Power Platform Boost Podcast
The Power Platform Boost Podcast is your timely update of what's new and what is happening in the community of Microsoft business applications. Join hosts Ulrikke Akerbæk and Nick Doelman for a lively discussion of all things Power Platform!Like what you hear? Buy us a beer: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Powerplatboost
Power Platform Boost Podcast
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News
- Flexible Dataverse capacity for apps and agents - Microsoft Power Platform Blog by Ritesh Pandey
- The New Icons - Microsoft Design
- The Microsoft Agent Platforms Guide is here 💯✅ by Griffin Lickfeldt
- Introducing the Dataverse SDK for Python - Microsoft Power Platform Blog by Paul Liew
- Fixing Power Platform Pipelines - DEV Community by David Wyatt
- Power Platform Pipelines oAuth Configuration App by Matt Collins-Jones
- Model Driven App - Gen Pages - ModernThemeDesigner
- Enhancing Power Pages interactivity with htmx - Dancing with CRM by Oleksandr Olashyn
- 🚀 Improving Field Validation in Power Pages by Valentin Gasenko
- Process Maps as Part of Your Plan: Now Generally Available - Microsoft Power Platform Blog
- Low Code Is Dead? How AI Is Rebuilding the Power Platform by Vlad Catrinescu Talks Tech with Victor Dantas
- 🎄 A Christmas Reflection on Creativity and the Rise of AI 🤖 by Victor Dantas
- Response by Nathan Rose
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Cold Opens, Chaos, And December Overload
NickTo allow you to go in and you can pick your themes, you can pick your fonts. I don't know if they have comic sands. Oh, they do have comic sands there. Yeah, I'm gonna change the uh change the boost interface. Anyways, but then the whole idea you can set your colors, you set your fonts, not comic sans. I'm just sorry, I didn't mean to trigger you.
UlrikkeI'm proud that you know this. I'm just it I'm I'm beaming that you understand this is a way to tease me.
NickOf course.
UlrikkeWith your hosts, Nick Doelman and Ulrike Akerbæk. Hi Nick, how are you doing?
NickHey, how's it going?
UlrikkeIt's December, so it's um So uh do you have your six minutes of daylight per day?
NickIs it that time of year?
UlrikkeUh not even that. So we all go to work in complete darkness, and then when we crawl out of the building, it's still complete darkness because there was a glimmer of daylight somewhere in there. Um, but yeah, so trying to get by, but you know, people that know me well will know that November is always the hardest month for me, and this year I actually had a pretty decent November. Let's put it like that. Uh no major fallbacks or anything. Uh but December has been hard. I I'm just maxed out at everything. I don't have enough hours in the day, too much to do, too many fun things, but also every year trying to uh because everyone keeps talking about the calm and the relaxing and the enjoyment of Christmas. 30 something, and I still haven't really found a way to get that. And I know also talking to other people that I know that you know, that happens after your kids grow up and become big. So I don't know. Maybe it's just a face of life that I'm in. I find it's more stressed than it's nice at this point. So yeah, that's where I'm at. And also that it the the kind of the show notes reflected because I'm I don't even have time to catch up on messages. One of my best friends called me the other day and said, I'm I've called you three times, I left you five messages, what the f is going on? And then um I I'm just I'm so busy. So and I haven't put a lot of things in here either. So that's me. Just a short uh so if anyone else out there feel like they're barely breathing, barely having their head above water, then I'm with you guys. And um, if we just hold on tight, then one day after another, suddenly it's over. And then maybe I get some calm. I don't know. But how are you?
NickGood. Um as as as you know, the last hour and a half we've tried to get this recording going. And my office is in a complete disarray of wires and microphones, like just nothing was working at all. I just uh we kept getting the little riverside kept going, some other app is using your mic. And I'm like, so and then when we finally got the mic working, it wasn't working. One of my other computers half died this morning. One of the videos went, like the video, and then like and I have and like you, I have work to do. I have project work. I've been traveling the last couple weeks and trying to get in to do some project work, just trying to get the grip and get some momentum going. And I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels. So I think this is yeah, everybody's oh, the good calm Christmas uh is coming. It's like, yeah, I think we're I think today is just one of those days, you know, the song from Limp Biscuit.
