Expanded Monthly Channel settings for model-driven apps

Since Monthly Channel was announced in June with Announcing monthly channel for model-driven apps | Microsoft Power Apps, we have been regularly shipping features which are listed in Monthly channel release notes. We are excited to announce that release channels can soon be set on the model-driven app or have an admin override for specific users. This capability is starting to rollout now and will complete over the next few weeks. These two additional release channel settings build on the existing environment level setting.

With the new capabilities for managing release channels, we will start gradually increasing the usage of Monthly Channel. The first step is to default the release channel for new model-driven apps to Monthly Channel. This rollout will be done more slowly so check for status at Release channel overview.

Setting App release channel

Makers will be able to set the App release channel in the App Designer within the Settings > General dialog. The choices are Auto, Monthly channel, or Semi-annual channel. The default value for existing apps is Auto which currently uses Semi-annual channel but with a future release will change to Monthly channel. The Monthly channel and Semi-annual channel values allow an explicit choice.

In December we will start gradually defaulting new model-driven apps to use Monthly channel when the app is created. After the app is created, you can change this to Semi-annual channel if you need a slower cadence. The new app channel defaulting can be disabled by change the app setting “Allow new app channel default” to no. See Changing release channels for more details.

Setting User channel override

To control the release channel at a level other environment or app level, an admin can override the release channel for one or more users. The Power Platform admin center Users list supports changing the channel. See Changing the user channel for more information.

Channel from environment, app, or user

When the model-driven app runs, the release channel uses the app channel if defined otherwise uses the environment channel. When an admin needs to configure a set of users with a different channel, the user channel override allows defining the channel for specific users overriding the app or environment channel. These can be managed either through the admin/maker UI or through API calls.

Monthly release validation

Monthly release changes are published four weeks before the features will be enabled by default within the monthly channel. To make the validation easier, we have added a new URL parameter to pick the next release instead of using the specific release name. See Validating the next monthly release for more details.

Please share any feedback on release channels at Monthly Channel Feedback.