Power Apps Vibe Coded Experience [Preview]

Coming from Canvas Apps to a full-fledged vibe-coded solution is the next thing in Power Platform. Let’s see how you can quickly turn things around for your team.

Let’s see how we can do this and what by Microsoft is on offer —

Power Apps Vibe Experience – What is it?

This is a vibe-coded experience provided by Power Platform to provide you a way to quickly prototype any department/use-case based application quickly and roll it out to users.
Here’s how we do it –

Pre-Requisites

  1. Assuming you have Admin access to Power Platform Admin Center, make sure that Copilot in Power Apps (preview) is turned On.


  2. Then, go the the Environment Settings as below then to Features.


  3. Once in Settings, look for Features and look for Enable External Models.


    And here’s the Enable External Models which need to be turned on.

  4. Then, navigate to https://vibe.preview.powerapps.com/ to enter the Vibe Coded Experience. And you enter the Portal directly.

  5. Start by describing the App through a prompt like this based on your use case –


  6. Then, it starts to prepare the App and also shows you the progress. The experience will also ask any relevant questions along the way.


  7. Once it has everything it needs, it’ll take you to the progress screen where you’ll see the App being made –


  8. Once the creation of App is created/completed, you’ll see the Plan mode where it describes what the App contents are.

  9. Then, in the Data mode below, you’ll be able to see an E-R diagram and also be able to Add more Tables and then establish relationships to further continue describing the App.

  10. And finally, there’s the App view where you can test the App on the fly with actual data that is connected.

  11. And then you can finally Publish this App.

  12. It’ll show how the App Publishing goes in progress.

  13. And once the publishing is done, you’ll see it this way ready to be used.


    In the upcoming blogs, I’ll show case how these can be used and deployed and embedded into.

Here’s what the Microsoft Documentation says – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/vibe/overview?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Thank you!

New Copy Project Experience in Project Operations

For quite some time, you already had the classic Copy Project experience in Project Operations which is as follows –
You had the Copy Project button on the top of the Project in the ribbon-

And it just used to start.


And once the Copy is done, it’ll append ‘- Copy’ to the end of the Project name and show any validations on the copied project based on when it is copied.


So, here’s how the new copy experience changes things!


New Copy Experience

So, in order to experience the new Project Copy, you’ll have to enable it from Settings like any other Project Operations feature –

  1. Given you have Admin privileges, you can navigate to Settings.


  2. And then look for Enable Copy Project New Experience.

  3. It’ll ask you for confirmation.

  4. Once this is enabled, you can test by using the same Copy Project button.


    And here, you now get a modal pop-up with some preferences before the Copy process begin. This lets you choose how the copied project takes place.

    So, I made some changes before copying like the Name, Calendar Template and Team Member preferences before I hit Copy.

  5. And once you click Copy, the same copy process takes place but with the preferences you set.
    It takes a few moments to copy and it’ll ask you to navigate away from the current page and take you to the new page.
    Once you are in the new Page, it’ll then show this notification while the background processes take place.

    And that’s the new Project experience for you!! 😊

Hope this was helpful!

Thank you!

Setting up Codex with Power Platform MCP Server

Amongst available AI clients available, Codex is well-known by ChatGPT and here’s how you can use to configure with Power Platform MCP Server.

Install Codex on VS Code

One of the first things to do is to install Codex as an extension in Visual Studio Code –

  1. Look for the below extension and you should see a ChatGPT icon.

  2. Once this is installed, go to Extensions and you can sign in with your GitHub Pro account.

  3. It’ll open up a Sign-in page and you’ll need to enter your credentials.

  4. Make sure you open a Folder in VS Code and also ensure npm is installed by running this command in terminal ‘npm -v‘.


  5. Next, before you configure the TOML file – make sure you are having powerplatform-mcp installed locally and then configure the TOML file for Codex.

Downloading Power Platform MCP locally and connecting to the MCP

Now that Codex is installed and NPM is installed as well. Let’s first download Power Platform MCP first and then connect it to the Power Platform MCP environment –

  1. Let’s check if PowerPlatform-MCP is already installed or not by checking its version number.
    Below, it says that it didn’t find zsh, means powerplatform-mcp is not installed locally.

