README.md

🚀 Lab 1: Setup and configure

Before we start with the lab, there are a couple of things we want you to be aware of:

1. You can find the credentials you are going to use for this workshop in the Environment Details tab above the instructions
2. Every time you see a link to a website, make sure to copy the link and paste it into the address bar in your browser in the lab environment. If you don't do this, the links will open in your laptop browser instead
3. When you log into your account, you might see the following image. Make sure to always select Ask later

Lab 1 - Tasks

In this lab, you will go though the following tasks:

• Log on to your account
• Create a GitHub account
• Create a fork of the repository for this workshop
• Creating a GitHub Codespace
• Connect to the Power Platform using the Power Platform Command-Line Interface (CLI)
• Create developer environments
• Switch between environments with the Power Platform CLI
• Enable Managed Environments on all environments
• Deploy the pipelines solution to your Prod environment
• Enable Dataverse settings

Task 1: Log on to your account

With the credentials that were provided to you in the Environment Details tab, let's log into the account you are going to use during the workshop.

1. Go to make.powerapps.com

2. On the sign-in screen, enter the email address that was provided to you in the Environment Details and then click Next

   

3. Then enter the password and click Sign in

4. If you're prompted to stay signed in, click Yes

   You should now be logged in and on the Power Apps Home Page.

   

Task 2: Create a GitHub account

For this workshop, we are going to be using GitHub.

1. Go to the GitHub website
2. Click on Sign up on the top right corner
3. Enter your email address (use the email address for this workshop) and then click Continue
4. Create a password and then click Continue
5. Enter a username and then click Continue (this is a username you're going to use only for this workshop, so don't pick something you want to use later)
6. Select whether you want to receive product updates or not and then click Continue
7. Solve the puzzle to verify your account and then click Create account
8. Go to Outlook for the web in a new tab
9. Open the email that was sent to you from GitHub and copy the code
10. Enter the code that was sent to your email address on the GitHub website. This should lead you to your dashboard where you can create a repository, but that's not what we're going to do now

You now have a GitHub account. Welcome to the community!

Task 3: Create a fork of the repository for this workshop

Now that you have a GitHub account, we are going to create a fork of the repository for this workshop. A fork is a copy of an existing repository. Forking a repository allows you to freely experiment with changes without affecting the original project.

1. Go to the MPPC23-Power-Apps GitHub repository

2. Click on the Fork button on the top right corner

   

3. Once the "Create a new fork" page opens, review the information and then click Create Fork

   

   Once your have created the fork, you will be redirected to your forked repository. You can see that you are in your forked repository by looking at the top left corner of the page. It should say MPPC23-Power-Apps forked from microsoft/MPPC23-Power-Apps.

Task 4: Create a GitHub Codespace

A codespace is a cloud-hosted development environment you can access from anywhere. It has everything you need, including a text editor, terminal, and debugger. Codespaces are powered by Visual Studio Code and run in a containerized environment. For this workshop, we are going to use codespaces to do our development.

1. Make sure that you are in your forked repository (your-username/MPPC23-Power-Apps) and then find and click on the <> Code button

   

2. On the Code pop up, select the Codespaces tab

3. Click Create codespace on main

   A codespace will now be created for you in a new tab. This will take a few seconds. But once it's done, you will have a fully functional Visual Studio Code environment in your browser. You can now start developing!

Task 5: Connect to the Power Platform using the Power Platform Command-Line Interface (CLI)

1. In your codespace, click on the Power Platform icon in the left navigation

   

   You'll more than likely see that there is "No auth profiles found on this computer". Let's create one.

   

2. If you don't see it open already, let's open the Terminal. Click on the Burger menu icon in the top left corner and then hover over Terminal and then click New Terminal

   

   A terminal window has now been opened for you. This is where you will write all of the following commands in this lab and in the upcoming labs as well.

3. Type the following command in the terminal and then press Enter:

   pac auth create --deviceCode

4. You will be prompted to use a web browser to authenticate. Copy (ctrl + c) the code that is provided in the terminal and then Ctrl + click on the link that is provided in the terminal.

   

   Once you click on that link, it will open a new browser tab where you will have to paste that code into the browser and then click Next

   Note: If you are using a Mac, you can Ctrl + click on the link that is provided in the terminal and then enter the code provided.

   

5. Pick the account that was provided to you. If you can't see it on screen then log in.

   

6. Then type in your password and click Sign in

   You will then see a page asking if you're trying to sign in to Power Platform CLI - pac.