UlrikkeSo yeah.
NickBut the this is this is gonna be the fun part.
UlrikkeYeah, exactly, right? Because you know, at the end of a day or uh what feels like weeks for me at least, this is what I'm looking forward to. Sitting down, and I've been loving the fact that you've now taken an hour and a half to get this thing rolling because that meant I got to catch up on messages and send some emails that I didn't send and to to do that thing and actually get a few more things into the show notes and stuff. So I mean, thank you. You're actually giving me an hour today. So and all the and the only thing I have left to do today is to eat steak, drink wine, and have a hot bath. So I'm gonna be okay. Awesome. So yeah. Right. So let's get this baby on the road. I think we're gonna be jumping a little bit back and forth today, uh, but we can start at the top if you want.
NickYeah, for sure.
Dataverse Capacity Doubles And Why It Matters
NickSo one of the big things that that came up, it was if there was some rumblings on it, uh, I think um from a few folks earlier on, late November, it looked like the based on the life updates, there's updates coming that there was gonna be more default Dataverse capacity, which is uh a big impact for a lot of people. It was interesting. I was talking to one of my clients, uh, they're on the verge of going over their dataverse capacity. I said, that's actually not too bad. I've worked with people that have gone way over their dataverse capacity, which means you can't create new environments and a bunch of things. And this uh was very kind of very timely for them. The fact that we now have so the way it works is if uh with your very first Power App's premium license, you get 10 gigabytes of Dataverse capacity. And then each additional license gives you just incrementally a little bit more, and of course, you can buy additional licensing or additional capacity packs. That default now is doubled, so it's now 20 gigabytes. Now, for large enterprise customers, that's barely a drop in the bucket. They probably wouldn't even notice just because they're sometimes buying gigabytes and terabytes of extra Dataverse capacity. But for a lot of our smaller, medium customers, it does make a big difference that allows them to actually get a couple extra developer environments or give them a little bit more breathing room. So that's a good thing. Conversely, though, is Microsoft making room for more of what I call their capacity tax when they're adding new features and co-pilots and things which eat up your Dataverse storage kind of without you asking for it. But if you want to have the complete package or you want to, you're forced to have the complete package, you'll need to accept these. So interesting times. Good news, uh, just one of those things we just got to watch and make sure. Um, for those of you who thought you're on the edge of running over, you might be wondering why you aren't getting those nag emails anymore. Go into PPAC, check your capacity. You'll probably be pleasantly surprised you're gonna be in the green, but also like it's a fishbowl effect, too, right? I already, on my own environment, once I got all this space, I was like, ooh, I can create a bunch more dev environments, test environments. And I filled that up pretty quickly, to be honest. But that's just me. So we'll see.
UlrikkeAnd it's also to the explanation is to give way for the exploration and all the additional strain on the system that comes with Copeless to do agents and all the other AI stuff, right? So it's uh it's supposed to be kind of more wiggle room to get all these new features up and running. And of course, it's it's part of the larger story where Microsoft needs adoption on these things and Dataverse capacity may be a showstopper for some people. Like you said, because I hit that limit all the time. I can't create new environments because I hit my storage limits. It's of course a way to enable more organizations to adopt these new technologies at maybe a lower threshold. Uh but yeah, definitely uh good news and something to look out for in your own environment. And so do you want to talk about the new icons? Because that
Copilot Demand And The Capacity Tradeoff
Ulrikkewas in here last time, but we didn't really talk about it.
NickRight. Well, because um it was part of it, what are the ignite things, or maybe even at Power Platform Conference, we saw these things beginning to bubble up and then at Ignite, uh, of course, a lot of new products, of course, with the Agent 365 new product, new icon, but then we saw a lot of the other icons updated. Yeah, Microsoft made a whole big deal about this, but it's sort of um, yeah, they're a little bit more shiny, they're a little bit translucent. That means that all of your your decks, your or your content you might have created using those old uh icons now needs but be refreshed and updated. If anybody may have gotten tattoos that are uh on the power platform icons, that's uh that's a line that I won't cross.