  2. Because I use a Mac, I can do so using Homebrew. You can check alternatively on doing this using Windows and downloading using Powershell.
    In case you face permission issues on the device, you can just run the below command –
    sudo npm install -g powerplatform-mcp” and you should see the packages getting downloaded successfully.

  3. Now, go ahead and configure the Toml file.

  4. Then, in the TOML file, you can enter the configuration like so –

  5. And when you try to query in Codex, you’ll see the results come through in the form of answers.

Hope this was useful!

Thank you!

Finding Indexed Columns in Dataverse Search

In recent times, you must be seeing Indexed Search in Dataverse. Here’s how to make sure you can configure those.

Indexed Search

Given the right permissions, you can go to Power Platform Admin Center (https://make.powerapps.com/) –

  1. Open Solutions, you then be able to scroll down to Default solutions –

  2. Once you open Default Solution, or any other Solution which has tables whose tables you want to index. Click on Overview and then you’ll see Dataverse search on the right hand side.

  3. And when you view to the right, you’ll see a button called ‘Manage search index

  4. And when you click on Manage search index, you’ll see list of tables enabled for Search.

  5. And when it says the no. of columns added, they can be seen from the Quick Find View.


  6. And you’ll see the columns selected to be found.


This will then result in the Search being reflected based on the Find columns shown here.

Thank you!

Catalog in Power Platform

Catalogs in Power Platform are a way to distribute managed/unmanaged customization which ready install and extend on other environments. At the time of writing this post, the feature is in Preview.

Get Catalog Manager

Here’s how you can install Catalog Manager from App Source and onto your target environment –

  1. Go to the URL – https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/dynamics-365/powerappssvc.catalogmanager-preview?flightCodes=dde212e5c66047c59bf2b346c419cef6
    It’ll open in App Source as it’s not directly available from Install Apps in Power Platform Dataverse environments.
    You’ll see this App Source page –

  2. Once you click on Get it now, you’ll need to sign in using the Dynamics 365 Administrator privileges.

  3. Once you sign in successfully, you’ll need to click on Get it now again as shown below.

  4. Then, you’ll be taken to the page shown below where you’ll need to select the environment you want to install the Catalog Manager on. This will be the environment from where you’ll create your Catalog to be available to other environments.

  5. Once you confirm as shown below, Installation process will start like any other Dynamics 365 App.


    And then let it install for a few moments –


    And it’ll complete its installation in about 10 minutes.


  6. Now, once this is installed, check for the security roles available for users to be assigned with.

    Assign these roles to the Users who need to be either of them – below are the details on what the roles do.

Working with Catalog Manager

Now that Catalog Manager is installed, here’s how you can work through it –

  1. In your Apps, you should be able to see the Catalog Manager as well.

  2. Play the App, and in the App, you’ll see the Catalog Publishers table. This is where you have to create a Publisher and add Users from the Publisher for different roles.


  3. Here’s the sample Publisher I created and added the Admin User as a Publisher user as well.

  4. Once this is done, you are all set. Let’s move to the next section.

Create Catalog

Now, let’s look at the process of creating Catalogs which other environments in your Org can browse through and use –

  1. Let’s say you have a Solution which is supposedly a Catalog candidate which others can borrow and install.
    It has a mix of components which are categorized as usable in a Catalog.


  2. Here, you can select the Solution itself and click on Publish to Catalog (Preview) using the button as shown –

  3. Once you click on the Catalog, a dialog will open which you can select as Default

  4. Once you select the Default Catalog Name, you’ll be able to select if the components should be Managed components or unmanaged (as Templates).
    Then, I can choose to not select anything as a Primary Component to keep it simple.

  5. Now, I’ll enter the details as shown below which are self-explanatory.
    Published/Active Publisher will appear from the list and I can fill in the rest of the details which are applicable.

