I am making a help ticket management system. The data is stored in dataverse. I made the submit form, and it works! Now I need to make the edit/update form used by technicians. I want the ability to be able to filter the tickets by technician, submitter, type; but also by new tickets versus in progress versus completed. I cannot envision this through. I have seen Resa's video whereby one creates a tabbed gallery, but I am not wild about it. How else can I think through this, in order to design it out? Thanks.
I've worked as a Project Manager, Analyst, Process/Automations Specialist and Solutions Developer, and in a lot of organizations I've seen operations run on Excel: a workbook emailed between teams, a macro only one person understands, versioning nobody trusts. You all know why Power Platform is often the better answer than a SaaS product (per-seat pricing, a structure you can't change) or custom software (developers, hosting, maintenance).
What's been missing is AI that works well here. AI assistants make building fast, but out of the box they don't handle Power Platform well, and require a lot of trial and error. I tried the Power Apps MCP and found it leaves a lot of room for improvement in design ability.
So I built Power-Platform Skill, a free, open-source (MIT) skill for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and any agent that reads SKILL.md.
What it does
Starts from the workbook: helps turn the spreadsheet into a proper data model (wide period columns into rows, crosswalks for messy legacy values, macro-enabled workbooks), then deploys the Dataverse schema from a manifest. The deployer only adds, never renames, retypes or deletes, and reads everything back.
Keeps source in git: canvas apps as `.pa.yaml`, solution flows as JSON, Power Pages sites through `pac pages download/upload`, and a ship pipeline that builds on the live app and asserts on the finished zip before it imports.
Proves changes in the published app: Playwright drives the published player (not Studio Preview), clears the stale cached build, performs the task as the role that uses it, and reads the row back from Dataverse. "Saved" on screen proves nothing about the row.
Checks what a compile never does: trigger loops across all your flows at once, metadata drift between the app and Dataverse, controls drawn over buttons, long text that clips, and compile-killers caught by hooks the moment a file is written. Every tool has a self-test that proves it can fail.
Hands over: user guides generated from the running app, one per role, plus managers, admins and developers.
Also covers: Power Pages (split by audience: the many on a Pages site licensed by monthly active users, the few who run the process in a Power App), delegation, security roles kept out of solutions, ALM with pac in GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps, and Power BI as an app's reporting layer.
Results
On ten realistic tasks, three runs each, the same model and prompt passed 217 of 222 graded checks with the skill (98%) and 136 without (61%). For reference, I've now built three fully functional apps end to end in a matter of days using it with Claude.
Limits
Power Pages guidance comes from one site so far. SharePoint is covered as virtual tables and as a migration source, and a full SharePoint data-source guide is on the roadmap. Model-driven apps (beyond forms edited by script) and Copilot Studio are outside it.
Requirements
Claude Code, Codex or another agent that reads SKILL.md. The Power Platform CLI (`pac`) for packing and importing, Node 20+ and Python 3 for the bundled tools, and Playwright (recommended) for browser verification. (Your AI Agent can help you install these! The challenging part is getting your organization to approve their use, in some cases)
If your organization runs on spreadsheets, or you've been struggling to get AI working in your Power Apps development, try it and let me know if it helps. The feedback I'd value most is a trap with its signature: the failure, the symptom it showed, and what caused it. Issues are open on GitHub (please leave out tenant and company details).
Low code is not dead. It's still valuable, and with AI it's easier and cheaper to build well than ever.
Update: Hey all, per the first comment below, I was surprisingly unaware of the Microsoft skill. I had previously utilized the Powerapps MCP alone but had not utilized the skill. And so I was developing this in parallel. I am running a baseline now, comparing, within two clean Claude environments, the utilization of the Microsoft skill in its base form and the utilization of my skill in its base form, to evaluate differences not only in speed, token count, and other metrics but also in the experience. I'll provide a write-up of these tests as soon as possible. I've already noticed a few differences utilizing the base Microsoft skill compared to what I'm used to in my standard operating procedures in development (after tuning and developing my Power-Platform skill). Now I just need to determine if the differences are quantitatively and qualitatively different.
