What’s new: Power Apps October 2022 Feature Update
Welcome to the Power Apps monthly feature update! We will use this blog to share a summary of product, community, and learning updates from throughout the month so you can access it in one easy place. A variety of new and highly anticipated features are now available which we are very excited to share.
We are continuing to improve and simplify the platform, with updates in Trust, Maker and End User Productivity as well as new video and doc contents to help you adopt and optimize Power Apps within your organization.
Trust
- Test Engine: An open platform for automated testing of canvas apps
- Support Azure AD Dynamic user membership group in Dataverse group teams
- Announcing General availability of Content Security Policy for Power Apps
- Announcing General availability of ESLint rules for Power Apps and Dynamics 365
- Modernized Business Units
Maker Productivity
- Announcing public preview of coauthoring in Modern app designer
- Maker matching now in public preview
- Engage your maker community with the new Power Platform communication site template
- Announcing general availability of Power Apps Ideas
- Modern command bar is on by default for existing apps in Canvas.
- Introducing the PDF function
- Making it easier to work with the right environment
End User Productivity
- Stay in-context with Teams link unfurling for canvas apps
- Read selected barcodes using your device’s camera
- Model-driven app form UI enhancements
- Mobile commanding improvements
Trust
Test Engine: An open platform for automated testing of canvas apps
Test Engine is an evolution of Power Apps testing tools. Test Engine builds upon the key use cases of Test Studio, but takes it in a new, powerful direction through open source collaboration and use of the Playwright browser testing platform. The goals of Test Engine are to provide customers with a robust testing platform for all types of Power Apps, and to make it super easy to integrate automated testing into your app development processes.
What’s available now is the first step towards those goals. The project is provided as an Open Source project on GitHub that, when built, will create a local executable that you can use to execute tests.
This initial release supports the ability to author tests for Power Apps canvas applications. We plan to continue to iterate on this project over the next several months, adding support for model-driven apps, as well as enhanced tooling to facilitate integration into your CI/CD systems like GitHub and Azure DevOps. We welcome you to exercise this tool and give us feedback as we continue to build out the platform.
Learn more at Introducing Test Engine: An open platform for automated testing of canvas apps | Microsoft Power Apps
Support Azure AD Dynamic user membership group in Dataverse group teams
Microsoft Dataverse supports Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) security and office groups, including the ability to differentiate Owners, Members, and Guests. To complete the full Azure AD group functionality, we extended the Azure AD group support to include dynamic user membership group type. The dynamic user membership type leverages business rules to manage the group membership. Group members are added/removed dynamically based on the business rules, eg where Department = “Sales” for all users from the Sales department. Power Platform Dataverse authentication and authorization were extended to support this Azure AD group type.
Learn more at Manage group teams – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
Announcing General availability of Content Security Policy for Power Apps
In September this year, we announced the public preview of Content Security Policy. When you turn on Content Security Policy for an environment, you can enable protection for clickjacking attacks for apps in that environment and receive policy violation reports to your custom reporting endpoint. You can control the Content Security Policy for Model-driven apps and Canvas apps separately.
We’re now excited to announce the general availability of Content Security Policy for Power Apps. We recommend you turn on the Content Security Policy in production environments after testing your apps in a sandbox environment with this setting turned on.
Learn more at Content security policy – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
Announcing General availability of ESLint rules for Power Apps and Dynamics 365
In July this year, we announced the public preview of ESlint rules for Power Apps and Dynamics 365. This brought the solution checker rules to your development environment, which helped you find and address issues in your JavaScript and TypeScript code directly in your VSCode before packing them into the solution file. Post this announcement, we’ve added a few more rules and made it even easier to integrate it to your development environment.We’re now excited to announce the general availability of ESLint rules for Power Apps and Dynamics 365. We strongly recommend you include the ESLint for Power Apps npm package in your development environment to improve the quality of your customizations and avoid packaging unsafe customizations to the solution.
Learn more at Use solution checker to validate your apps in Power Apps – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
Modernized Business Units
We extended the business unit security model by allowing security roles from different business units to be assigned to a user/team. This allows a user/team to access data from different business units based on their security roles to support the Matrix data access structure vs the traditional hierarchical data access structure.
