If you want to learn how to use lookup function in the canvas power apps then you are at the right place. You should know that Lookup function is used to find record which matches criteria from the source which is table in the app. We have exemplified a scenario for you to understand it better.

Example:

If you have a gallery control which is loaded with account data from Dataverse; then you will have Textbox (Text Input) through which you can pull up a field from a record in the Dataverse which actually matches a certain criteria.

• How to Look up in Microsoft Canvas Apps
• Here, we will show you how you can Lookup in a Canvas app using the example above:
• Begin by typing “Lookup”; you will be able to see valid function in the list
• Remember that the first thing in the parameter is opening the bracket source
• You will be able to see suggestions in the list below. Here you have the select the Table/Entity from where you want to fetch the record

• Here you will see Accounts; you need to select it and Press Comma (,).
• Next you will be asked the Condition
• Here you need to mention the record you want to retrieve based on your decided criteria

• Here find the Account you want to retrieve in (Account Name) and it should be equal to <value>
• I have exemplified showing the account we are trying to fetch; Account record whose ‘Account Name‘ field has value “Coffee House”

Once you have a condition identified that the condition is satisfied; next step is to identified what field you want to retrieve as it needs to be shown in Text Input box which you have inserted.

In the example; we are trying to retrieve “Main Phone Field”

Here, the formula is complete, you can simply bring it to a close with “closing bracket”. As you can see the example below “Main phone” from matching criteria has shown up.

Final Word:

We hope the reading was helpful for you to understand how Lookup function can be used to pick a record’s value using specific criteria.

One of the most useful features of Dynamics 365 is records in Model Driven apps. As easy as it sounds many people struggle on browsing and sharing links of records found in Dynamics 365 model driven apps.

Outdated Way

The outdated way was to open the record and find the link from the browser address bar.

This way is no longer used. Microsoft Dynamics 365 introduced a new release which now provides a copy link button which can be used to copy and share records in an easy manner

How to access Records:

To access record you need to go to record section and find share in the menu on top right ribbon.

There are three options which you can use to share:

• Email Link: Outdated option, but still can be used
• Copy Link: The new option, allows you to copy URL of the record which can be pasted anywhere directly
• Manage Access: Allows you to open the share window

As you can see below, one you choose the option of Copy Link you will be able to see the URL which can be pasted anywhere.

If you still have any questions you can contact us anytime.

If you are wondering why Power Apps has introduced the feature of “managed properties” then you are at the right place, because today I will tell you everything you need to know about them. Managed properties are introduced inside a managed solution to enable component customization. It is because all components are disabled by default however, for some solution if you want to introduce component customization then you needs to make use of managed properties. You can use managed properties to export managed solutions. Below are the steps which you can use to achieve your goal:

Step 1: Open Power Apps Solution and Component

• The first step is to login to Power Apps Solutions and Component
• Then choose the solution you want to work on
• Once you find the solution; you will find all the components

Step 2: Open Component and use Managed Property Option

• Next step is to select a component for examples: you can choose the “Table component”
• Click the chosen component and choose advanced option and go to managed properties

•  Next you need to choose Allow Customization Option
• Here, you will choose the customizations you want to be allowed; all the options are enabled here except for “Can enable sync to external search index”.
• Look for “display name can be modified”; if it is enabled it means that current unmanaged solution can be exported as a managed solution. Once it is done, you can import it to another environment.
• After this the display name can be changed and other properties could also be changed.

I hope these steps are easy for you to follow, if you have any questions you can contact me anytime!

MS build today has made drastic changes to its Power apps with the introduction of New Portal Designer. Some people might think that New Power Pages Designer does not offer a wide range of functionality however; it offers many features which make your Pro UI/UX experience easy and efficient.

Themes

One of the most important parts of the new portal design is its themes which come from strict marketing style and branding documents for public organizations and easy-to-use branding documents for private ones. The documents come with many options of fonts, formats, headers, lists, a palette for normal text, and some other design suggestions which designers can use to improve consistency across their web pages. Styling in this regard is very useful and practical; to start you just need to choose a template and set up text, headers, and links.