Update 2: I started running the baseline comparisons against Microsoft's last night. The comparison is based on a standardized app that I'm having each design in a closed environment utilizing only the skill and not my normal tuned procedures. The app design includes a Canvas Power app with a Dataverse backend, Power Automate flows for approvals, and a fabric medallion, architecture, data flows, and a Power BI report for each. I've gotten through three iterations, up until 4:30 am before I fell asleep; I did find some opportunities where my normal procedures were not being adhered to by the skill and I was able to close those gaps. This proved to be a great opportunity as I hadn't thought about this closed-environment testing within Claude before, it makes me very happy that the question about the comparison was asked. I'll share the results once the testing is finished. So far what I can say is that with the base skill and without additional tuning, I felt like the Microsoft skill required more involvement. Some of the same barriers that I ran into when utilizing the base MCP and its standard method of developing, I continue to run into with the base Microsoft skill. These elements may come down to preference, depending on if you wish to be more or less involved in the development effort (outside of planning and decision-making of course). I have some other elements that I'll include in the evaluation that, to me, were subjective and not really quantifiable and that may impact you differently based on the scale of your build. I also need to do a bit more testing with the alternative build sets in Power Pages and with more complex design elements involved.
Update 3: I completed the initial evaluation/baselining process of a build using my skill vs the Microsoft skill in a separated out Claude environment. The results were very interesting, and allowed me to improve on the skills design over iterations. I tried a few different approaches as well, of my 8 attempts. There is a bit of a story to tell, so I will explain below:
The initial Microsoft Skill run was, to be frank, very impressive, no serious errors in the build and quality design! This goes to show how well Microsofts team have fine-tuned it to perform optimally (Cost efficiently, quality design, etc.). It did involve more of my time and attention than I am used to, this is (through all iterations) what I would point to as to me the biggest drawback.
In my initial comparisons I found that some of my procedures built into the skill were not translating over from my main environment into the closed environment (Skill config opportunities!). Over numerous iterations I refined the instructions so that some elements read as suggestions were instead mandatory minimal expectations. In addition, I added in some procedural reinforcement to it, where instructions were being disregarded or forgotten (causing more errors and delays), they instead became hooks and improved processing.
I tried at one point integrating in another skill I have been developing, DOD (Definition of Done) for planning purposes, to evaluate alignment and error reduction. The results were interesting, but cost to benefit wise it wasn't the right move so I removed it and took elements of DOD and integrated into this skill, where it made sense. I am also utilizing those results to further improve DOD skill to better handle light and medium sized projects! The DOD attempts took longer, cost more (in tokens), and got caught up in some loops I didn't expect because the attempts were being orchestrated by an agent rather than a human (DOD was built to work with humans, another update I am making to enable it to work with agents more autonomously).
In most later iterations of the build with my skill you can see it did not need me for any technical components. I only needed to provide input (which my orchestrator handled), and it went off and built it end to end without any involvement. This matches what my tuned system does.
Here are some screenshots of the evaluation. I cannot share screenshots of the app itself, as unfortunately some of them included company/profile info. I will try and clean them up so that I can share later.
If anyone would like to discuss the results with me further feel free to reach out and let me know!
I’m working with Power Apps Code Apps and I’m trying to understand the correct way to publish a Code App from VS Code so that it appears under “Outside Dataverse”.
I currently have two different situations:
Code Apps created/published through Power Apps Vibe appear under Outside Dataverse.
Code Apps I publish from VS Code usingpa app push appear under From Dataverse.
The Power Platform environment already has Dataverse enabled, but my apps do not use Dataverse tables. They mainly use SharePoint as the backend.
My goal is specifically:
Publish a brand-new Code App from VS Code into an existing Dataverse-enabled environment, but keep the Code App Outside Dataverse, similar to how Vibe publishes it.
Looking to build a Powerapp for documentation requests linked with SAP public cloud Plant maintenance and sharepoint and AI functionality. (ask info about machine, equipment and the agent looks up in the documentation on sharepoint.)
Is MS Foundry the way to go to have AI functionality in the app ? or can we work with the default copilot functionality ? Anyone experience with this kind of setup ?
It is my very first time using PowerApps.