UlrikkeUh but uh just be aware of a logo or an icon tattooed? Is that what you're telling me?
NickNot a not a power platform icon, I don't think.
UlrikkeNo. So how about I changing the if I change the boost podcast, then what will you do?
NickWell, that's that's a democratic decision. So we'll have to vote on that.
UlrikkeWe can't change our logo or our name because we have boost tattooed on our arms.
NickExactly.
UlrikkeYeah, no icon.
NickNew icons.
UlrikkeNew icons. And yes, I do get that it's uh cumbersome to update everything, but also on the back of it, the article that we'll put a link to in the show notes describes kind of why it has to change. And it's also if you look back on
Microsoft’s New Icons And UI Direction
Ulrikkethe old icons, it's a way to keep in the now. So it's from UI and a design perspective, it it needs to be changed and updates. And we would hate on it the other way if they never updated it. It was old and frumpy, and where's the new icons, right? So it's it's changed and we have to go with it. And my I love the new UI and the new icons and a new look and feel with the translucent kind of spraying thingies. Uh yeah, I really like it. So and also you there are guidelines for how to use them, and there are links uh for where to download them if you want to use them yourself, especially for platform this link where you can go and download up all of them and transparent backgrounds and everything. Yep, absolutely cool. I have a link in here that I thought was from you, so I of course haven't looked into it. Yeah, so it's the sorry.
NickNo, go ahead.
UlrikkeNo, it's uh it's actually uh a link or from uh Griffin Lickfield, which on the back of Ignite Announcements made a guide for where to build your agents because we now have an and I have also talked about this in various different uh audiences. Um when you have Copelit Light and Copelit Full and you have uh foundry agents, it's hard to know it's the same story as when we got PowerAutomate and we had um power automate flows, right? Cloud flows, and we had logic apps, and then we had uh or Azure functions. When do you use what? It's always the same thing that comes back to when you got power apps, modern apps, when do you use what? And this is also a guide to uh to where to start with your agent. There's a simple flow chart also that we can that we showed the last episode that you can use to to guide your way through the decision process. So uh are you gonna share your agent with other people in your organization? Is it gonna do some heavy lifting? Is it gonna need access to a lot of different documents and and SharePoint areas and other connectors? There's a myriad of different um choices that you make that decides when where you should create your uh cobalt um studio or your your agent. So that's a very nice article, and you can look into it and look, links will be in the show notes.
NickYep, yeah, good work.
UlrikkeYep, yep. So on the topic of agents, do you want to do the dataverse SCK for Python?
NickYeah, this was um this was uh announcement, the PowerPlatform client data verse client for Python. It was
Choosing Where To Build Agents
Nickthe blog articles by Paul Yu, who is a uh program manager at Microsoft. What I like about Paul is so if you ever you're in these sessions with people from Microsoft, and I was in a session with him, it was actually an MVP Summit, and it was very interactive. What I liked about Paul is when you ask a question, he actually wrote it down in his notebook. He got your name, and you could tell that he was really engaging. So uh good Paul, keep it up. We we love your work. But basically, there is an article and also a YouTube video around using Python in Dataverse, and this is something that we have talked about before, and now it's an open source Dataverse SDK for Python uh announced in public preview at Ignite 2025. We see some um hints coming about that, and uh yeah, it's a good video, kind of walks through about how to kind of set it up, go through it, how you can do like read, write, create, update uh capabilities within Dataverse. So this is we have plugins, we talked we talked about plugins and flows and everything else, but here is another way that we can interact with Dataverse uh for using Python. So those folks that have been using Python before, which I I know barely anything about Python. So it was a really cool little uh video on about how who should use it, talk about uh data scientists, developers and makers and a way to create some other automations and things like that using the Python skills, notebooks, VS Code, um part of your pipelines as well. So yeah, check out the check out the link, check out the video. I had hoped to have some time to play with this, but I haven't yet because I think this could open some doors where places where we might have used like either Power Automate or Flows to update data. This could be a good way to potentially as a way to update data in Dataverse very easily, setting stuff up like you know, testing data, that kind of stuff, or even just data migration. So yeah, um good, good, good info there.
