt hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Power Automate:

You should design your Power Automate something like below to trigger a similar notification.

Note: Currently In App Notification will be triggered for only Model Driven Apps.

Reference:

In App Notification Documentation

Hope this saves some of your time…

Cheers,

PMDY

Using Power-Fx commands in Vs Code Terminal – Preview

Hi Folks,

Looking to improve your experience developing code using Power Fx. Then try this feature which was in preview…I want to show you how you can execute them. It is actually quite ideal for prototyping, debugging, testing to see the Power-Fx expression behavior. If you were new to Power-Fx, you can check my introductory post here on this which I wrote way back in 2021.

All you can do this is to execute few commands from VS Code, they directly run on your Dataverse environment.

Few prerequisites to follow:

  1. Install VS Code (install from here)
  2. Install Power Platform CLI (install from here)
  3. Install PowerShell Module for VS Code (install from here)
  4. Install Power Platform Tools for VS Code (install from here)
  5. Once you have everything installed you were good to go, few more steps required to set up your VS Code to run successfully.

As you have already installed the Power Platform Tools extension above, you should see an icon at the side bar as highlighted below.

Create an authentication profile for your target environment, click on the plus symbol besides the AUTH PROFILES, I have already created few earlier.

Provide your login credentials using the login prompt.

Once authenticated, you should be able to see all your environments in your tenant like below.

Open a terminal in VS Code

You should see something like below.

Now you were all set to run Power-Fx Commands targeting your envirnment, let’s try it out. In order to interact with Dataverse, use the below commands, thereby reducing the time and complexity of your Dataverse operations by using Power Fx.

1: pac org who: Displays information about your current Dataverse Organization

2: pac admin list :List all environments from your tenant.

3. Read-Eval-Print Loop & Dataverse Commands

We heard about Read-Eval-Print Loop while working on other languages mainly Python, we now have that included while using Power Fx, to start using if. Enter the below in your Vs Code Terminal, it should show something like below and now you can execute commands and once connected, you can use Dataverse commands.

By the way, we need to use Plural names below.

pac power-fx repl command:

a. Add Rows: Use Collect (Contacts, { firstname: “Pavan”, lastname: “Mani Deep”})

b. Help: Use Help ()

c. Exit: Use Exit() to exit the repl command

4. Run Power-Fx Commands from a file: All you need to do is save the Power-Fx commands in a text file at the below location.

pac power-fx run:

With this command, you can run a file of Power Fx instructions.

a. Create Dataverse records: By using same Collect Command we used above in a file.

Now execute the command

pac power-fx run –file Name of the file -e true

b. Query a Dataverse table: Save the below command in a file located in the folder path.

Now execute the command

c. Filter a Dataverse table: While I used the filter command, I was not able to filter the data, rather I was getting null. I hope Microsoft will be fixing this when these features are out of preview.

I hope this gives you an idea of how you can execute Power-Fx commands within your favorite IDE(Vs Code).

Cheers,

PMDY

Visualize this view – what this mean to developers and end users…?

Hi Folks,

Have you noticed Visualize this view button in in the app bar of any grid view of Dynamics 365?

Here is a dashboard built within couple of minutes. While this can greatly help end users visualize the data present in the system. So, in this post, let’s understand bit more details about this capability and what are the some of the features which are left behind.

Let’s understand the how’s this is generated along with its capabilities and disadvantages compared to traditional Power BI dashboard both from Developer and end user perspective, please note that this is my understanding..

For Developers:

a. Visualize this view uses a PCF Control which calls the Power BI REST API and then generates the embed token for the report embedding that into an Iframe.

b. Then uses Power BI JavaScript API to handle user interactions with the embedded report such as filtering or highlighting data points.

c. When Power BI first generates your report, it takes a look through your data to identify patterns and distributions and pick a couple of fields to use as starting points for creating the initial set of visuals when data is not preselected.

d. Any changes to the data fields calls the UpdateView of the PCF Control and there by passing the updated data fields to REST API and then displays the visuals.

e. Visuals will be created with both selected and non-selected fields which are the related to the selected fields in the data pane.

For End Users & Developers:

Advantages:

  1. Visuals are generated when no data is selected
  2. Cross Highlighting is possible
  3. Click on the Report to see Personalize this visual option
  4. People with Contributor, Member, or Admin role assigned can save the Report to workspace
  5. Users with no access to Power BI cant view this feature, they can request for free Power BI License
  6. Free License users can save the Report to thier personal workspace
  7. Users get build permission when any role above Contributor is assigned and reshare permission is given
  8. The report will be saved as direct query with SSO enabled and honours dataverse settings
  9. Show data table presents a list of tables if the model comprises of multiple tables.
  10. Able to specify the aggregation for each of the field in the model.