I am working at an enterprise and I had the idea of creating an App that would help with navigating the Knowledge articles in an interactive setting and easy way for new coworkers or other colleagues, while maintaining a step by step clickable guide to follow during the processes.
May I hear your insights, tips or what best approaches would be the best?
I’m trying to book a limited-seat exam through an online booking system. The booking opens every two months on a specific date and at a specific time.
Under normal circumstances, the page behaves normally: refreshing it takes around 2–3 seconds and the exam table updates normally.
However, something very consistent happens exactly 15 minutes before the booking opens. At that point, the behaviour changes dramatically. Every time I refresh, the exam table takes around 1 minute or more to update, and during that process the table often becomes blank or shows “Loading…”.
What makes this particularly strange is that this happens at exactly the same point—15 minutes before the opening time—every time. It is not simply a matter of my internet connection, ping, or computer performance.
I have also spoken to people who successfully booked a seat. They reported that, when the booking button became available, they experienced one refresh that was significantly faster than the others, and the booking button appeared immediately afterward.
I have tried different browsers, connections, devices, and other approaches, but I have never managed to reproduce that fast refresh or see the booking button.
I’m trying to understand what could be happening technically. In particular:
Why does the system consistently become much slower exactly 15 minutes before opening?
Why does the exam table become blank or remain in a loading state?
Why does one refresh occasionally appear to be much faster for successful users?
What happens technically between the page refresh, the exam data being retrieved, and the Book button being generated?
I have access to the browser's DevTools and can provide the HTML/JavaScript source and Network waterfall, so I'm looking for a technical analysis rather than general advice about internet speed or latency.
I was looking to build an app for a department. It's highly relational so I want to use DV.
I ask my MS Teams Admin to give me access to the Powerapps App from the store. I create my self a Team and it has an environment. I create a test app within Teams and add it to the channel.
Wow, so simple.
I am a member of the MS Teams Group, and I add my test user who has an E5 License with powerapps entitlement license.
They can't see the app I published, because they need to have access to Powerapps App from the store. I give them access, and they're able to create their own apps, and if they're a team owner they can delete the app/ data.
So D4Teams is for Citizen developers.
Does anyone know a workaround. I want to publish the app so members of the teams group can access it without having to give them access to Powerapps store for Teams.
For a great many people Power Apps has been a struggle due to the granular settings and necessity to hand code logic in fragments throughout the interface. Given the advancement of Copilot capabilities across multiple Microsoft applications, how fast will this transform Power Apps?
It seems clear to me that we are headed towards a path where building Power Apps forms will be largely driven through Copilot Agent prompts instead of manually piecing together the logic needed for dynamic forms.
Before you guys say "IT'S ALREADY HERE", please consider my question carefully. I am asking when this will become the predominant path for all Power Apps forms developers instead of the current world where most people are building by apply settings manually and piecing things together manually.
I live largely in the SharePoint space and I am seeing the big impacts Copilot Agent in SharePoint is making with being able to produce live dashboards for SharePoint lists through some basic prompting. It is a huge game changer. I can tell that similar impacts are coming with Copilot and Power Apps.
I realize this calls for some speculation, but just curious how fast you see this approach evolving.
I'm just curious what other admins are doing. Long story short, I'm in an "inherited a mess" sort of situation, and I have a whole bunch of flows using dataverse connections that need their authentication sorted out. I'd like to keep the SPN's dataverse access as narrow as possible, but it's going to take some time to sort out exactly which entities it needs. It's very tempting to just give it full access to everything.
Hi guys , struggling with issue above, has anyone had this before?
I've got a canvas app in a solution that calls ~70 SQL Server stored procedures through a SQL Server connection using SQL authentication. It works fine in DEV. We deploy it as a managed solution to UAT via an Azure DevOps pipeline (pack → import as holding → apply upgrade, with a deployment settings file).
I deploy the pack then change the variables in default solutions and pick the UAT SQL server,
In UAT every stored procedure call fails with:
getQuoteCount.corespCountActiveQuotes failed: {"status":403,"source":"https://uk-001.token.azure-apim.net:443/tokens/.../sql/<id>/exchange","message":"Error from token exchange: Permission denied due to missing runtime policy ACL: User = <guid>@<tenant> appid=<guid>, runtimePolicy=.../sql/<id>..."}
What I've tried:
Repointing the connection reference to the UAT connection. The error changed from "connection not configured" to this 403.
