What’s new: Power Apps March 2023 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 including Copilot for Power Apps, Modern Controls, and more!
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
- Customer-managed encryption key (CMK) Public Preview
- Create custom security roles for your model-driven apps using App Opener security role (General Availability).
Maker Productivity
- Copilot for Power Apps
- Making Dataverse available for all makers
- Easily design and automatically send actionable, data-driven cards in Teams
- New experimental Power Fx formula bar in Studio
- Streamline collaboration in Modern App Designer with Comments (General Availability)
- OData v2.0 Service removal date announcement
End User Productivity
- App Copilot for Power Apps
- Modern controls in canvas apps (Preview)
- Visualizing views in Power Apps with Power BI quick report is enabled by default
- Digitally transform physical workflows by turning the devices you already have into cost-efficient scanning tools
- Tenant switcher in Power Apps mobile (General Availability)
- Create native mobile app with wrap for Power Apps wizard (Public Preview)
Trust
Customer-managed encryption key (CMK) Public Preview
Microsoft Power Platform empowers you to do more with less by making it easier than ever to securely scale low-code adoption, increase organizational collaboration, and infuse AI and automation into all your business processes. Microsoft Power Platform comes with advanced risk and compliance features that give you an easy cost-effective way to cover your risks and compliance needs. As part of these investments, we are pleased to announce that Customer-Managed Key (CMK) is currently being rolled out for Public Preview starting March 1st, 2023.
Encryption is one of several defenses-in-depth that are available to secure storage. All the customer data and configuration information stored in Power Platform is encrypted at rest with strong Microsoft-managed encryption keys. However, the use of CMK provides added data protection control, by allowing customers to manage their own encryption keys. When managed key encryption is used, all business-critical data is encrypted with a user-provided Azure Key Vault key. This provides the ability for customers to rotate/swap the encryption key on demand. It also provides the ability for customers to revoke Microsoft’s access to sensitive information by revoking the access to the key, at any time.
Learn more at Encrypt customer data in Power Platform using customer-managed encryption key | Microsoft Learn and Manage your customer-managed encryption key in Power Platform – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
Announcing General availability on creating custom security roles for your model-driven apps using App Opener security role.
As more customers build Power Apps, there is a greater demand for creating new security roles for their apps. To run model-driven apps, there are a set of minimum privileges required. These privileges are now shipped in a security role called App Opener and it replaces the min priv apps use role that you download from our download center.
You can easily create custom security roles for your model-driven app by copying the App Opener role.
Learn more at Minimum privilege security role renamed and available in environments | Microsoft Learn and Create or edit a security role to manage access – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
Maker Productivity
Build an app using natural language using Copilot for Power Apps
We’re bringing the next generation of AI technology to the very first step of application development. Developers will be able to build their business applications through an intuitive natural language conversation with Copilot in Power Apps.
With Copilot in Power Apps, makers can easily start creating an app with a few words in natural language. Imagine it, describe it, and watch Power Apps instantly generate your application, complete with a data table and back-end logic.
Imagine it. Describe it. Power Apps builds it. Sign up now to get access.
Making Dataverse available for all makers
Working with Dataverse is now becoming easier with ‘Developer Environment’ that comes with premium capabilities like Dataverse, without any additional cost. You can work on Power Platform using Dataverse for building applications where now you can work with relationship modeling in Canvas applications, leverage Model driven applications, build virtual tables, Power FX, formula columns, ALM and much more.
Developer environment is great place for you to build and run the apps with Dataverse in your own personal space, without restriction and then eventually share and deploy to production environments. Developer environment honors tenant’s default DLP policy and hence a secure place for makers to start the experience while honoring their organization policy. Get you Developer environment through PPAC or Maker Portal(currently in Public Preview).
Learn more at Making Dataverse available for all makers | Microsoft Power Apps
New experimental Power Fx formula bar in Studio
A new Studio formula editor is available an experimental feature that you can turn on and use today. The new editor is based on the powerful Monaco shared code editor component which allows us to provide you with better performance, a consistent editing experience across Studio, and additional error highlighting improvements. Behind the scenes, this change to a standardized editor lays important architectural groundwork for many future improvements that will be coming to Power Fx editing within Studio.