UlrikkeYeah, absolutely. And on the topic of because you mentioned pipelines. So let's dive into that a little bit. Because I found an article from David Wyatt. We haven't talked about David Wyatt in a while, so it's about how high time that we shared one of his articles. And it it intrigued me because I'm doing sessions on on pipelines. So this was fixed pipelines.
Dataverse SDK For Python In Public Preview
UlrikkeAnd I was like, what fixed pipelines? And I think he meant the he fixed pipelines.
NickYes.
UlrikkeBecause it's broken, and he's right. And in true style, it kind of goes through his reasoning that it is at the time when PowerPoint pipelines came to be, it was a very good addition. It was very, very much needed. And as anything, you you give the people a simple tool tool to move solutions through environments, and then of course, as soon as you give them the teeny weeny little finger, they want to take the whole hand. So where is my this and where is my dad and where is the and all the requirements keep coming? So they've tried really hard over the last few years to reach that potential that this new uh capability has, and and he also gives them kudos for doing a good job. But of course, there's still these little niche things that niche things that don't work. And David has created a way to work around it. So and he and he says those this is a workaround. It's in three key facts that it works on. So it has to do with delegated service accounts. Um they can create their own connections, you can share connections with them, um, and solutions and it creates a config, a JSON in the solution uh that helps with this. So it's a it's a very complicated process. I'm not gonna go through all of it, but I know that it the the main pain point that he's addressing is that um if you create uh a pipeline, a developer creates the pipeline for the service principal, but it has to be a um an owner of the service principal in Azure to run it. And that's of course a security issue. We haven't had that as a security issue in the projects that we've been on because it hasn't been that strict, but it's of course a security issue. And also if it uses the developer connections, they have to kind of have that connection in production or in test as well, which isn't good. So this actually addresses some of that, which is really good. And then also, and I've lost it. So if you just give me two seconds and I'll bring up another, yes, here we go. So let me see if I can get to this. It was another post by where he also talked about did you see it? Did I put a link to it? No.
NickI don't think it's I did see the the post somewhere.
UlrikkeYeah, I was meant to put a link in the show notes, but then you suddenly emerge. Here it is, PowerPoint from Pipelines, ooh for configuration app. So what Matt did is he created a model-driven app in the pipeline host environment on top of the pipeline configuration app, or not on top of, but in addition to. And what it allows you to do is it has three tables, and you you have the deployment stages, you have the power platform connections, and then you have the pipeline connections.
Fixing Power Platform Pipelines
UlrikkeAnd you can then connect everything, and then you set it up, and then it allows a thing it uses power automate flow to actually then update and and reset your connections on the way in. So this is another way to kind of mitigate and and close that gap because he also talks about the gap in in the current setup where there you can't you can't really do everything. So I'm gonna put that also in here. Um yeah, so then you guys can check it out. And also I'm doing sessions on pipelines and both in Tallinn. Oh, in Tallinn, yes. So I will make sure to kind of go through all of this as well. Um, and those in that session.
