Weekly Digest for usage insights | Power Platform Admin Center

One of the features in Power Platform Admin Center is that now you can receive Weekly Updates in the form of a Newsletter for the Managed Environments.

Pre-Requisites

Below are the Pre-requisites for enabling Weekly Digest

Tenant-Level Analytics must be enabled in your Power Platform Tenant. Here’s a post to see how you can enable Tenant-Level Analytics – Tenant-Level Analytics in Power Platform Admin Center | For Power Apps and Power Automate
Only Managed Environments Updates are available – Here’s how you can learn more about Managed Environments – Enable Managed Environments in Power Platform Admin Center
Under those Managed Environments, only those Managed Environments will be considered which have been enabled for Weekly Digest. While enabling Managed Environments in the above step #2, ensure this checkbox is marked in order to consider the Managed Environment for Weekly Digest –

Enable Weekly Digest

Given the above Pre-requisites are met, here’s how you can enable Weekly Digest –

Navigate to Tenant Settings in the Power Platform Admin Center (https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/tenantsettings) – Look for Weekly digest. Notice that it is marked with a green icon which indicates that it will only be applicable for Managed Environments.
On the right hand side, you’ll see place to enter email addresses (separated by semicolons) who should receive the Weekly Digest emails.
Power Platform Administrators and Dynamics 365 Administrators only will receive these updates.
Once you entered the email addresses, you can Save those and you’ll see the below message upon confirmation.
That’s it!
And then on a Monday, I saw this in my mailbox!

Hope this helps!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Enable Managed Environments in Power Platform Admin Center

January 31, 2023 priyeshwagh777 Power Platform Admin Center managed environments, managed environments in power platform admin center, Power Platform Admin Center

Here’s what Managed Environments do! They provide more control on how you administer the Environments i.e. by limiting App Sharing, applying Data Policies on the environment and even how Solution Checker should allow to import solutions upon detecting critical issues (Solution Checker feature for Managed Environments is in Preview at the time of writing this post!).

Below is the snipped from Microsoft Learn Document highlighting the capabilities of Managed Environments

Further, as I explore these features more, I’ll update and add links to the posts explaining each of the features in details.

Enable Managed Environments in Power Platform Admin Center

Given that you have appropriate permissions to take administrative actions on Power Platform environments, you can navigate to Power Platform Admin Center and then in Environments (https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/environments) –

Select an Environment and click on the ellipses on the menu.
Once you select the same, review the License implications as highlighted below –
Here’s the Microsoft Documentation on the same – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/power-platform/admin/managed-environment-licensing?WT.mc_id=ppac_inproduct_env%3FWT.mc_id%3DDX-MVP-5003911
Once you review the below preferences on how you want this environment to be managed, you can select the same and click on Enable as seen below –
These will send insights in email. I’ll cover in a separate post and link here.
Once everything looks good, you can Enable.

Editing Managed Environments / Disabling

Here’s how you can edit or disable Managed Environments –

If you are seeing Edit Managed Environments, it means that Managed Environment is enabled for that environment.
And you can disable Management Environment control using PowerShell. You can check this post which highlights how you can do so – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/power-platform/admin/managed-environment-enable#disable-managed-environments-using-powershell?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911
Snapshot of the document below –

Here’s Microsoft Learn documentation on Managed Environments – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/power-platform/admin/managed-environment-overview?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this helps!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Power Platform self-service analytics Data Export to Data Lake [Preview] | Power Platform Admin Center

January 31, 2023 priyeshwagh777 Microsoft Azure, Power Platform, Power Platform Admin Center adls gen 2, data export to data lake, Power Platform Admin Center, power platform data export, power platform data export to data lake, self service analytics power platform

Now, you can also export the Analytics Data to Azure Data Lake in order to further extend the derive rich data analytics!
At the time of writing this post, this feature is in Preview (As you’ll also see from the screenshots below)

This is a great feature where you can extract this Data into Data Lake and then further enrich and derive rich Power BI reporting based on your use-case.

In case you are new to understanding Azure Data Lake and pricing, you can review this – https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/solutions/data-lake/?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Data Export (Preview)

In Power Platform Admin Center (https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/), here’s how you can setup Data Export –

Navigate to Data Export in Power Platform Admin Center given that you have appropriate rights –
Then, you’ll get to choose amongst the Power Apps or Power Automate data to be exported to Data Lake.
In this example, I’ll choose Power Automate. As I select Power Automate, you’ll see that Tenant-Level Analytics are required and hence, already considered as Yes. If not, you’ll need to Enable Tenant-Level Analytics while doing this step – Here’s another post on how to Enable and Use Tenant Level Analytics –
Now, In the next section you’ll need to choose the Subscription.
Further, select the Resource Group and eventually, the Storage Account as well.