User can update the Owning Business unit column to set the record’s ownership, and other users who are assigned with a security role from this Owning Business unit can access the record. User can also change the record ownership to another user without the need for the new record owner to have a security role from the record’s Owning Business unit. This reduces the operation overhead to manage and assign security role from different business units for easier collaboration while maintaining the high level of security compliance.
Learn more at Security concepts in Microsoft Dataverse – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
Maker Productivity
Announcing public preview of coauthoring in Modern app designer
We are happy to announce that Coauthoring is now available in most of the regions allowing fusion teams to build better apps faster. With coauthoring you can see who is working on the same app at the same time, and you can see their applied changes in real-time. You don’t need to worry anymore about your changes, because coauthoring helps you avoid the unintentional overwrite of each other’s changes. You always work on the latest version of the app. Together.
This feature joins Office-like comments to create a place where people can work together effectively and effortlessly.
Learn more at Announcing public preview of coauthoring in Modern app designer | Microsoft Power Apps
Maker matching now in public preview
Connect with experienced makers in your organization to help you during app development! The virtual agent will also surface your organizations internal community channels and resources to help you stay connected.
Learn more at Connect with other makers in your organization via maker matching, now in public preview! | Microsoft Power Apps
Engage your maker community with the new Power Platform communication site template
This month, we have launched the Power Platform communication site template. The Power Platform communication site template is a SharePoint communication site that provides you with a starting point of content and page templates as you’re setting up your internal Power Platform wiki and hub site. This communication site is designed to be the place where the Power Platform maker and user community within your organization can find the news and resources they need, including digital governance and compliance guardrails, upcoming events, success stories and more.
Several organizations have established thriving centers of excellence to empower makers and drive successful adoption of Microsoft Power Platform at scale. Some examples include H&M, Arm, Lumen, and Zurich Insurance. While all these organizations created customized internal communications sites to share information and connect their internal community, the Power Platform communication site template described in this article provides a quick turnkey solution for organizations to setup similar communication channels with minimal effort.
Our documentation explains how to download and deploy the Power Platform communication site template, and how to configure it for your organization.
Learn more at Create an internal Microsoft Power Platform hub – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
Announcing general availability of Power Apps Ideas
We’re pleased to announce that Power Apps Ideas are now generally available. Now you can easily write a Power Fx formula using natural language or examples.
We know that Power Fx is a low code programming language, makes it possible for hundreds of millions of people with the Excel-like skills to add advanced logic to their apps. However sometimes it’s not easy to write a formula, even for the most experienced Power Fx users, as it may sometimes take a lot of time searching for, learning about and debugging complex formulas.
With Power Apps Ideas, it’s easier for everyone to write formulas by leveraging the power of AI. Comparing to the preview version, we’re supporting more controls and properties. We’ve made some UI changes to prompt ideas contextually and also displaying ideas in a new, bigger panel. The old ideas pane (next to advanced tab) will still stay there for some time, and we will retire it eventually.
Learn more at Announcing general availability of Power Apps Ideas | Microsoft Power Apps
Modern command bar is on by default for existing apps in Canvas.
The modern command bar will be enabled by default for all existing apps in Canvas in North America on 11/07/22. The new command bar not only has a modern look and feel, but is also designed to improve your authoring experience. It allows a seamless customization experience of editing common controls by dynamically displaying the common properties directly within the command bar.
Learn more at Understand Power Apps Studio – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
Introducing the PDF function
In 2021 we released the Print function to accommodate scenarios where app users needed to print physical copies of a screen’s contents. We’re taking that concept a step further this month with our release of the PDF function.
This experimental release unlocks many scenarios where app users need to send screen content. The PDF can be configured to include an entire screen’s contents or a specific part, and they can expand to include tabular data that extends beyond the visible area of the screen, extending onto multiple pages. Whether you need to send a PDF via email using a connector or store it using a Power Automate flow, you can now generate a rich PDF of screen contents to pass along in powerful business process automation scenarios.
Learn more about the PDF Function here.
Making it easier to work with the right environment
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.
