Microsoft Power Platform Developer

Part 1 - Create a technical design

Extensibility Overview of the Power Platform

This first module provides participants with an overview of the Common Data Service architecture and where the extension points are as a developer.

• Overview of the Common Data Service application development framework
• Introduction to the Common Data Service platform
• Helpful skills in developing Common Data Service solutions
• Power Virtual Agents extensibility points including Bot Framework skills and Power Automate flows
• Describe Power BI extensibility points including Power BI APIs, custom visuals, and embedding Power BI apps in websites and other applications
• Describe Power Apps portal extensibility points including CRUD APIs and custom styling

Working with Solutions

Solutions are used by customizers and developers to package related customizations together so that they can be managed and deployed as a single unit. We will see what components can be added to a solution and how they are essentially the building blocks of your environment.

• Working with Environments
• Introduction to customizing the Power Platform
• Working with Publishers and Solutions
• Difference between Managed and Unmanaged Solutions
• Adding components to your solutions
• Importing and Exporting Solutions
• Versioning solutions
• Automate deployments
• Implement source control for projects including solutions and code assets

Implementing Security

This module teaches how you can implement a robust security model using Business Units, Security Roles, Users and Teams.

• Building a Security Model
• Business Units and their role in security modeling
• Define Privileges and access levels in Security Roles
• Creating and maintaining users
• Team management
• Working with field-level security profiles

Part 2 - Configure Common Data Service

Creating model-driven apps

Model-driven app design is a data model approach to app development. Model-driven app design doesn’t require code and the apps you make can be simple or very complex Unlike canvas app development where the designer has complete control over app layout, with model-driven apps much of the layout is determined for you and largely designated by the data model you add to the app.

• Create a model-driven app
• Creating and configuring entities
• Creating entity forms and views
• Create and configure entity relationships
• Configure visualizations

Part 3 - Create and configure Power Apps

Creating canvas apps

Design and build a business app from a canvas in Microsoft Power Apps without writing code in a traditional programming language such as C#. Design the app by dragging and dropping elements onto a canvas, just as you would design a slide in PowerPoint.

• Create a canvas app
• Using formulas to manage control events and properties
• Creating entity Forms and Views
• Analyze app usage by using App Insights
• Building reusable component libraries
• optimize performance using query delegation and pre-loading data

Part 4 - Configure business process automation

Configure business process automation

In this module, the participants will learn how to build and customize Flows, either starting from a template or from scratch. We will also discuss flow sharing.

• Building flows from Templates or from Blank
• Flow Triggers
• Working with Services, Actions, Conditions, Parallelism and Loops
• Configure steps to use Common Data Service connector actions and triggers
• Incorporating Approvals in a Flow
• Implement error handling
• Sharing Flows
• Creating UI Flows to Automate Repetitive Tasks
• Monitoring Flows
• Limits and Configuration of Flows

Workflow Definition Language

You can build great flows through the UI of Microsoft Power Automate. This UI is built on top of the Workflow Defnition Language. In this module, we will see the basics of this language, and explore some possibilities to enrich flows with it.

• Introduction to WorkFlow Definition Language
• Expressions, Operators and Functions
• Using Expressions in Flows

Create custom connectors

While Power Automate and Power Apps offer over 400+ connectors to connect to Microsoft and non-Microsoft services, you may want to communicate with services that aren't available as prebuilt connectors. Custom connectors address this scenario by allowing you to create (and even share) a connector with its own triggers and actions.

• Create a definition for the API
• Configure API security
• Use policy templates to modify connector behavior at runtime
• Expose Azure Functions as custom connectors
• Create custom connectors for public APIs by using Postman

Implement processes

Business rules essentially automate control logic on entities, without the need for development. Think of making fields required depending on the value of another field for instance.

• How to create and apply Business Rules
• Defining the scope of Business Rules
• Business Rules limitations

Implement Business Process Flows

You can help ensure that people enter data consistently and follow the same steps every time they work with a customer by creating a business process flow. Business process flows guide users through various stages of business processes toward completion.