   

7. Click Continue

   You'll then see a prompt confirming that you have successfully signed in to Power Platform CLI - pac. Close the browser tab and return to your codespace.

8. Refresh the Auth Profiles section by clicking on the Refresh button next to "Auth Profiles"

   

   You should now see at least one auth profile. If you have more than one, you can select the one you want to use by clicking on the Select Auth Profile button next to the auth profile.

   

Task 6: Create developer environments

Developer environments are very helpful when you want to try out features, they are meant to be short living environments.

For this workshop, we are going to create three different developer environments:

• Dev: The environment where we are going to create our app and solution later on.
• QA: The environment where we are going to deploy our solution to in a later lab.
• Prod: The environment where we are going to deploy our solution to in a later lab.

To create developer environments, you can create them in multiple ways:

1. By subscribing to the Power Apps Developer Plan
2. Via the Power Platform Admin Center (PPAC)
3. Via the Power Platform CLI

Note: When subscribing to the developer plan, you will automatically assign a developer license to yourself. When creating a developer environment through PPAC or the CLI, you will not do that. That's why we do this step first, so that you won't have to start a trial.

In this workshop, we will create one environment through the UI, one via PPAC, and the last one via the CLI, so that you know all about how to create developer environments.

Create the 'Dev` environment by subscribing to the developer plan

Currently, if you want to get all that the Power Platform offers, it's required to subscribe to the Power Apps Developer Plan. In this part, we will walk you through all the steps:

1. Go to the Power Apps Developer Plan website

2. Select the Existing user? Add a dev environment button

   

3. Select the Sign up for a Community Plan link

   

4. Leave the country on United States and select the Accept button.

   

5. After selecting Accept, a Power Platform developer environment will be created for you with the name {User}'s Environment and you will be redirected to the maker portal. In here, you will see two things:

   1. The environment picker at the top-right with your recently created environment {User}'s Environment selected

   

Now, let's rename the environment to something that makes sense to us.

1. Go to the Power Platform Admin Center

2. Exit the Welcome / Tour pop up. You can do this by clicking on the X in the top right corner of the pop up screen

   

3. Select Environments in the left navigation

4. Select {User}'s Environment by clicking on the name

5. In the details card, select edit

   

6. In the side panel, make sure to change the Name to Dev and select the Save button.

   

   This will trigger a name change, and will lead you to the following screen.

   

7. Select Environments to make get back to the overview of the environments.

Create the QA environment via the Power Platform Admin Center (PPAC)

We are going to create a QA environment through the Power Platform Admin Center.

1. Select New in the top navigation

   

2. When the right-hand side dialog pops up - enter the following information:

   Field	Value
   Name	QA
   Region	US - Default
   Type	Developer
   Purpose	Developer environment for MPPC23

   

3. Select Next

4. The next section is asking you to add Dataverse. Finally select on Save

Create the Prod environment via the Power Platform Command-Line Interface (CLI)

We will create the last environment we are going to create via the Power Platform CLI. Because we don't have to go through the UI, and we don't have to load anything, this will go way faster than the other options.

We will create the last environment with the following values:

Field	Value
Name	Prod
Region	US - Default
Type	Developer

The command we need to use for creating an environment is pac admin create. The documentation of this command can be found here.

Run the following command in the terminal in your codespace:

pac admin create --name "Prod" --type "Developer"

Note: We don't use purpose here, because the Power Platform CLI doesn't have a parameter for this. Also, we are using the defaults for region and currency, so we don't have to add those to the command.

Once you have created all three environments, you should see them in the list of environments. Click the Refresh button on the top navigation if you don't see them yet.

Task 7: Switch between environments with the Power Platform CLI

1. With the correct Auth Profile, in the terminal type the following command and then press Enter:

   pac org list

   This gets a list of all the environments that you have access to. You should see the Dev environment listed as one of them. This is the one we want to eventually connect to.

   Note: It can take a couple of minutes before you get the full list of environments. Run the command again every minute until you see all the environments.

   

2. Take note of the Environment ID of the Dev Environment and copy it.

   

3. Then in the terminal, type the following command and then press Enter. Make sure to replace 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 with the environment id that you copied above

   pac org select --environment 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

   You should then see confirmation that you have successfully selected the Dev org for the current auth profile.

   

4. To have further confirmation that you have successfully connected to the Dev environment, in the terminal type the following command and then press Enter:

   pac org who

   This command will return information about the environment that you are connected to. You should see the Dev environment listed as well as other unique information about the environment including the User email you're connected as.