  6. Now, when I click Next, I can enter what the picture/icon should be –

  7. Finally, this is the summary and I can click Submit once done.

  8. Once everything looks good, this will be completed and show success.

  9. Now, since the Catalog is already set to auto-approval, it’ll appear in Catalogs –


Installing from Catalog

Now, as the Catalog is ready to be published, other environments can go in Catalogs and Get it from there in their current environments –

  1. For example, in this environment – I can see it in Catalogs and choose to Get it.

  2. Click Get to start installing.

  3. It’ll start installing.

  4. Once done, you’ll see that it has finished installing.

  5. And when you see the Solutions, since this was a Managed catalog – it’ll get installed as a Managed Solution in the selected environment.

  6. And the Components inside it will be managed too as expected.

Install History

As other Admins/Makers install from Catalog, you’ll see the Install History of the Catalogs in the Catalog Manager App –

  1. Under Install History, you’ll see the details as below –

Here’s Microsoft Documentation on the same – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/data-platform/catalog-overview?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this was useful!

Thank you!

Setup Power Platform CLI using Windows installer [.msi]

In the past, I had posted about how you can use Microsoft Power Platform CLI from Visual Studio Code – Set up Power Platform Tools in Visual Studio Code | Power Platform CLI.

In this post, I’ll show how you can do so using direct download and installation using .msi file.

Download Power Platform CLI installer

Here’s the link you need to go to in order to download Power Platform CLI –

  1. Visit – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/developer/howto/install-cli-msi?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911


  2. Once downloaded, make sure to start the installer, it’ll ask you for confirmation.

  3. It takes a few minutes to complete setting up. Then, you can Run powershell

  4. In PowerShell, you can type pac and enter to see if Power Platform CLI was installed. By default, it’ll connect to the organization your PC is connected to.

  5. Once connected, you’ll see list of commands for the CLI which you can use given you have the appropriate connections.

Hope this was useful!

Thank you!

Environment Routing in Power Platform Admin Center

In case you already have created Environment Groups, you can set some rules to divert how environments are created to Environment Groups.

If not, you might want to first take a look at a post on Environment Groups in Power Platform Admin Center!

Environment Routing is feature to redirect existing/new Makers to their own Developer environment when logging into the Maker Portal (https://make.powerapps.com/)

Routing in Environment Groups

Here’s how you can set Routing rules in Environment Groups in Power Platform Admin Center –

  1. Given that you have the correct Dynamics 365 Administrator privileges, you should be able to see the Environment Groups section and also see button to set the Environment Routing.

  2. In Environment Routing, you can choose to enable to Create personal developer environments for makers option.

  3. When you turn it on, you can choose to enable it either for All makers or for new makers only. I’ll enable it for All makers for this example.


  4. Now, I’ll select the Environment Group where the routing should happen to – for this, I’ve created a CFT Developers Environment Group.


    And Save.

Routing to Developer Environments

Let’s consider this example to demonstrate how Routing will work –

  1. When a developer logs into the Maker Portal (https://make.powerapps.com/), a setup will load for a few moments the user, let’s say, Amit Prajapati in this example, will be redirected to his own Portal –

  2. And if you look at the list of the Environments in the Group you selected for Routing, you’ll see that Amit’s Environment is now created.

  3. Now, another User Ethan Rebello also logs into the Maker Portal. He too will be redirected to his own environment.
    And the same will be added to the Group as well.


    Every developer will have access to only their own Developer environments and other’s won’t be able to access them.

Hope this was useful!

Thank you!

Create a Custom Connector For Power Automate & Power Apps

One of the most important qualities of extending capabilities of any platform is being able to add Custom code and make it available to wider use cases.

In this case, it’s a custom code that is encompassed in a Custom Connector in Power Platform and made available to Power Automate or Power Platform.

Use Case

The purpose of my custom connector is to call my hosted custom code in Power Automate or Power Apps.

For this example, I’ve created a simple Azure Function that just returns a value – just to test the working of the Custom Connector. Of course, your use case is to be able to connect to the hosted app, expect it to process the business logic which you intend to do and return back the results.
So, in my case – my Azure Function will simply greet the name passed to it.


See the Postman test below –

Now, let’s make a Custom Connector that will execute this Azure Function in your Power Automate.

Create Custom Connector in Power Apps / Power Automate

You can either make the Custom Connector from the Power Automate portal or the Power Apps Maker portal, both are the same things. Let’s see this example from Power Apps portal –

  1. In this use case, I’m in a Solution in Power Apps / Power Automate. Open the one in your case since you can’t create a Custom Connector from outside a Solution any longer.