And Storage Account is selected as well.
Once everything looks good, you can click on Create.
In a few moments, this will appear in Data Lake section of the Data Export. It will take up to 24 hours for the data to first start showing in Data Lake.
Once this is completed after about 24 hours, you’ll see the status of the Data Lake data package changed to connected.

Data Export to Data Lake

Let’s look at the Azure Storage Explorer to connect to our Data Lake and see the Power Platform data – In case you are looking to install Azure Storage Explorer, here’s a post – Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer | Getting Started

Once authenticated to the correct environment in Azure Storage Explorer, here’s what you would see in the ADLS Gen 2 (In case you want to create ADLS Gen 2 storage account, you can review this post – Create ADLS Gen 2 Storage Account for Azure Data Lake)
You’ll see powerplatform folder show up.
If you open this folder, since we had chosen Power Automate, it’s folder will be created.
And let’s go in Flows folder to see the data. You’ll find json files of the same. You can double click to open it and it’ll open in whatever editor you have installed.
In this case, I had VS Code, so here’s what the Flow data looks like –
Likewise, you can dig deeper in this data and use this further for your reporting!

Here’s Microsoft Learn Document on the same – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/self-service-analytics?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Here’s Microsoft Learn Docs for Tenant-Level Analytics – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/power-platform/admin/tenant-level-analytics#how-do-i-enable-tenant-level-analytics?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this helps!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Run User Diagnostics in Power Platform Admin Center | Solving User Access Issues for Dynamics CRM

December 29, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Power Platform Admin Center Power Platform Admin Center, run diagnostics in power platform, user access issue in crm, user access issue in dynamics 365 crm, user diagnostics

Many users often reports issue of not being able to access Dynamics 365 CRM even when they’ve been assigned security roles.

So, Power Platform Admin Center will provide you a Diagnostic Tool to quickly check what type of access is missing at the administration level across the below areas –

Sign in blocked for the User at M365 level.
No license for Power Apps / CE Apps.
Not in Security Group of the Dataverse/CRM environment

Let’s see how we can run the Diagnostics and how to solve each of them!

Run Diagnostics on Users

Here’s how you can Run the Diagnostics on the Users in Power Platform Admin Center –

Navigate to the Settings once you select the Environment –
Then, expand the Users + permissions area to see the Users option
Once you see all the Users, you’ll be able to see which Users you want to select and then investigate for diagnostics.
When you click on Run Diagnostics, you’ll see the pan on the right hand side complete some tests and then show the results –
And when you zoom, you’ll see the information as below –
So, when you check the License information in the M365 Portal (considering you have Admin access), you’ll identify that the User is missing the license for Power Apps / Customer Engagement Apps.
When I run this for User whose all levels of access are correct, I’ll see the below –
In other instances, the Sign-in could be blocked as well and this is how it’ll appear. The error message will point out what is causing the User to not access the Dataverse environments.
And when you check the User in the M365 Admin Center, you’ll see that the Sign-in is blocked –
And a final reason that a User is not a part of the Security Group which has been assigned to the Environment itself.
In that case, they’ll see the below error –
So, if you check the Environment in PPAC itself, you can see what Security Group has been applied to the Environment.
And if you look at this Group, you’ll not find the member in the Security Group at the M365 Level.

You can find the complete Microsoft Learn documentation on the same here – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/power-platform/admin/troubleshooting-user-needs-read-write-access-organization#user-diagnostics?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this helps!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Schedule maintenance updates should occur for Dynamics 365 CRM environment | Power Platform Admin Center

October 2, 2022October 2, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Power Platform Admin Center dynamics 365 crm solution import, maintenance window settings for dynamics 365 crm, Power Platform Admin Center, solution history

In case you are seeing issues lately that you are not able to access your Dynamics 365 CRM or it’s running relatively slow, it might be perhaps because the platform is being updates from Microsoft’s end for importing solutions in your environment as platform updates.

System freeze could happen if any solutions are being imported into your environment. Now, you can control when the updates should be allowed so that you don’t get downtime during your business hours. Let’s look at this!