Landing Page

It is one of the most important areas for any designer and a good deal of time is spent on it. A landing page enables you to create an effect to attract people to your website. A landing page should be perfect. So, using power pages will enable you to get the start you are looking for as the layouts are very good.

Landing Page Layout

Image Uploads

Adding images as web files can be daunting for some people, however, with the help of an editor you can add any image anywhere as a component of your webpage.

 

Forms and Lists

Using this feature you can add any Dataverse table form as a basic form to your webpage. It is very easy as no extra steps are required.

Everything in the form component is in one place!

Moreover, adding Feedback is also super easy!

You can also add any list to the page by following this simple step!

Adding records to the list

You can create new records, view details, and also edit records following the simple steps below

HTML Editor

Unfortunately, some features are not available in the visual edit so there are some steps to be done manually. You need to manually dig into a code here.

Final Word

Microsoft has come a long way in improving UI/UX editor for a portal. Using the new Power Pages, you can build yourself attractive portals.

Did you ever get the chance to configure a multi-select look up. Recently, one of our team members had to create a dropdown including the following features:

Customer-Specific Requirements:

Users should have the ability to select more than one item from the dropdown

• . An excess of 100 items are found in the dropdown
• A developed is not needed to add items to the system user
• A user should be efficient to search for options
• All the options should be sorted out alphabetically

Review the Requirements

The best solution is to lookup for a column where a user can select more than one record. Review the following requirements to see the options supported by the lookup column.

• Users should have the ability to select more than one item from the dropdown

You should know that standard lookup columns do not have the option of multi-select

• An excess of 100 items are found in the dropdown

Since there are many options available, your best option is to lookup.

• A developed is not needed to add items to the system user

You should not be dependent on the developed so for a user to access updating choices you need access to the PowerApps maker environment; so, you should have large lists managed through lookup reference tables.

• A user should be efficient to search for options

Search options are only available with lookup so it is your best approach

• All the options should be sorted out alphabetically

This area is where Choices (multi-select) do not perform well; you should know that once the list of options is created there is no going back. Lookups are only view-to-display; however, filtering is configurable. You may think that these features easy easily implemented using the standard choices (multi-select) column, however, some of these features are not possible and some are very difficult to manage. Some features require the user to have access to the PowerApps maker

Microsoft Dynamics 365 comes with-in a built-in feature that allows the system administrator to configure a multi-select look-up. The good news is that this setup is easy and does not require any coding system.

This blog provides a step-by-step guide to help you configure the look-up.

Steps to Configure Multi-select Lookup

Multiselect Lookup is shipped with Dynamics 365 Field service. Here, we will showcase how you can configure the multi-select lookup. This guide will also help you associate multiple accounts to a contact using a multi-select lookup.

• Firstly, login into the PowerApps Maker
• Then select the correct environment with Dynamics 365 installed
• Click Data on your navigation and select Tables
• Choose the Contact Table
• Next, you need to create a new column called Accounts. See the images below for details:

• Next, add the Accounts column to the Contact Main Form, then click on Save and
• The next step is to add Multi-select control to the form.
• Then, double-click the Accounts column and open the field properties and choose the controls tab

• Click on Add Control, scroll down and look for the Multiselect Lookup Control, select it and then click on Add

• You should know that for these steps you will need to get the view id for active accounts; you can achieve that using the option of a new session on PowerApps Maker

• The next step requires configuring the properties for the control. By default, the Property_Display_Key should already be populated. Click on the pencil icon next to entityName_Display_Key, select Bind to Static Value, and then set the Text property to account (all lowercase). Next, set the viewidDisplay_Desc_Key to the viewid you copied in the previous step.

• See the picture below to match if everything is right and make sure that you set the control to be visible WEB.

You should be happy to know that you are almost done; just Publish the changes and Voila!

Make sure you test the control, Refresh the Dynamics 365 App and you will be able to see your New multi-select lookup. Try it out and make sure to select more than one account for that. You can see the images below to match your page:

I hope this article was helpful to you. Happy CRMing!

