Announcing seamless Dataverse image and file support in canvas offline apps

We are pleased to announce the Public Preview of files and images from Dataverse in offline for canvas apps. This new feature is built on top of the already announced Canvas built-in offline that is in Preview since September 2023.

It is always challenging but critical to give access to files and images to frontline users when their devices are not connected to the network. Indeed, downloading files and images is usually a long process and can take a lot of space on the disk of the device. When Sales reps browse their catalog of products to create an order, they typically want to see the high definition of the pictures of the products and sometimes need to access their detailed specification. Another great scenario is for inspections where inspectors need to take pictures to illustrate their observations or to be used as evidence for further analysis.

Out of the box support for Dataverse files and images

In an offline-enabled canvas app, you can now either allow the files and images to be downloaded on view or on sync. With those two modes, you can decide the strategy to download files and images on the device of the user for an offline usage, and optimize the disk size depending on the business needs of the end users.

When files and images are configured to be downloaded on view, the content is downloaded on the device when the user explicitly opens a file or when an image is presented to the user. Files and images are downloaded when the device is connected to the network and can be used afterward without connectivity. This mode is enabled by default without any specific configuration.

When files and images are configured to be downloaded on sync, files and images are downloaded during the offline sync when the device is connected. The user can access the content without connectivity and is notified in the application when the download of the files and images is completed. For this mode, you just have to add the column referencing the files or images in the offline profile.

We are looking forward to your feedback

Your feedback will help us make this new app even better. Share your feedback on our Power Apps forum.

For more details, see the documentation.