Learn more at Try the new Power Fx Formula Bar in Power Apps Studio | Microsoft Power Apps
Streamline collaboration in Modern App Designer with Comments GA
Power Apps has been an incredibly popular tool for creating custom applications, and we have heard our customers’ requests for more & more features to accelerate team app building. Previously, we released a Public Preview of Comments for the Modern App Designer to enable better collaboration and communication between team members. One of the latest updates we are excited to share is that our Comments feature for the Modern App Designer is now GA.
With this feature, Makers can easily add comments to their apps, enabling better collaboration with their fusion team and leading to better Model-driven apps. Simply select any item on the Pages pane and then select the Comments button on the command bar, opening the Comments pane on the right side of the screen. From there, a maker can add comments and read existing comments from other collaborators. Additionally, makers can tag others to make sure specific team members see the comment.
Commenting allows makers to keep track of feedback and suggestions with ease, as comments are stored within the app and can be easily accessed by anyone who has access to it. This is particularly useful for remote teams or teams that work across different time zones.
Learn more at Add comments in model-driven apps with Power Apps – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
OData v2.0 Service removal
The Organization Data Service is an OData v2.0 endpoint introduced with Dynamics CRM 2011. The Organization Data Service was deprecated with Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement v8.0 in favor of the Web API, an OData v4.0 service. We plan to remove the Organization Data Service on April 30, 2023. Any code that uses the Organization Data Service should be migrated to use the Web API before that time.
Learn more at OData v2.0 Service removal date announcement | Microsoft Power Apps
End User Productivity
App Copilot for Power Apps
With the copilot control in Power Apps, app makers can give their users the ability to get intelligent insights about the data in their apps through a conversational chat experience. Users can use natural language to create queries and refine their analysis, all with the help of an AI assistant embedded directly in the running app.
Whether a user needs to understand changes in their inventory, estimate average time to complete a task, or explore which of their campaigns drove the most revenue, the copilot control is ready to listen, analyze, and report.
Modern controls in canvas apps
Recently, we announced preview release of modern controls for canvas apps. With this public preview, we are releasing first wave of thirteen controls which will enable our makers to build well designed apps out-of-box. These controls are based on Microsoft’s own Fluent design system which powers majority of Microsoft experiences across all products like Microsoft Teams, Word and more.
We are far from done though. Along with improving current controls, there are several awesome capabilities that we are going to release in coming weeks:
- Per control styling – color and font support that will work with the new theming system.
- New theming system – We are introducing a new theming system that will allow you to customize the look and feel of apps with greater ease and flexibility.
- More controls – Lot more controls are on the way. There will be more atomic elements like toggle, breadcrumb, and multi-select dropdown, as well as updated form, gallery, and new composed controls.
- Improved authoring & controls experience – We are making enhancements to the authoring experience, to make it much quicker and easier to build apps.
You can enable new controls in Power Apps Studio by enabling ‘Try out modern controls’ flag in Settings > Upcoming features.
Learn more at Modern controls coming to canvas apps | Microsoft Power Apps
Easily design and automatically send actionable, data-driven cards in Teams
Cards are interactive, embeddable, lightweight micro-experiences that bring context and actions directly into Teams conversations. Now you can automatically send cards using Power Automate. Create cards easier as well with a variety of authoring improvements like a no-code variable pane and intelligent Power Fx suggestions.
Learn more at Easily design and automatically send actionable, data-driven cards in Teams | Microsoft Power Apps
Visualizing views in Power Apps with Power BI quick report is enabled by default
Power BI quick reports in Power Apps, which has been generally available as an opt-in capability to help you discover insights from your data easily from within business applications, is now enabled by default with 2023 Release Wave 1.
Power BI quick reports in Power Apps represent a seamless integration of Power Apps, Power BI and Dataverse into a single experience to enable every business user turn data into insights with just one click. Everyone can create visually appealing, meaningful, interactive reports based on a view in a model-driven app and save the report into the Power BI service easily.
Learn more at Visualize your data in a view quickly with Power BI service – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
Digitally transform physical workflows by turning the devices you already have into cost-efficient scanning tools
Use the new barcode reader control to quickly, accurately, and flexibly scan barcodes on your Android and iOS devices – whether that’s on the factory floor, in a warehouse, or in a retail store. The barcode reader comes a better user experience showing the history of what has been scanned and what is currently detected as well as a broader range of supported code types. Try it out today by adding the control from the Media section of the insert pane.