Deployment is a complex process which involves movement from one environment to another to attain solutions. Deployment has two processes rolling out to the production space where the application is held and the process of attaining a solution for the end user. It means that deployment ensures the availability of an app via browser bookmark or through linking as a tile in Viva connection. Power apps can also be provided to users in the deployment process via the Teams app store. Moreover, using Teams configuration policies power apps can also be deployed in users’ app bars automatically; this way they do not have to search for it in the catalogue.

This blog will help you learn how to import Power Apps into the Team admin centre and make it available to your users. Furthermore, you will also learn how to assign power apps to user bars and how they can be used to control AAD group-based policy assignments.

How to Get Power Apps Files to Upload to Teams

• The first step is to upload the .zip file to Microsoft Teams Admin Centre. You can export it from makepowerapps.com
• Go to make.powerapps.com and the open production environment where you have added your app and find the desired app.
• Then click three dots [ … ] right next to the app and press “Add to teams”
• Once you are done with the above-mentioned steps you will only add yourself as a user and not an admin to the app catalogue; to achieve that there are further steps involved.

Uploading Apps to Teams Admin Centre

This step requires you to assume Microsoft Teams Administrator role in AAD or 365 Admin Centre.

• Under the icon of “Team Apps,” you will find four options, from which you need to choose “Manage Apps”
• After that choose “upload new app” and add the .zip file. And add the required information about your app
• Once you are done with all these steps, your app will be available in Team Catalogue for users to add to their teams

If you want to ensure that people have your app automatically added to their app bar, use Team Apps setup policies to customize their app bar. You will be required to assign this policy to a group to roll it out to other users. If you take these steps you will put your Power apps application in a space where people will be able to use it collaboratively in one space.

We hope this blog was helpful to you regarding the deployment of power apps, if you have any questions you can contact us.

Power Apps Portals are a significant part of the organization in terms of long-range strategy. These portals enable organizations to interact with external-facing websites with data from Microsoft Dynamics 365. Recently, Microsoft enriches the portals Dynamics 365 with Power BI Embedded Service allowing customization which allows access to the Power BI Service component (reports, dashboards, and tiles) to external users who do not possess a Power BI account or license.

This blog is the ultimate guide to help you understand how you can embed Power BI visualization in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Portal’s Web page.

Prerequisite:

To access Power BI Apps, you need to have Dynamics 365 for Customer Service organization and a Global Admin user with Dynamics 365 and Power BI Licenses. Moreover, to proceed further you also need to have a provisioned Dynamics 365 License; if you do not have it then go to Power Apps Admin Center and select the environment to access portal setup and provision a portal on any of the given templates according to your requirements.

Steps for Power BI Dashboard and Portal Integration

Once you are done with the completion of Portal Provision and your Portal is up and running then follow the steps below to surface a Power bi on Portal’s website.

Enable Power BI Visualization from Power Apps Portal

• Open the Power App and go to the environment where you provisioned the Portal
• Next, go to the Your Apps in Power Apps Homepage and locate Your Portal
• Choose more commands and press Settings

Next, in the Opened Portal Setting Window, Press Administration

• You will now see that the Power Apps Portal has opened in a separate tab
• Note the App ID and Portal Details Page as you will need them for later steps

• In the Power, Apps Portal choose Set Up BI Integration and press Enable BI Visualisation
• Once you see the confirmation pop-up press Enable

Create an Azure AD security Group and Add it to the Power BI Account

• To display reports and dashboard built-in Power BI workspaces on Portal’s webpage create a security group in Azure Active Directly
• Next, you need to add Portal Application being a member of this group
• Then take the group to the Power BI account from the admin Portal
• Open Azure Portal and Sign in using your Global Admin account
• In the left Pane go to Azure Active Directory Select Groups and then press New Group

• Once you open the New Group Page, select Security and enter a group name
• Click Create