NickYeah, it was fun because I did some training last week and we talked about pipelines, and they were already, and there's we get into this sometimes this conversation about using Azure DevOps, the build tools versus pipelines. Um, a lot of it kind of comes down to the size of your projects. For the big enterprise projects, obviously Azure DevOps is kind of a way to go because you got the source code, stuff going there, your different environments and approvals. But what I like about Power Platform Pipelines, yes, it doesn't quite do everything, but it's much more accessible to, I think, people that are already making Power Apps and working within the PowerPlatform. So a lot of it comes down to who is going to end up owning this process long term and what tools are they comfortable with and using that to deploy solutions and things like that. So I'm a big fan of PowerPlatform pipelines. I've used it, I've fought with it, we've had our frustrations with it, but overall, compared to exporting solutions and re-importing them, or even trying to pack together some PowerShell scripts that I used to do in the olden days, PowerPoint prime pipelines has come a long way. And it's really cool to see like guys like David show how to extend it with like Power Automate and uh Matt Cullen Jones in terms of building uh an app because it is sitting in Dataverse, so it is all accessible to be extended as well. So kudos to you guys for doing this. Yeah, and I'm looking forward to your session in Tallinn as well to learn more about this.
UlrikkeYeah, me too. And also I see in in larger organizations, these two things work side by side. So you'll have the core team push or you know um not push, but deploy their solution using uh the DevOps tools, right? They have full control, it's all connected to it's all connected everywhere, and you have full control of it. But then suddenly, maybe you have a citizen dev environment where you have different apps, and then you they have their own environments, they create their own apps, and then need an easy way to to kind of put their stuff into production. And part platform pipelines comes really handy because it's like you said, it's their language, it's their interface, it's what they do, they're used to it. It's not so dangerous, it doesn't feel so breaking the internet if you do something wrong with it, and it's a comfortable UI for them to use. And in that space, it really works. And also it then enables them to not having to have access to all these developer tools and actually pull changes. Because what I see more and more when we're out there and looking at a big kind of architectural and especially organizations that have a bit of a legacy system that comes from the old days, the the idea of pulling changes is kind of new. It's still a push from the central government, the central IT to the different branches or whatever it is that we're talking about. But the idea of pulling when you need an update, were you ready to update, or are you ready to grab the latest thing that you pull it yourself? That is kind of a new Way from it that I see the pipelines comes really handy. So yeah. That was just my two cents on that. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. So moving on, I did not want to miss the modern team designer when I saw this. This is so cool. And
Citizen Dev Deployments Versus DevOps
Ulrikkedo you understand how this works? Because I'm a bit kind of what now?
NickSo to be honest, this is another thing of Nick's massive, massive to-do list of things to try out. And so the idea. Yes. In that in that order.
UlrikkeIn that order.
NickSo the modern theme, it is a solution, like you can download it from GitHub. We'll have the links. You install it. And then basically you have this new app called Modern Theme Designer in your apps. So again, building model-driven apps to control your Dataverse environment. So kind of segueing, seeing with the tools that Matt Collin Jones and David created. So this is another tool. I think it was created by Microsoft.
UlrikkeYeah, but it's also not an official release. This is sample code and not an official release. So just keep going. Right.
NickYes, that that's that's true. And it basically there is ways already to update the theme, but it's basically you have to go in and mess around with the with the code and stuff. This provides a user interface to allow you to go in and you can pick your themes, you can pick your fonts. I don't know if they have comic sand. Oh, they do have comic sans there. Yeah, I'm gonna change the uh change the boost interface. Anyways, but then the whole idea, you can set your colors, you set your fonts, not comic sans. I'm just sorry, I didn't mean to trigger you.
UlrikkeI'm proud that you know this. I'm just it I'm beaming that you understand this is a way to tease me.
NickOf course. Trigger's meeting on so many levels. So yeah, so this is something that's pretty cool. I'm gonna definitely download this and apply because that's a thing, right? We talk about everybody kind of talks about how model-driven apps are boring, they all look the same, and that's true. That's the power of them, right? I've always said my training, and people have taken my training before, no, I'll say, if you know how to use one model-driven app, you know how to use them all. But um, taking a look at some model-driven apps I've seen that I've sort of gone into projects with the little puzzle pieces, and I know that triggers Sarah, and you see kind of the boring layouts and whatever,
Modern Theme Designer For Model-Driven Apps
Nickbut then you go see someone who's spent some time in putting the theme and the layouts. So, for example, for CPPS, we're using the same app that they're using for ColorCloud and Tall and a few others, which is a model-driven app written by Matt or developed by Matt's. He's got icons, or sorry, he's got little emojis on the tabs. The layout's really nice, the the color scheme is really nice. It's a little, I don't think it's such a little thing, but it makes a big difference in terms of using the apps. They look professional, they look polished. So having the theme designer there where you can kind of align your fonts and your colors to maybe your own personal branding kind of gets your users, it's a little thing, but it gets their users a little bit more, I think, just a good emotional response from using the app itself. So yeah, definitely a really cool little tool to check out.
