Making it easier to work with the right environment

We are pleased to announce the general availability of the enhanced environment picking experience.

The enhanced environment picking experience makes it easier to find the right environment to work with. For example, makers can now directly tell environments with Dataverse apart from those without Dataverse, as well as environments where they have sufficient maker and data permission apart from those where they don’t. This enables makers to select the right environments where they can build modern apps successfully.

Grouping of environments

We have divided the environments into two groups in the enhanced environment picking experience: Build apps with Dataverse and Other environments.

Environments shown under Build apps with Dataverse group are all provisioned with Dataverse and will guarantee that makers have both app making and table CRUD permissions in those environments. In other words, makers will be able to build modern apps, manage tables, and leverage the breadth of features Dataverse has to offer without any friction in those environments.

Environments shown under Other environments group, on the other hand, could have various limitations. For example, those environments might not have Dataverse, or makers might not have sufficient app making or table CRUD permissions.

It is highly recommended for new makers to start exploring with Power Apps in environments under the Build apps with Dataverse group so they can experience the full capabilities of Power Apps without any friction.

Filtering and searching environments

Besides searching, we have also added filtering capabilities to the enhanced environment picking experience. Makers can now filter the list of environments by Your role, Data platform, and Environment type.

The Your role filter determines what role and level of permissions makers have in each environment. For example, if a maker has Maker with data access role in an environment, they will be able to build apps and create/edit tables in that environment without any issue. Whereas if maker has Shared app contributor role in an environment, they will only be able to edit apps that have been shared with them in that environment. You can learn more about role filtering through this doc.

Besides filtering by roles, makers can also filter by Data platform and Environment type. Data platform suggests if the environment has been provisioned with Dataverse or not, while Environment type indicates the purpose of the environment and determines its characteristics.