Disadvantages:

  1. Only able to export summarized data from Visuals, you will be able to export the data in table from data table.
  2. Only Visual Level, no page level or report level filters
  3. During these reports creation, the model is configured to use Direct Query with Single Sign On.
  4. Embed a report on a Dataverse form requires modifying the XML of the solution
  5. Report published into the workspace are available to download but downloaded reports will not be able to customize further in Power BI Desktop as it would be built using Native Queries.
  6. If the page is kept ideal for long time or the user navigates to other browser window, the session and report will be lost.

Considerations & Limitations:

  1. Power BI Pro license is required to create these reports
  2. While this is wonderful for end users to visualize the data but this is not an alteranative to building reports using Power BI Desktop.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

PMDY

Microsoft Power Platform Center of Excellence (CoE) Starter Kit – Core Components – Setup wizard – Learn COE #02

Hi Folks,

This post is continuation to my previous post on COE Starter Kit, if in case you have just landed on this page. I would suggest go here and check out my blog post on introduction to COE Starter Kit.

Important:

Do test out each and every component, rolling out to production without testing as you need to keep in mind that there were many flows which can trigger emails to users which may keep them annoyed.

You need to install the components present in the COE Starter Kit extracted folder in the dedicated environment, preferably Sandbox environment (not in Default environment, so that you can test it out first before moving changes to Production), make sure you have Dataverse installed in the environment. First let’s install the Solutions and later we can proceed to customize them.

Install CenterofExcellenceCoreComponents managed solution from your extracted folder, the exact version may be different and differ as the time goes at the time of installing this, the version was as below CenterofExcellenceCoreComponents_4.24_managed

Then proceed to click on Import as we will be configuring these environment variables whenever required later. It takes a couple of seconds to process, it asks to set the connections which I had talked about in previous post, just create new connection if one not available and click next. Make sure you have green checkboxes for each connection, and you are good to click next.

Then you will be presented with the screen to input Environment variables as below, we will configure later so for now, just proceed by clicking on Import button.

The import process may take a while like around 15 minutes, once imported, you should see a notification message on your screen something like below.

Step 1:

You will have a bunch of Apps, Flows installed in your environment. Configure the COE Settings by opening the Centre of Excellence setup and upgrade wizard from the installed Center of Excellence – Core Components managed solution.

It should look something like below when opened. You will be presented with some prerequisites

Proceed with this step-by-step configuration, you don’t need to change any of the setting, just proceed by clicking on Next.

Step 2: In this step, you can configure different communication groups to coordinate by creating different personas

You can click on Configure group, choose the group from the drop down and enter the details and click create a group.

Provide a group name and email address without domain in the next steps and proceed to create a group, these were actually Microsoft 365 groups.

Once you have setup, it should show..

However, this step is optional, but for efficient tracking and maximum benefit of COE, it is recommended to set this up.

Step 3: While the tenant Id gets populated automatically. Make sure to select no here instead of yes if you were using Sandbox or Production Environment and configure your Admin email and click Next.

Step 4: Configure the inventory data source.

Tip: In case you were not able to see the entire content in the page, you can minimize the Copilot and press F11 so that entire text in the page would be visible to you.

This is required for the Power Platform Admin Connectors to crawl your tenant data and store them in Dataverse tables. This is similar to how search engines crawl entire internet to show any search results. While Data export is in preview, so we proceed with using Cloud flows.

Click Next.

Step 5:

This step is Run the setup flows, click on refresh to start the process. In the background, all the necessary admin flows will be running. Refresh again after 15 minutes to see all the 3 admin flows are running and collecting your tenant data as below and click Next.

Step 6:

In the next step, make sure you set all the inventory flows to On.

By the way inventory flows are a set of flows that are repeatedly gathering a lot of information about your Power Platform tenant. This includes all Canvas Apps, Model Driven Apps, Power Pages, Cloud Flows, Desktop Flows, Power Virtual Agent Bots, Connectors, Solutions and even more.

To enable them, open the COE Admin Command Center App from Center of Excellence – Core Components Solution. Make sure you turn on all the flows available.

So, after turning on all the flows, come back and check on Center of Excellence Wizard Setup, you should see a message something like below saying all flows have been turned on.

Configure data flows is optional, as we haven’t configured it earlier, this step would be skipped.

Step 7: In the next step, all the Apps came in with Power Platform COE Kit should be shared accordingly based on your actual requirement to different. personas.

Step 8:

This part of the wizard currently consists of a collection of links to resources, helping to configure and use the Power BI Dashboards included in the CoE.

Finish

Once you click Done, you will be presented with more features to setup.