  2. Now you can drop down from New and see in Automation menu that you can create a Custom Connector

  3. Now, you’ll be required to enter the name of the Connector itself and other details like a PNG icon for it, Description etc.

  4. Now, below is the info that I filled in. I’m calling it Data Transporter and have selected an Icon which should make me easy to recognize my connector in Power Automate and Power Apps and enter enter the details of my hosted Azure Function which is authenticated using an API Key.
    So, here’s what my info looks like –

  5. Now, when I click on Security after filling all the info, the type of Authentication I used in this case if API Key, yours could be different depending on what your custom application is configured to work with –

  6. It’ll ask you to fill in the information so that it appears as parameters to fill in for the Custom Connector when the end user will work on their Flows/Apps.

  7. The info I’m choosing to fill is this – I’m giving a name to the parameter to indicate what info is required. The actual parameter name required by the Azure Function, in this case – it’s ‘code’ and since I need to pass the API key in Query string, I’ve selected Query instead of Header.

  8. When you go to the next part, i.e. Definition, make sure you also give a Name to the Custom Connector already. Before your lose the info you’ve already entered. Make sure you also click on Create Connector


    Once you click on Create connector, it’ll create it in a few moments.

  9. Now, since you are aware of Triggers and Actions from using Power Automate – in this use case, my Custom Connector is designed to be an Action i.e. when called/used in Power Automate, it’ll simply perform the operation it’s designed to do.
    Hence, I’m selecting an Action here.
    When I select New Action from the left hand pane, it’ll open up information for me to fill out to describe the Action.

  10. Now, since this will appear as a listed item in Actions in my Power Automate connector, I’m filling in this info (and we can check later how it appears).


    Next, I’ll click on + Import from sample as it’ll give me a place to enter a sample for the request to call my hosted Azure Function.



  11. Next, I’ll pass these values as I did in Postman to create the sample. Once done, I can click on Import.

  12. When I import, I’ll the request parameters set in the Custom Connector based on the sample I entered.

  13. Next, I’ll scroll down to ensure that all validations are perfect and I needn’t fix anything.

  14. Next, I’ll skip AI Plugins step and also the Code step since I want to keep this example concise and to the scope of the hosted Azure Function only.


    And this is skipped too –

  15. Now, the final step is to Test the Custom Connector. The Editor will ask you to Update connector before you can Test. Then, in order to begin testing – you’ll need to first create a Connection using New Connection button as shown below.


  16. When you click on New Connection, you’ll be taken to a new tab to enter the API key which you created as parameter in the initial setup of this Connector. See #7 above. Enter the API key you have which works for this hosted app and then click Create connection.


  17. Next, in case the Connection doesn’t appear, click Refresh button once.

  18. Once you refresh, you should see your Connection come up and selected.

  19. Now, next step is to test the Custom Connector itself. Enter the values that you wish to test for and click Test operation.

  20. You’ll see the test results based on what the hosted code is supposed to perform.
    In my case, it was easy as it just greets the name entered.


    And your Custom Connector is now ready to be used!

Consuming Custom Connector

Now, let’s see how you can use the Customer Connector in Power Automate in order to perform the operation in your Flows –

  1. Once in Power Automate, look for the Custom tab in the Action selector.

  2. Then, you can see the Action you defined in your Connector Definition steps above.

  3. Since you need to authenticate using the API key you have, the create Connection step will ask you this info and you can give the name of the Connection.

  4. Pass the value you want to pass as data.

  5. Finally, you can just save and test the Flow itself and look for your Outputs.


    And that’s how you can have a Custom Connector for your custom app/service your have created. I’ll soon write about other aspects of Custom Connector which I wasn’t able to cover in this blog.

Hope this was useful!

Thank you!

Pre-Export Step Required setting in Deployment Pipeline | Power Platform Pipelines

Now that you must’ve already setup your basic Power Platform Pipeline as yet and are looking to explore how to extend the Power Platform Pipeline to do more advanced operations, this post is for you!
In case you are still looking to first setup your Power Platform Pipeline, you can check this Blog Series which this very post too, is a part of – Power Platform Pipelines | Blog Series

What is Pre-Export Step Required Setting?