• Open the created Group and go to Manage > Members > Add Members
• Specify Portal App ID you noted earlier and put it in Add member search box
• Click Select

• Now you need to add this security group to the Power BI Service
• Go to Power BI and use Global Admin User Sign in
• On the right choose settings and go to Admin Portal

• Next, from the Admin Portal go to Tenant Setting
• Find Developer Setting> expand Allow Service Principals to Use BI APIs Section
• Using Radio Button Enable it

• Choose Specific Security Groups and search for your group
• Select group and Choose Apply

HOW TO CREATE POWER BI WORKSPACE AND PUBLISH YOUR REPORT

• This step will allow you to create a workspace in Power BI and publish it to a new or existing report.
• Move to Power BI Admin Center by selecting Global Admin user
• Create a Workspace

• Go to the Power BI Desktop application
• Create New Report and or open the existing report that you want to be displayed on your portal

You can see the sample below for your understanding

• Choose the Publish Command from the Toolbar section
• Select the created workspace or any other one of your choice
• You will see a success message when the report is successfully published

Now go back to your workspace and open the report you published and copy the report URL

Enable Power BI Embedded Service from Portal Admin

This step will allow you to select the Power BI workspace which will enable surface reports/dashboards on Portal’s webpage

• Scroll back to Power Portal Admin Center
• Choose Set up Power BI integration > Enable Power BI Embedded Service

• Next Select Power BI Workspaces you want to use and choose the Selected workspaces column and then Choose Enable
• You will see a confirmation message once the embedded service has been enabled successfully

Embed Power BI Dashboard/Report to Portal Webpage

• The final step is to embed the Power BI report/dashboard to Portal’s webpage with powerbiliquid tag
• Choose Power Apps > Power Apps Homepage > Choose Portal Management

• You will see Portal Management App is opened
• Choose Web Pages from the Content Section
• Add a New Web Page
• Choose the Template, URL, and parent page of your Choice
• Click Save

• Open the Content Page from the Localized Content subgrid > Copy (HTML) and add powerbi liquid tag as shown. Make sure to use authentication type as powerbiembedded for report or dashboard in workspaces
• Paste the report URL you noted earlier in the path parameter

Power BI tag: {% powerbi authentication_type:”powerbiembedded” path:”Your report URL” %}

• The last step is to add the web page to Portal Web Link set if needed and brose to Portal in the new tab
• Go to the Power BI web page
• You will then see that the Power BI report is displayed there without needing any authentication/sign in

Congratulations!!! You have integrated the Power BI report/dashboard into the Power Apps Portal’s Webpage.

If you are looking for a convenient way to install your applications on Windows devices, you have come to the right place.

I am extremely happy to announce about the release of Power App (Preview) for Windows. Here, I will help you learn the simplest way of installing the brand new “Power Apps (preview)” from the Microsoft Store. So let us begin!

Just to summarize, with this new Power App (preview) application, you can use apps while staying offline! The brand-new application is integrated within the Windows OS and supports native Data verse as well as native device capabilities like Camera control and barcode scanner.

Explore your canvas and model-driven apps at one spot

With Power App (Preview), you will find all your apps on Windows. Whether they are model-driven or canvas Apps, they can be viewed in the Power Apps (preview) application. All you need to do is pick one and you will be done. You can always look for the app list by simply clicking on the back button.

Make offline-friendly Apps

Just as I have mentioned above, with this new release, you can even use apps in offline mode. Offline mode on Windows is like how it works on Android and iOS.

If you are using a model-driven app, you can make an offline capable app by creating an offline profile. On the other hand, if you use a canvas app, you can go for the Load Date/Save Data functions in your app.

Below I have attached a very plain example of how you can implement a canvas app in offline mode while using the Native Data verse Connector.

Once you learn this, you can use the app anywhere you want. Be it your basement, warehouse, or any other remote location.

Use device tools in your apps

Yes, it is true that you can use your device capabilities like Camera and microphones in your apps. There are several ways of doing it. You can take pictures to report back on an observation field. You can also use a barcode scanner, which will automatically register information from a phone app or document. Lastly, recording of meetings with customers can also be made.