These setups have similar structure but varies a bit based on the feature architecture.

As we got started with setting Starter Kit and had set up the Core Components of the Starter Kit which is important one, now you can keep customizing further, in the future posts, we will see how we can set up Center of Excellence – Governance Components, Center of Excellence – Innovation Backlog. These components are required to finally set up the Power BI Dashboard and use effectively to plan your strategy.

Everyone who’s ever installed or updated the CoE knows how time-consuming it can be. Not just the setup procedure, but also the learning process, the evaluation and finally the configuration and adoption of new features. It’s definitely challenging to keep up with all this. Especially since new features are delivered almost every month. This attempt from me is to try my best to keep it concise, yet making you understand the process.

While such setup wizard is clear and handy resource to get an overview of the CoE architecture and a great starting point for finding any documentation. This simplifies administration, operations, maintenance and may be even customizations.

If you face issues using the COE Starter Kit, you can always report them at https://aka.ms/coe-starter-kit-issues

Hope this helps…. someone setting up COE starter kit…. if you have any feedback or questions, do let me know in comments….

Cheers,

PMDY

Simplify Power BI Management with Environment Variables

Introduction

Power Platform solutions often rely on dynamic configuration data, like Power BI workspace IDs, report URLs, or API endpoints. Environment variables make it easier to manage such configurations, especially in managed solutions, without hard coding values. This blog will walk you through the steps to update a Power BI environment variable in managed solutions, focusing on the task of switching the workspace to the correct one directly within Power BI integration when working on different environments.

What are Environment Variables in Power Platform?

Before we dive into the steps, let’s quickly cover what environment variables are and their role in solutions:

  • Environment Variables are settings defined at the environment level and can be used across apps, flows, and other resources in Power Platform.
  • They store values like URLs, credentials, or workspace IDs that can be dynamically referenced.
  • In managed solutions, these variables allow for configuration across multiple environments (e.g., development, testing, production).

Why Update Power BI Environment Variables in Managed Solutions?

Updating environment variables for Power BI in managed solutions ensures:

  • Simplified Management: You don’t need to hardcode workspace or report IDs; you can simply update the values as needed.
  • Better Configuration: The values can be adjusted depending on which environment the solution is deployed in, making it easier to scale and maintain.
  • Dynamic Reporting: Ensures that Power BI reports or dashboards are correctly linked to the right workspace and data sources.
  • Best and Recommended: Changing the environment variables and pointing to right workspace is the correct and is best way to point your Power BI Report to respective workspace and recommended by Microsoft.

Prerequisites

Before proceeding with the update, ensure you meet these prerequisites:

  1. You have the necessary permissions to edit environment variables and manage solutions.
  2. The Power BI integration is already set up within your Power Platform environment.
  3. You have a managed solution where the Power BI environment variable is defined.

Steps to Update a Power BI Environment Variable in Managed Solutions

Step 1: Navigate to the Power Platform Admin Center
Step 2: Open the Solution in Which the Environment Variable is Defined
  • Go to Solutions in the left navigation menu.
  • Select the Managed Solution that contains the Power BI environment variable you need to update.
Step 3: Find the Environment Variable
  • In the solution, locate Environment Variables under the Components section.
  • Identify the Power BI environment variable (such as API URL or workspace ID) that you need to modify.
Step 4: Click on Dashboards to Update the Workspace
  • To update the Power BI environment variable related to the workspace, click on Dashboards.
  • Find the existing environment variable tied to the workspace and click to edit it.
  • Here, you’ll see the current workspace configuration for the Power BI resource.
Step 5: Update the Workspace ID
  • In the environment variable settings, you will now change the workspace to the new one.
  • Select the appropriate workspace from the list or manually enter the new workspace ID, ensuring it aligns with the target environment (development, production, etc.).
  • If necessary, update other properties like report or dataset IDs based on your environment needs.
Step 6: Save and Apply Changes
  • After updating the workspace and any other relevant properties, click Save.
  • The environment variable will now reflect the new workspace or configuration.
Step 7: Publish the Solution
  • If you’re using a managed solution, ensure that the updated environment variable is properly published to apply the changes across environments.
  • You may need to export the solution to other environments (like test or production) if applicable.
Step 8: Test the Changes
  • After saving and publishing, test the Power BI integration to ensure that the updated workspace is correctly applied.
  • Check the relevant Power BI reports, dashboards, or flows to confirm that the new workspace is being used.

Best Practices

  • Document Changes: Always document the updates to environment variables, including what changes were made and why.
  • Use Descriptive Names: When defining environment variables, use clear and descriptive names to make it easy to understand their purpose.
  • Cross-Environment Testing: After updating environment variables, test them in different environments (dev, test, prod) to ensure consistency and reliability.
  • Security Considerations: If the environment variable includes sensitive information (like API keys), make sure it’s properly secured.