Maintenance Window Settings in Power Platform Admin Center

Given that you are already aware on how you can go to Power Platform Admin Center (https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/) –

Navigate to Environments, select the Environment which you want to check the Apps Updates schedule and click on Settings.
Once in Settings of the Environment, you’ll see the Updates section which you can expand and you’ll see the Maintenance Window Settings – So remember, this is still in Preview as of yet and might not work as expected unless it’s in GA.
And this will let you set the time frame based on when you want to Updates to be applied to the environment.
It’ll show that it’s currently set to 02:00 to 11:00 UTC – which is not favorable for my based on my working hours since I’m in India.
So, I’ll check on a service like https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/ and make sure I compare and see when is the best way to schedule my updates for –
Currently, the above updates are scheduled for 07 am IST which won’t suit my needs.
So, I’ll change it to some other time! So, something like 15:00 UTC works for my which skips my usual business hours so that my business hours are not interrupted with Updates on the platform.

So, I select the new time and click Save. I can expect about 48 hours for this to come into effect even though updates are usually pushed over the weekends and not weekdays.
You can read this Microsoft Docs on Maintenance Window Settings here – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/power-platform/admin/manage-maintenance-window?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Check Solutions History

In order to check if your CRM environment is not working as expected, as an Administrator you can always to Power Apps (https://make.powerapps.com/) –

Make sure the correct environment is selected, then
Then, in Solutions, you can see History tab which will show the recent App Updates applied.
And as you see above, the updates were taking place based on what my old settings were set. Hence, I needed to change the same to ensure my business hours are not affected.

Hope this was useful and this helped in clarifying the concept!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Users cannot create Flows in Power Automate | Environment Maker permissions

August 1, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Power Automate environment maker, power apps, Power Automate, Power Platform Admin Center, security roles

If you are someone who has been asked to create Flows in Power Automate, and you go to Power Automate portal (https://make.powerautomate.com/) to make your first Flow in your environment, you may come across this if you are not an Administrator yet –

The error message would say -“You are not permitted to make flows in this ‘<EnvironmentName>’. Please switch to the default environment, or to one of your own environment(s), where you have maker permissions.“

Now, let’s see what the issue is about.

Environment Maker Permissions

As a Power Platform Administrator yourself, you’ll need to provide Environment Maker privileges (Security Role) to the affected User in your environment –

Navigate to the the Settings for the Environment in PPAC (https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/)
And look for Security Roles in Access area –
Look for the Environment Maker role.
When in Environment Maker role, look for the Add People button on the top.
Now, search for the user who should have the Environment Maker permissions and click Add (which will be at the bottom of the pane).
Now, you’ll see that this user is added.
Now, when the User will refresh the Flow Editor, they’ll no longer see the error message and will be able to create/save Flows.

Hope this was useful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Customer Lockbox (preview) in Power Platform Admin Center | Dynamics 365

July 24, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Power Platform Admin Center customer lockbox, microsoft support, Power Platform Admin Center

Often, it’s a dilemma for partners when Microsoft support asks for access to the environment or making a “copy of the affected environment” in order to review an issue at hand. This is a super-helpful feature where we get to see what is being accessed in order to review data.

Microsoft Docs Link to Customer Lockbox (preview) – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/about-lockbox?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Please note that this is a preview feature and not meant for Production use. Currently, this also doesn’t cost anything and a cost will be associated once this is out of preview. Read the above Microsoft Doc to learn further.

Let’s look at the summary of this feature –

What is this feature?

If you raise a Microsoft Support Ticket or Microsoft identifies an issue with your environment and needs to take a look at data, this feature comes handy in providing controlled access to data.
If any issues need Production data to be investigated which could be business-sensitive, you can provide controlled access to Microsoft Support and also review/Audit such an access.

I’ll update further on –

Whether review requests can be raised by partners who don’t have production access but have access to Sandboxes only based on Security Group practices some organizations generally follow. Or is only Microsoft can initiate a request?
Here’s a post I put up in Power Platform Forum for the same – https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Apps-Governance-and/Customer-Lockbox-for-partners-same-tenant-access/m-p/1685530#M6849
What is costs since in preview (at the time of this post), this is free-of-cost but will be chargeable once out of Preview.
Once I create an actual Support Ticket with Microsoft and if they request access to Production data, I’ll configure a Lockbox scenario and update this blog further.

Customer Lockbox settings in PPAC

In Power Platform Admin Center [PPAC] (https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/) –

Look for Customer Lockbox (preview) under Policies section as shown below.
Once you are in Customer Lockbox, you’ll see a button to start Configuring Customer Lockbox. While in preview, this is free – Later, it will be chargeable.
Once this turns on in a few moments, you can see the message come up explaining how the Customer Lockbox will be enabled in 24 hours.
The message reads – “For the duration for the preview, enabling Customer Lockbox will apply to all environments in the tenant. This capability is available in preview at no cost. When this feature becomes generally available, there will be a cost associated with environments protected by Customer Lockbox.“
Post this, you can turn the switch On and Save the settings. It’ll take 24 hours to take effect.