Learn more at Making it easier to work with the right environment | Microsoft Power Apps
End User Productivity
Stay in-context with Teams link unfurling for canvas apps
Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of link unfurling in Teams for canvas apps. Previously, when a user copied an app URL & pasted the link into a Teams message to send to colleagues, users would only receive the app’s full link or a shortened vanity URL. Additionally, a click on the app’s link would launch the app in a browser, forcing the user to leave Teams to view and use the app. Now, starting with canvas apps, the Power Apps app link will unfurl into an adaptive card from which recipients can directly add the app to Teams or open the app in a browser.
Adding the app to Teams from the unfurled card kicks off a similar experience to what users are familiar with when adding an app to a tab or from the Teams Store. From this flow, users can add the Power Apps app to a chat, channel, or as a personal app. Link unfurling enables users to start using great apps right away in Teams, thereby saving time and increasing productivity. Note, if the app link sender doesn’t have the Power Apps personal app installed in Teams, the sender will receive a “preview” card and will be prompted to click a “Show Preview” button to unfurl the link. This functionality is only the beginning, and we are already working on additional enrichments to link unfurling across Power Platform.
Learn more at Share a canvas app with your organization – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
Read selected barcodes using your device’s camera
Scan barcodes – include QR, data-matrix, CODABAR, and more – on Android and iOS devices using the new experimental Barcode Reader control. This new control supports more types of barcodes and enables users to select which barcode in view to read instead of automatically reading the first detected barcode.
Optimizes physical workflows by empowering your workers with the ability to read barcodes and automatically action on the returned values using Power Fx. Manage inventory, register attendees, verify shipments, and more much faster using the barcode reader control.
Learn more at Barcode reader control in Power Apps (experimental) – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
Model-driven app form UI enhancements
Form UX enhancements target improvised data presentation. These include set of multiple small changes. Light grey form-background and shadows are added to form sections to make it easier to visually navigate the page. Forms now have consistent use of fonts and higher data density via reduced white space and removal of field dividers. Also, quick view form labels are displayed on top instead of icons.
Learn more at Create and design model-driven app forms – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
Mobile commanding improvements
Mobile commanding improvements provide easy access to contextual commands when you’re using Power Apps mobile via opt-in settings. Delete and process commands are only displayed when they are relevant. Global injected commands such as Edit columns, Edit filters, and Show Chart have been moved from the main set of commands to overflow menu. The command bar on Power Apps mobile for tablets is now located at the top like to the web app. This helps with more commands available to user utilizing the larger tablet viewport.
Learn more at How to use a model-driven app on a mobile device – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
Video, Learning and Doc Updates
See new videos released by our Power CAT and Cloud Advocacy teams on the future IT, SAP, and the Low Code Revolution.
 | The Future of IT with Charles Lamanna Phil talks with Charles Lamanna, CVP for Business Applications and Platforms at Microsoft about how the future of technology affects every business and how each one of us should get ready for what’s ahead. Hear directly from Charles with the guidance usually only shared with top CIOs on: how to do more with less, how IT should prepare for future Microsoft roadmaps and what skills will be needed in the future tech landscape. |
| Easy, Enterprise SAP Integration Phil talks with Jon Gilman about the mountains of new enterprise-scale SAP integration capability coming to Power Platform and where it’s headed next. Learn from THOUSANDS of sample apps and flows and a new end-to-end learning series. Connect in more easily with new shared data sources and a redesigned connector that makes it easier to map SAP parameters. Plus new support for M365 authentication and load balanced connectors allow this to scale to enterprise needs. |  |
 | Low Code Revolution: Integrating azure IoT with the Power Platform Linda Nichols joins April on the Low Code Revolution to showcase how we can integrate Azure IoT edge devices with IoT hub to create a notification system in Teams with some help from the Power Platform. This use case showcases Power Automate, Power Apps, Power Virtual Agents and Azure integration. |
| Low Code Revolution: Fusion Development Tips and Tricks April Dunnam is joined by Scott Durow live from the Power Platform Conference in Orlando, Florida to talk about how professional developers and citizen developers can unite to build solutions with the Power Platform. Scott will share his favorite tips for pro developer and citizen developer productivity with the Power Platform, touch on the importance of ALM and discuss some of the most recent investments in pro code integration with the Power Platform. |  |
We’ve also released new, and made updates to some of our documentation – see a summary before of some of the key updates:
Please continue sending us your feedback on features you would like to see in Power Apps. We hope that you enjoy the update!