• Create and configure business process flows
• Defining Business Process Flow Stages and Steps
• Enhance business process flows with branching
• Troubleshoot Business Process Flow steps

Part 5 - Configure business process automation

Working with Common Data Service Web API

The Common Data Service Web API provides a development experience that can be used across a wide variety of programming languages, platforms, and devices to access Common Data Service data and functionality. This module teaches students how they can execute CRUD operations, Actions and Functions using the Web API.

• Introduction to the Common Data Service Web API
• Registering applications with Azure Active Directory
• Authenticate with the Common Data Service Web API using OAuth 2.0 and ADAL/MSAL
• Authenticate to the Power Platform by using managed identities
• Performing CRUD operations using the Common Data Service Web API
• Executing Actions and Functions
• Implement API limit retry policies
• Using batching and transactions

Working with the Common Data Service Organization Service

This chapter introduces participants to the Common Data Service Organization Service endpoint and will teach them how to do CRUD operations using .NET code. Also, the concepts of early and late binding with entities is covered in this chapter.

• Organization Service endpoints in the Common Data Service
• Early versus late-binding when accessing entity records
• The Organization Service
• Create, update, delete and retrieve entity records
• Retrieving data using the QueryExpression and QueryByAttribute classes
• Fault handling

Extend the platform

Plug-ins

A plug-in is custom business logic that you can deploy inside the Common Data Service to modify or augment the standard behavior of the Common Data Service. This chapter teaches students how they can write a custom Plug-in in .NET and deploy it to the Common Data Service. Students also learn how to debug Plug-ins in the Common Data Service

• Plug-in overview
• Writing custom plug-ins
• Register and deploy plug-ins using the Plug-In Registration Tool
• Debugging plug-ins in the Common Data Service
• Deploying Plug-Ins with Solutions

Azure Integrations

The Common Data Service supports integration with Azure. Developers can register plug-ins with Common Data Service that can pass runtime message data, known as the execution context, to one or more Azure solutions in the cloud. Besides writing a custom Plugin, Azure is the only other supported solutions for communicating runtime context to external line-of-business (LOB) applications.

• Overview of the Azure integration with the Common Data Service
• Integration with Azure Service Bus
• Configuring the Azure-aware OOB plug-in
• Write a custom Azure-aware plug-in
• Integration between the Common Data Service and Web Hooks and Azure Event Hubs
• Create an Azure Function that interacts with Power Platform
• Configure scheduled and event-driven function triggers in Azure Functions

Implement data synchronization

Sometimes you’ll need to synchronize and integrate Common Data Service data with data that is stored in other systems. In this chapter you will see how entity change tracking and alternate keys can be used to implement integration scenarios.

• Configure entity change tracking
• read entity change records by using platform APIs
• Create and use alternate keys

Part 6 - Extend the User Experience

client scripting in model-driven apps using JavaScript

Client-side scripting using JavaScript or TypeScript is one of the ways to apply custom business process logic for displaying data on a form in a model-driven app. In this chapter you will learn how the JavaScript Client API of a model-driven app can be used to interact with forms and views

• Creating JavaScript Web Resources
• Handling Form/View and Field events
• Root objects in the Client API object model
• Working with the Client API execution context object
• The Client API Form context object
• Interacting with forms and attributes using the Client API object model
• The Client API grid context object
• The Client API Xrm object
• Best practices in writing client-side Code

Customizing the Command Bar in a model-driven app

The Command Bar is displayed above every form or view in a model-driven app. In this chapter you will learn about how you can customize the Command Bar by adding or removing Commands.

• Overview of the Command Bar
• Available Command Bars in model-driven apps
• Working with Display and Enable rules
• Creating a custom Ribbon Action
• Pass data or URL parameters to a Ribbon Action
• Adding or removing Commands in the Command Bar
• Using Ribbon Workbench to customize the command Bar

The Power Apps Component Framework

The Power Apps Component Framework (PCF) enables developers create code components for model-driven and canvas apps to provide enhanced user experience for the users to work with data on forms, views, and dashboards.

• Install the PCF CLI
• Using the PCF CLI
• Configure a PCF component manifest
• Implement the component interfaces
• Package a code component in a Solution
• Configure and use PCF Device, Utility, and WebAPI features
• Testing PCF components