catalogs in power platform Archives

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 –

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 –
Once you click on Get it now, you’ll need to sign in using the Dynamics 365 Administrator privileges.
Once you sign in successfully, you’ll need to click on Get it now again as shown below.
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.
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.
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 –

In your Apps, you should be able to see the Catalog Manager as well.
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.
Here’s the sample Publisher I created and added the Admin User as a Publisher user as well.
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 –

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.
Here, you can select the Solution itself and click on Publish to Catalog (Preview) using the button as shown –
Once you click on the Catalog, a dialog will open which you can select as Default
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.
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.
Now, when I click Next, I can enter what the picture/icon should be –
Finally, this is the summary and I can click Submit once done.
Once everything looks good, this will be completed and show success.
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 –

For example, in this environment – I can see it in Catalogs and choose to Get it.
Click Get to start installing.
It’ll start installing.
Once done, you’ll see that it has finished installing.
And when you see the Solutions, since this was a Managed catalog – it’ll get installed as a Managed Solution in the selected environment.
And the Components inside it will be managed too as expected.