Hope this was helpful! Here are some more Dynamics 365 posts which you might be interested in –

Thank you!!

Upgrade Dataverse for Teams Environment to Dataverse Environment

May 23, 2022 priyeshwagh777 CRM with .NET Web Applications Dataverse, Dataverse for Teams, Power Platform Admin Center

Given that you have licenses already in place along with the required Capacity in order to Upgrade from Dataverse for Teams to Dataverse, upgrading the same is an extremely easy process –

Upgrade to Dataverse

In case you have Dataverse for Teams environment and you want to upgrade to Dataverse, here’s what you do in the Power Platform Admin Center (https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/)

Go in the Dataverse for Teams (Microsoft Teams) type of Environment and look for the Upgrade button on the top right corner.
Here’s what the Welcome Page looks like, make sure you understand the operation you are doing as this is permanent and cannot be undone!
Here’s the detailed Microsoft Documentation on the difference between Dataverse for Teams and Dataverse itself – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/about-teams-environment?WT.mc_id=ppac_inproduct_env#promotion-process?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911
Once you clicked on Next, you’ll need to agree to Terms and then confirm the same. Again, this operations is a permanent and can’t be reversed.
It’ll start the process just like any other standard environment change process in Power Platform Admin Center (https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/)
This is how it will look while it is being Upgraded.
This took over 1-2 hours. And once done, your environment will be upgraded.

Hope this was helpful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Show only configured Activities Related records section | Power Platform Admin Center

May 12, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Power Platform, Power Platform Admin Center activities in crm, all activities, Power Platform Admin Center

Here’s a setting which I personally don’t think would matter much and I’ll get to why I think like that.

Show Activities only configured in the App

Let’s navigate to the Settings for the organization in the Power Platform Admin Center (https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com) –

Click on Settings once you are in the environment which you want to configure this feature.
In Settings, go to Features.
In Features, you can scroll to the bottom and see this option.
What this Turned Off feature does is show all the Activities in the (example: Sales Hub) App -> Related section of the records’ + New Activity button

And the + New Activity button in the Activities Associated View will show all the Activities by default regardless if they are configured in the App or not.
However, the gripe is that this doesn’t reflect in the Timeline control by default. You have to change the options in the Timeline control separately. (And the Timeline is the most common way you would create an Activity, right?)
Now, let’s turn this setting On and see the effect.

Turned On

Now, when this is turned on, the Activities’ Associated View’s + New Activity button will only show the Activities which are included in the App itself and not all.

I wished this was also reflected easily on the Timeline control and in the Main Activity View as well from it’s own entity in the SiteMap. Perhaps it could be work in progress. I’ll clarify once I know more! 😊

Hope this helps!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Create Application Users for Dynamics 365 environment | Power Platform Admin Center

March 30, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Azure Functions, Microsoft Azure, Power Platform Admin Center application users in crm, application users in dynamics 365 crm, Power Platform Admin Center, ppac application users

Here’s how you now set up Application Users in Dynamics 365 CRM from the Power Platform Admin Center instead from the Classic UI and let’s see how the process is eased.

Classic UI

Previously, you used to see Application Users view in the Dynamics 365 CRM under Settings > Security > Users.

But it’s not longer available. Instead, you now go to the Power Platform Admin Center.

Register App in Power Platform Admin Center [PPAC]

Now, once you are in the Power Platform Admin Center, you can go to the Environment section –

First, let’s say this is your App in your Azure’s Active Directory in the App Registrations. And now you want to create an Application User in Dynamics CRM for this App.
Now, you can go to the PPAC and in Environments, look for your D365 CRM/Dataverse environment.
In Settings, you’ll see Users, expand the same and you’ll see Application Users which is now it’s own separate option.
Now, you’ll see the Registered Apps I have already and you can add from the “+ New App User” button above.
Now, select the + Add an app button
And you’ll see the complete list of all the Apps that are in your Azure’s Active Directory. Select the one your just created and click Add.
And then finally click Create once you Add the App you want to create Application User for.
And now, you’ll see the App added as an Application User for your environment.
Now, you also need to provide Security Roles based on the requirement. Select the App User, and click on Edit security roles once available.
In my case, I’m giving 3 Roles which I need to give and click Save.
Now, I’ll also see how many Roles have been given to the App User.