   

Task 8: Enable Managed Environments on all environments

In this task, you will learn how to enable Managed Environments on all environments you just created.

1. Go back to the Power Platform Admin Center

2. Select Environments in the left navigation

3. Use the search box in the top-right corner to search for all environments created by your user

   

4. Select Dev and select the Enable Managed Environments button at the top (it could be hidden under the ... overflow menu)

   

   Make sure you look at the highlighted text about licensing. After enabling an environment as a Managed Environment, everyone in that environment has to have a premium license

   

5. Select the purple Enable button

   

6. Repeat steps 3-5 for both the QA and Prod environments

7. If all went well, you should see Yes in the Managed column at all three environments

   

Task 9: Deploy the pipelines solution to your Prod environment

In this task, you will learn how to install the pipelines for Power Platform solution in your Prod environment. This solution is needed to configure pipelines.

NOTE:
Normally, it's a best practice to install the pipelines solution on a separate "Pipelines Host" environment. In this lab, you will install it in the Prod environment because a you can have three free developer environments, so you don't have space for another Pipelines Host environment next to Dev, QA, and Prod environments.

This is a best practice because you will avoid people accidentally using dependencies on the pipelines tables, or having issues with sharing pipelines and giving people the right security roles. Take a look at the FAQ on Microsoft Learn to learn more best practices.

There are two ways to install the pipelines solution:

Via Power Platform Admin Center

1. Go to the Power Platform Admin Center

   

2. Select the Prod environment you created before

3. In the command bar at the top (make sure you use the button at the top and don't use the left navigation - which also has a resources button), select Resources and Dynamics 365 apps

   

4. Here you can find the apps that are installed on your Prod environment by default. Select the Install App button in the command bar at the top

   

5. In the sidebar that opens, scroll all the way down select the Power Platform Pipelines app and select the Next button at the bottom of the sidebar

   

6. Next, make sure to agree to the terms and select the Install button at the bottom of the sidebar

   

This process will take a couple of minutes, you can refresh the page by selecting the Refresh button in the command bar at the top.

When finished, you can go to the maker portal and select the right environment (Prod). If all went well, you should be able to see the Deployment Pipeline Configuration app in the Apps section in the maker portal.

Via Power Platform CLI

1. Open up your Codespace.

2. Open a new terminal by selecting the Hamburger Menu > Terminal > New Terminal

   

3. Open the Power Platform Tools VS Code Extension by selecting the Power Platform DevTools icon on the left, make sure you see the Prod environment in the Environments & Solutions panel and select the empty star behind it to select the right environment.

   

4. Enter the following command:

   pac application list

   This command will return all the applications that you can install with the pac application install command.

   Zoomed in and highlighted is the unique name of the Power Platform Pipelines application: msdyn_AppDeploymentAnchor.

   

5. Now we can install the Power Platform Pipelines application by using the following command:

   pac application install --application-name msdyn_AppDeploymentAnchor

   This command will return all the applications that you can install with the pac application install command.

Task 10: Enable Dataverse settings

A recent addition to the Power Platform CLI is the ability to list and update Dataverse settings. This means that you can change the settings that are normally only available through the UI. In this task, you will learn how to change the settings.

List Dataverse settings

1. Make sure to run the pac org who command to make sure you are in the Dev environment If not, make sure to switch there, using the pac org select command like we did in task 7

2. Run the following command and then press Enter:

   pac org list-settings

   This command will return all the settings in the org we are connected to now (the Dev environment). As you can see, this is a very large list. You can filter them though.

3. Add the --filter parameter and filter for all settings that contain audit with the following command:

   pac org list-settings --filter audit

   This command will return all the settings that contain audit in the org we are connected to now (the Dev environment). As you can see, this is a way smaller list than what we saw before.

   

Update Dataverse settings

Let's try out how updating a setting works. In the list of audit settings we just saw, there is a isauditenabled setting which is set to No.

1. Run the following command and then select Enter:

   pac org update-settings --name isauditenabled --value true

   This command will set the isauditenabled setting to true.

   Note: Note that the list command showed No as the output, but for updating you need to use true or false.

2. Run the following command again to verify if the setting is applied and select Enter:

   pac org list-settings --filter audit

   This command will return all the settings that contain audit in the org we are connected to now (the Dev environment). As you can see, the isauditenabled setting is now set to No.

   

Next lab

This is the end of lab 1. Select the second page below to move to the next lab.