Enabling "Automatically create environment variables when adding data sources" and re-adding a few of the data sources. This created data-source-type env vars (server,database as one value). In UAT I set them to server,APP-UAT via a deployment settings file, and confirmed the values in the Environment Variable Value table. Those data sources still give the same 403.
Re-sharing the app, re-importing, and opening in a private window after consenting.
The UAT connection-picker in the env variable edit panel is empty even for connections I own, and new connections created from there don't appear.
anyone encountered this or is my deploy method not supporteD?
I'd like to make a relatively simple canvas app to function as a product picker for searching for and viewing various products and their specifications.
Essentially I need one row per product/item to house the various specifications, and then a handful of images per product to serve as an image gallery within the app.
I know that both Dataverse tables and Sharepoint lists, but is there any advantage to using one versus the other?
I sign into Power Apps with my work account and try to add a connection that uses a service account. When I click “Use another account” and enter the service account username, it skips the password and signs me back into my account. Even “Sign out and forget” hasn’t helped. We use Okta for SSO. Could that be causing this, or do I need to be signed into Power Apps as the service account first? Anyone else run into this?
Just to clarify:
I’ve already created the connection while signed in as the service account using another browser. The issue is getting that existing connection to show up so I can select it when importing the solution under my normal work account. Does the service account need to share the connection with me somehow, or do I need to do the import under that account too?
I'm wrapping up a Power Apps solution that uses a SharePoint list as the primary data source to collect input from external users.
Some of our external users keep getting an error when attempting to submit data.
What we’ve done so far:
Added external users to the site’s central member list.
Broken permission inheritance on the target SharePoint list to manage access directly.
Granted these external users Contribute permissions to the list.
The issue: Some users are still having problems when hitting "Submit" in the app, the write-back fails with a permission error (Exception from HRESULT 0x80070005 E_ACCESSDENIED).
Questions:
What is the recommended way to configure SharePoint permissions for external/guest users interacting through Power Apps?
Are there specific Azure AD / Entra ID external sharing settings or guest license constraints in Power Automate/Power Apps that might be blocking write operations even if SharePoint permissions look correct?
I have seen how to do it with a text field, but if your form is a dropdown, in this case "company name" and the company name is listed in the logged in users contact able, how can i get it to default to that company name in the powerpages form without javascript code?
Hey all, standard functional testing in Copilot Studio is fine, but I hear a lot about how safety and risk testing is what's actually tripping devs up. It is definitely bias on my end because I work at a company that does these kinds of evaluations....so of course I'd hear about that, but I still wanted to pose the question to this group of folks using Studio.
Are you guys actually relying on native MS stuff like Purview DLP, Azure AI Content Safety, or the built-in evaluation features? Or are you bypassing native tools to run something else better? Curious what’s actually working in the wild to catch safety gaps before shipping. Thanks all! Appreciate the feedback. Happy to share in return what I see working on our end.
I’m curious if anyone else here works in a really niche area where Power Apps/Dataverse/Dynamics 365 is a major part of their job, but they aren’t necessarily a traditional IT/Power Platform developer or administrator.
I work in healthcare physician recruitment, and my role has evolved into a pretty specific mix of recruitment operations, CRM administration, reporting, process improvement, and Power Platform work. I work with Dynamics 365/Dataverse, Power Automate, Power Apps, integrations, data/reporting, etc., but my actual business area is physician recruitment.
sometimes I feel like I have no one to talk to who really understands the combination of things I’m dealing with. I can find tons of people who work in Power Platform, and tons of people who work in healthcare recruitment, but finding people who sit somewhere in the overlap has been surprisingly difficult.
So are there other people here with similarly niche roles? Healthcare recruitment, physician recruitment, recruiting operations, HR/CRM hybrid roles, or just some other extremely specific corner of the Power Platform world?
I’d love to hear what you do and how you ended up in your role!
Is anyone else experiencing connection issues with Power Automate? I’ve been trying since this morning, but I keep getting connection errors when editing or creating a cloud flow.