So, the Power App (preview) provides these amazing features of using device capabilities. Do try them out in your apps.

Moreover, Power App preview is natively supporting Intune for application management. This is another added feature which makes it a universal Window App.

I hope I was clear above regarding PowerApps. Let me know your queries.

Installing the app

This Power App (preview) is available on Microsoft Store. You can install it simply like you download all other applications. Always watch out for documentation.

Upcoming features:

There is a lot more coming up to this app. Some of the examples are:

• Guest access
• Recent and favorite apps
• Push notifications
• Pin to start

TAKE AWAY

Here I hope that this small guide will help you understand all about Power App (preview). Drop down your comments in the section below and help us make this app even better.

PowerApps CLI provides various features to help with our daily activities, but, in my opinion, the most useful has to be the command “Pac-plugin init.”

Let’s look into it:

• Authentication
• Solution commands to do export, and
• Commands to do imports

Keep up with me and You will figure out how to do it all by yourself.

Installing

For starters, follow these 3 simple steps below.

1. Download the PowerApps CLI. I am mentioning the link here for you.
2. Open the command prompt.
3. Now, run the “pac” command and wait for a response.

If, by chance you do not receive a response, then you can follow my effortless way of setting Environment Variables on your machine.

1. Type “Edit environment Variables” on the start button. System Properties will automatically pop up.
2. Click on the “Environment variables” as shown below in the image.

Authenticating

Before proceeding further with export/import, I will tell you how to connect with the environment of your choice.

The first thing is to add a connection to the Dataverse environment. For this, you just need to click on the command prompt and type the following command:

pac auth create –name powermvps1 –url https://yourcrmurl.crm.dynamics.com –username yourusername@yourdomain.com –password yourpassword

You will get the response only if your setting is appropriate and correct. After that, you can run the command pac-auth list to see your connected Environments.

In the image above, you can observe that the active environment is index no 2. So now every command which you will run will be in this environment.

You can also change the environment if you want to. For example, you can set insurgo2 as the active environment by simply running the command “pac-auth select –index 1”.

Export Solution

Once you are done with the steps I have mentioned above, get ready for some export by running the command below:

pac solution export –path d:\\Solutions\Blog_Unmanaged.zip –name blog –managed false –include general

Now there are various parameters to this, which you can learn here. I will tell you one of the easiest methods. Once you are connected to your environment:

• Select a Solution that you want to export.
• After that you will click on Export.
• Next, you will publish and run.
• Then, you need to select managed or unmanaged, which is based on which environment you plan to migrate your solution to.
• And finally, you simply export.

Import Solution

Finally, the last thing to learn is how to import a solution. For this, you just need to import the following command:

pac solution import –path D:\Solutions\Blog_Unmanaged.zip –activate-plugins true –publish-changes true –async true

And this is what you will see once you are done importing.

Just like export, there are lots of parameters to import as well, which you can learn here.

One of them is to convert-to-managed parameters. This allows you to convert unmanaged components to a managed state.

Then there is the activate-plugins parameter which activates the plugins once you are finished importing.

Final Take

Surely, Export and import solutions gives you a better application lifecycle management for integration. I am sure this short guide will aid you with Export/Import solutions easily.

Let me know your thoughts.

USE POWERAPPS TO PATCH MULTISELECT LOOKUP IN SHAREPOINT

I’ve observed a couple situations where a user needs to repair a multi-select lookup using PowerApps. Patch the lookup is different than the basic data type in general because Lookup is a complicated type.

Solution

Because ComboBoxSelectedItems is a table, we must loop through the chosen items.

Patching Command

{ Title: TitleInput.Text, Event: ForAll( EventComboBox.SelectedItems, { ‘@odata.type’: “#Microsoft.Azure.Connectors.SharePoint.SPListExpandedReference”, Id: Id, Value: Value } ) }

• Event – The column name in SharePoint EventComboBox
• Displays a list of all events from the SP List