This is the ability to have a trigger before an Export operation from the Development Environment is initiated in order to run the pipeline – only available for the first stage in the pipeline.

This is provided so that you may want to run some external operations before this is taken through the pipeline for deployment.

Use Case is – that you want to first seek an approval from the Admin before the Solution is deployed to Production (or rather, sent through the pipeline for deployment). Once approved, the pipeline should automatically proceed towards executing the rest of the deployment stages.

Pre-Export Step Required

While setting up your Pipeline, in case you were wondering what Pre-Export Step Required setting was, see below –

  1. Once you mark this field as checked/Required, save the record and it’ll appear like this on the record.

  2. What this does is, it runs the trigger action ‘OnDeploymentRequested’

  3. And once this Flow is trigger based on this Action, you can perform custom logic to be carried out and be successful before the deployment is carried forward.
    In this example, I’m setting a simple Approval process to be in place so that the Admin is aware and approves all the Deployment requests.

  4. Now, once an Approval is received, you need to check the status of the request and if it’s Approved, you need to run Perform an unbound action to initiate the Action ‘UpdatePreExportStepStatus
    You’ll need to pass the StageRunId – You’ll get this in the Dynamics Content Properties of the Flow itself from the trigger.
    Then, you need to set the Status of 20 – this means Approved.
    For rejection, the status to set is 30.

  5. Now, once this Flow is in place, every time a Pipeline is Run to deploy the solution, it’ll first wait for the Approval process to complete and the pipeline itself will show the below message.

  6. This status can also be seen in the Deployment Stages in the ‘Deployment Pipeline Configuration‘ app as well.

  7. Now, the Admin on the other hand, will receive a Power Automate Approval like this (based on whatever you have configured). This is received on both Approvals in Teams and in Power Automate as well.

  8. Once the Approver approves, I’ll enter some notes while approving.

  9. The pipeline will then proceed to deploy to production.

  10. And this will also proceed on the UI in Pipelines as well.

  11. Once deployed, you’ll see that this is completed Successfully if there are no issues.

  12. You can also see the History. The End Time will represent when it was completed as opposed to Start Time representing when the Deployment Request was initiated.

  13. And also in the ‘Deployment Pipeline Configuration‘ app.



Here’s official Microsoft documentation on how you have Gated Extensions like these to be in place in Power Platform Pipelines – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/alm/extend-pipelines#gated-extensions-available?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this was useful!

Thank you!

Run a Power Platform Pipeline

In case you setup your first Power Platform Pipeline and looking to test it out? This post is for you.

Or if you haven’t yet configured your Power Platform Pipelines first, refer this post – Setup Power Platform Pipelines

Now that you have your basic Power Platform Pipeline set in place, let’s run a created Pipeline!

Run Power Platform Pipeline

Here’s what you need to do in order to Run your pipeline –

  1. Go to the Dev environment on which you have Hosted your pipeline (or which is supposed to be your first environment from where all the customization/configuration should move over).
    Go to the Solution which you want to Run through the Pipeline.
    For the simplicity of this example, this Solution has just 1 custom column on the Account table.

  2. Now, click on Pipelines and look for the Deployed Pipeline which is ready to be used.

  3. Now, once you get to see the stages which you have set in the blog post – Setup Power Platform Pipelines, those stages will appear here.
    Then, verify the environment details mentioned and then click on Deploy here once you are sure.

  4. Now, once you click on Deploy here, you’ll be given option to choose when you want to deploy – whether now or later.

  5. For this example, I’m choosing Now instead of scheduling it for later. Then, I click Next and it’ll go into Validating Stage.

  6. Once it all looks good, you’ll get AI generated notes already if you are in the US Region (at the time of writing this post). Then, click Deploy once everything looks good.

  7. Once this is in progress in the background, you’ll see that the pipeline is deploying your solution.

  8. Once this is completed, you’ll see that this is deployed successfully.


  9. And this will be successfully deployed to the Target environment like so in the Managed Solutions section.

Hope this short tutorial was helpful!

Hope this was useful!

Thank you!