Later this week, we will be introducing a new concept called “environments” to PowerApps. Put simply, an environment is a space to store, manage, and share your organization’s business data, apps, and flows. They also serve as containers to separate apps that may have different roles, security requirements, or target audiences. How you choose to leverage environments depends on your organization and the apps you are trying to build, for example:

1. You may choose to only build your apps in a single environment.
2. You might create separate environments that group the Test and Production versions of your apps.
3. You might create separate environments that correspond to specific teams or departments in your company, each containing the relevant data and apps for each audience.
4. You might also create separate environments for different global branches of your company. 

Environment scope

Each environment is created under an Azure AD tenant and its resources can only be accessed by users within that tenant.  An environment is also bound to a geographic location, like the US. When you create a app in an environment, that app is routed to only datacenters in that geographic location.  Any items you create in that environment, including connections, gateways, flows using Microsoft Flow, and more, are also bound to their environment’s location.

Every environment can have zero or one Common Data Service databases, which provides storage for your apps. The ability to create a database for your environment will depend on the license you purchase for PowerApps and your permission within that environment.

When you create an app in an environment, that app is only permitted to connect to the data sources that are also deployed in that same environment, including connections, gateways, flows, and Common Data Service databases.  For example, let’s consider a scenario where you have created two environments named ‘Test’ and ‘Dev’ and created a Common Data Service database in each of the environments. If you create an app in the ‘Test’ environment, it will only be permitted to connect to the ‘Test’ database, it will not be able to connect to the ‘Dev’ database.

Environment permissions

Environments have two built-in roles that provide access to permissions within an environment:

• The Environment Admin role can perform all administrative actions on an environment including the following:
  • Add or remove a user or group from either the Environment Admin or Environment Maker role.
  • Provision a Common Data Service database for the environment.
  • View and manage all resources created within an environment.
  • Set Data Loss Prevention policies.
• The Environment Maker role can create new resources within an environment including apps, connections, custom APIs, gateways, and flows using Microsoft Flow. 

NOTE: Users or groups assigned to these environment roles are not automatically given access to the environment’s database (if it exists) and must be given access separately by a Database owner.

Users or security groups can be assigned to either of these two roles by another Environment Admin.

Environment Makers can also distribute the apps they build in an environment to other users in your organization by sharing the app with individual users, security groups, or to all users in the organization (just like in preview).

The default environment

A single default environment is automatically created by PowerApps for each tenant and shared by all users in that tenant. Whenever a new user signs-up for PowerApps they are automatically added to the Environment Maker role of the default environment; no users will be added to the Environment Admin role of the default environment automatically.  The default environment is created in region that is closest to the default region of the Azure AD tenant.

The default environment is named as follows: “{Azure AD tenant name} (default)”

Choosing an environment

With the introduction of environments, you will now see a new experience when you come to https://web.powerapps.com.  The apps, connections, and other items that are visible in the site will now be filtered based on the current environment that is selected.  Your current environment is specified in the environment picker in the top bar on the right. To choose a different environment, click or tap the picker, and a list of available environments appears. Click or tap the one you wish to enter.

An environment will show up in the picker for you if you meet one of the following conditions:

1. You are a member of the Environment Admin role for the environment
2. You are a member of the Environment Maker role for the environment
3. You are not an Environment Admin or Environment Maker of the environment, but you have been given ‘Contributor’ access to at least one app within the environment. NOTE: in this case, you will not be able to create new apps in this environment. You will only be able to modify the existing apps that have been shared with you.

Creating an environment

Users will be able to create new environments from https://web.powerapps.com, and from the PowerApps admin center. If a user creates an environment, they will automatically be added to the Environment Admin role for that environment. There will not be a limit on the number of environments that a user can be participate in as a member of the Environment Admin or Environment Maker role.

What will change for PowerApps Preview users?

Any user that has participated in the PowerApps preview will see some changes in their experience with the introduction of environments.  The following table lists what U.S. users and non-U.S. users can expect:

Two weeks after PowerApps enters general availability (GA), environments containing preview content will be marked as read-only (with the exception of the default environment); all existing apps & flows will continue to work in these environments, but you will not be able to create new apps or flows. We highly recommend that users of these environments migrate their content to the default environment or another custom environment. Please refer to the following blog (which will be posted this week) for more information about the migration process: https://aka.ms/cdspreviewtoga.

Example environments for a preview user in U.S.

Example environments for a preview user not in U.S.

Managing environments for your organization

With the introduction of environments, we will also be launching a new PowerApps admin center, which will allow you to manage all of the environments that you have created or to which you have been added to the Environment Admin role. From the Admin center you will be able to perform all administrative actions on an environment including the following:

• Add or remove a user or group from either the Environment Admin or Environment Maker role.
• Provision a Common Data Service database for the environment.
• View and manage all resources created within an environment.
• Set Data Loss Prevention policies. For more information see the link to the DLP article.
• Set database security policies (as open or restricted by database roles).

Members of their Azure AD tenant Global administrator role (includes Office 365 Global admins) will also be able to manage all environments that have been created in their tenant and set tenant-wide policies from the PowerApps admin center.

Join me for the PowerApps webinar on 10/27

If you have any questions around the changing coming to PowerApps with the introduction of environment, join me for 10/27 PowerApps where I’ll be giving an overview of environments and answering questions.

When: October 27, 2016  10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PST

Where: https://info.microsoft.com/US-PowerBI-WBNR-FY17-10Oct-27-Managing-data-and-applications-just-got-easier-267380_Registration.html

James Oleinik

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