Conclusion

Updating Power BI environment variables in managed solutions allows you to maintain flexibility while keeping your configurations centralized and dynamic. By following the steps outlined in this blog post, you can efficiently manage workspace IDs and other key configuration data across multiple environments. This approach reduces the need for hardcoded values and simplifies solution deployment in Power Platform.

Cheers,

PMDY

Microsoft Power Platform Center of Excellence (CoE) Starter Kit – Basics – Learn COE #01

Hi Folks,

This is an introductory post, but it’s worth going through where I will be sharing basics about using Centre of Excellence(COE) in Power Platform. Let’s get started.

So, what’s Center of Excellence? COE plays a key role in deriving strategy and move forward in this fast-paced world to keep up with the innovation. Firstly, we may need to ask ourselves few questions…Do your organization have lot of flows, apps and copilots aka power virtual agents? Do you want to effective manage them? Then how you want to move forward…using COE Starter kit is a great choice. It is absolutely free to download, the starter kit is a collection of components and tools which will help to oversee and adopt Power Platform Solutions. The assets part of the CoE Starter Kit should be seen as a template from which you inherit your individual solution or can serve as inspiration for implementing your own apps and flows.

There were some prerequisites before you can install your COE Starter Kit. Many of the medium to large scale enterprise Power Platform implementations should be possessing in their tenant.

  1. Microsoft Power Platform Service Admin, global tenant admin, or Dynamics 365 service admin role.
  2. Dataverse is the foundation for the kit.
  3. Power Apps Per User license (non-trial) and Microsoft 365 license.
  4. Power Automate Per User license, or Per Flow licenses (non-trial).
  5. The identity must have access to an Office 365 mailbox that has the REST API enabled meeting the requirements of Outlook connector.
  6. Make sure you enable the Power Apps Code Components in Power Platform Admin Center
  7. If you want to track unique users and app launches, you need to have Azure App Registration having access to Microsoft 365 audit log.
  8. If you would like to share the reports in Power BI, minimally you require a Power BI pro license.
  9. Setting up communication groups to talk between Admins, Makers and Users.
  10. Create 2 environments, 1 for test and 1 for production use of Starter Kit
  11. Install Creator Kit in your environment by downloading the components from here

The following connectors should be allowed to effectively use data loss prevention policies(DLP)

Once you were done checking the requirements, you can download from the starter kit here.

You can optionally install from App Source here or using Power Platform CLI here.

The kit provides some automation and tooling to help teams build monitoring and automation necessary to support a CoE.

While we saw what advantages are of having COE in your organization and other prerequisites. In the upcoming blog post, we will see how you can install COE starter kit in your Power Platform tenant and set it up to effectively plan your organization resources for highest advantage.

Cheers,

PMDY

Using Preferred Solution in Power Apps saves you time..Quick Review

Hi Folks,

Today, I will be pointing out the advantages of using Preferred Solution and it’s consequences of using or removing it…while the feature is out there from quite few months, yet many of the Power Platform Projects are not utilizing this feature, it can reduce your hassles when many people are working together in a team and you can make sure everyone’s changes go to this solution.

Here we understand what Preferred Solution means to the makers, firstly in order to use this affectively, let’s turn the feature to create Canvas Apps & Cloud Flows in Solutions by enabling this preview feature as suggested below from https://admin.powerplatform.com, this is not mandatory step but would be better as you can add Power Automate flows and Canvas Apps in the Solution and click Save.

Next navigate to https://make.powerapps.com –> Solutions –> Set preferred solution

If no preferred solution is set, by default, it will show the Common Data Service Default Solution to set as Default Solution, if you wish to set another Solution, you can select the respective Solution from the drop down.

Enable/Disable the toggle to show Preferred Solution option in the Solutions Page.

Just click on Apply.

Advantages:

  1. Once preferred Solution is set, any components added by the makers would by default go the Preferred Solution, so makers need not worry about choosing right Solution while creating Power Platform Components.
  2. No need to worry if the solution components will be added in the default solution as the new components will be added to the preferred solution automatically.

Limitations:

  1. Preferred Solutions can be only set in Modern Designer
  2. Components created in Classic Designer won’t go to Preferred Solutions
  3. Custom Connector, Connections, DataFlows, Canvas Apps created from Image or Figma Design, Copilots/Agents, Gateways

You can always delete your preferred solution so that other makers can set their preferred solution, but do this with caution so that none of your team members or your works gets impacted.

Hope this saves few seconds of your valuable time…

Cheers,

PMDY