Announcing General Availability of Tenant switcher in Power Apps mobile
The Tenant switcher enables users to easily access the apps that have been shared with them in different directories – users no longer need to log out of the Power Apps mobile app to switch directories, users can specify the directory they want to work in from a list of directories on the user profile page.
Learn more at Switch to a different directory in the Power Apps mobile app – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
Create native mobile app with wrap for Power Apps wizard (Public Preview)
Turn your Power Apps app into a native mobile app with wrap for Power Apps wizard, now available in Public Preview! Makers can create native mobile versions of their web canvas apps for Android and iOS, ready to be digitally signed and distributed to the end users.
Distribute these wrapped native mobile apps through Microsoft Intune, Microsoft App Center, Google Play Store, Apple Business Manager or custom distribution methods.
Wrap for Power Apps feature can produce mobile apps for iOS, Android or Google Play Store:
- iOS (IPA package)
- Android (APK package)
- Google Play Store (AAB package)
We are looking forward to having you try wrap for Power Apps to build your native mobile apps for Android and iOS!
Learn more at Create native mobile apps with wrap for Power Apps wizard (Public Preview) | Microsoft Power Apps and Customize and build your mobile app using the wrap wizard (preview) – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
Video, Learning and Doc Updates
See new videos released by our Power CAT and Cloud Advocacy teams on Express Design and Custom Connectors.
 | Copilot for Power Apps Copilot is now in Power Apps. Create and update Dataverse tables and create a beautiful, responsive, fully featured app by just expressing your idea. Copilot is for your app’s users too, to explore your data using a natural language interface. Copilot helps you build apps easier than ever before, and can be added to your existing apps to add modern natural language features too. |
 | Using GPT in AI Builder See how to extract data from an incoming email using Open AI GPT and then turn it into JSON so you can use it in Power Automate. See how to generate draft responses or summary text in Power Apps. Open AI GPT is now part of AI Builder and opens up so many new possibility. Ashish Bhatia shows what it’s capable of, the basics of prompt engineering and how to ensure a human is in the middle of the entire process. |
| Watch the Powerful Devs Conference On Demand The Powerful Devs Conference took place on February 15th with a keynote from Charles Lamanna and several sessions highlighting how developers can leverage the Power Platform to build applications faster and with far less effort. Watch the on-demand sessions now! | |
 | Viva Sales Lives On Power Platform Power Platform architects: get familiar with Viva Sales. Using AI-powered conversational intelligence, Viva Sales automates the process of logging meetings and updating contact records in Dataverse. Find out how to leverage that data from Viva Sales to build better, smarter apps on Power Platform. |
 | It changed how I think about code – Dev Stories “I didn’t ever really plan to go into or stay with Power Platform when I started”. In just two minutes Gini explains her journey from Computer Science degree to why she believes low code is the future of development. She shares how you should get started and what she’s been able to master years faster than she would have without Power Platform. |
| Build Power Apps from Azure Data Lake with Virtual Tables Frank Lan explains how to use Dataverse virtual tables to quickly connect to Azure Data Lake and Serverless SQL. Use virtual tables to reduce data migration efforts, eliminate data replication, and increase speed to production. Dataverse virtual tables can be used in Power Apps and across the Power Platform. | |
| Integrating Azure Communications Services with Power Platform JJ Sanchez and David de Matheu join April on the Low Code Revolution to talk about how you can add voice, chat and calling capability to your Power Apps with Azure Communication Services | |
| Real World Use Cases for Dataverse for Teams – Teamlink App Stuart Ridout joins April on the Low Code Revolution to talk about TeamLink – a Power Apps solution built on top of Dataverse for Teams to manage your team in office and remote schedules. | |
| OpenAI Independent Publisher Connector Open AI is all the rage. Robin shows us how we can integrate Open AI with our Power Platform solutions thanks to his Open AI Independent Publisher Connector. | |
 | Copilot your Power Virtual Agents See how Copilot helps you can easily create and update chatbots and generate natural sounding message variations with the help of AI. Also, see Boost Conversations enable your chatbot to learn from your company’s website to provide value even when you don’t have a topic created. |
 | Cards for Power Apps If you’ve used Power Automate approvals you’ve used adaptive cards. Cards for Power Apps makes it so much easier to make adaptive cards and put interactive messages right where your users are already working or collaborating. Matt and Anthony show what’s new during preview, the plans for adding AI to aid card generation, security, solutions and how you can provide feedback. |
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!
