Power Platform Developer Tools monthly release update (August Refresh)

Last month we released a lot of new features including the Azure DevOps tasks based on the Power Platform CLI. The response from the community has been nothing short of amazing, some of you have reported improved performance in your pipelines. Going forward, we will also be coming out with scenario driven blogs to show how to use those commands based on a given scenario, these blogs will be outside the regular announcement blogs like this one. So, without further ado, let us get started with some of the new features coming out this release.

New!! Preview: Pac Connector command

Now introducing the new connector command in the Power Platform CLI. This Power Platform version works against Dataverse. You will now be able to create custom connectors as a code first component directly into Dataverse. If you have custom connectors already created and the pac connector list command does not show it in its output, it is because the custom connector is not in Dataverse. To put it Dataverse, you need just add the connector to a solution.

New!! Certificate AUTH support for Service Principal

From this release onwards you can use certificate-based authentication for Service Principal accounts. This was a widely asked feature from our DevOps users. This is now available.

New!! Assign-user operation can now assign an application ID

When we released the assign user capability last month, we got your feedback loud and clear. Some of you have scenarios where the environment is not owned by a user but by another service principal who is different from the service principal account that is running a pipeline. This kind of a situation occurs when the environment in production is not to be owned by a single user account but by a service principal. I am glad to report that from this release onwards, including in Azure DevOps and GitHub actions, the assign user can now accept an application user (service principal)

New!! Data import capability in Power Platform CLI

For a long time, our users have been asking to get the Data migration tool into the Power Platform CLI. Now you can use the data import capability instead of the data migration tool. Just as move solutions across environments, the corresponding data for such solutions that use their data from Dataverse, we can now move them too. We have introduced the option to export and import and the data can be in a zip file or in a directiory

Moving towards JUST –ENVIRONMENT no more URL or Envid, provide the one that suits with a single parameter

In most of the commands recently you would have noticed that we are removing references to –url or –environmentid to just –environment. So, whether you pass the url or the id, the command will resolve itself from the information provided on whether the parameter passed is a url or an id.

Keeping with that model, we have updated the pac application list and install commands with this capability now

And other commands like solution list and connector list and many more are following a similar path. Going forward all you need to do is provide the –env flag and pass either the url of the environment or the id of the environment and the system will figure out the right one for you.

Just added… the ability to provide runtime settings for packages

During package deployment, although the API allows you to submit runtime settings for the package, such which solution to run first etc. We had unfortunately not exposed that, now we can do that with this release, thereby making a lot of folks who deploy power platform packages happy.

And in addition, for plugin developers, you can now opt-in for strong name signing for your plugin library.

As you can see, we have introduced a number of new capabilities in this update. As always we are looking forward to your feedback on these new capabilities. The forums are the same for feedback, please reach out to us via the following forums ISVFeedback@Microsoft.com or The PowerUsers community. Raise the issue and bugs at the following location in GitHub https://aka.ms/powerplatform-vscode