UlrikkeYeah, and it also has to do with mental load and recognition. So when we scan user interfaces, our eyes are trained to look for certain cues for what to do. So a green button will be accept, a red button will be uh cancel, for instance, or and I know that dynamics isn't really, or sorry, a multi-driven app isn't really a place where you can play around with these things as much. So I know that uh a lot of the time this will be presented as, ah, put your own branding theme on this. It's so good for users, but also what you should be doing with it is enhancing the user experience to make it easier for the users to make the right decisions, to not have to remember everything or to guide them through a process or to guide their eyes in the right direction to alleviate some of the noise because model driven-ups can be pretty noisy when you have a a huge uh customer card, for instance. It can be a lot of information to take in. And so information, uh hierarchy in terms of importance can be you can use theming for that. So you can enhance some bits and then downplay some other bits to help the eye to focus on the right thing uh and and to kind of guide your eyes to the to the right perspective. So there's a lot of different techniques that you can use. And I think this is a is a very unique way. And um, and yeah, so and also with the emojis and icons that Nick and Matt's is using in his application, it also help helps with recognition because he's using emojis, the same emojis for the same thing. So have hotel bookings, hotels will have the same emoji every time. That helps you to see that more quickly. So when you're scanning the page for hotel information, your eye will catch that emoji quicker than it will catch the word hotel. And that's why uh icons has been so very much used, is used in UI so much is because our eyes catches it quicker. So it's uh it's not all just it, it's not all just because it looks nice, it does really have a huge impact on your users and offloads them in a very good way. Yeah, the load on them in a very good way. Offloads them.
NickI know yes. It just makes it gooder.
UlrikkeOkay, so something else that makes everything gooder is dancing with CRM and HTMX with power pages. Did you put this in there or is this mine?
NickWell, I certainly did. So this is from Alexander Yashin, who is very timely because I have a couple projects where just the out-of-the-box forms or the out-of-box lists just don't cut it. Yes, they can you can do a lot with them, you can manipulate them, you can add a little searching metadata, but at the end of the day, it's just you need to go a little bit extra. So then you start building your own custom templates with liquid. We're talking about power pages here. So Alexander has stumbled, well, whether he stumbled upon or whether he uses this and finally blogged about it, something
UX Cues, Emojis, And Cognitive Load
Nickcalled HTML. Now, HTMX is it's basically it's a small library. It's basically um it's a JavaScript library, but it allows you to write less JavaScript by extending HTML, therefore the name HTML, um, and allows you to have components that they can react to events, they can send HTTP requests, perform CSS transitions, and much more. So they actually have an official website that he has a link to in his blog, but he showed an example of mixing Liquid and HTMX to build a kind of dynamic list form for a web page, which I'm definitely going to be using on a couple projects going forward because we do need to actually address some of those particular uh feat, you know, uh requirements from our customers. And again, this talks about user interface. One thing about model-driven app user interfaces, but of course with PowerPages, you're now dealing with people, your external stakeholders. So you need to make sure that user interface is very accessible, very easy to use, very easy to get the information. So yeah, it looks uh looks good. Great, great post, uh, Alexander, and uh definitely going to be using this in projects going forward.
UlrikkeYeah, it's a very neat trick for sure. Um, and then I also saw, and then when you've built your forums, then you can also then use some new tricks for form validation. Because I yeah.
NickI think this was either maybe it was both of us, but is Valentin Koshenko?
UlrikkeYeah.
NickWas it mine or yours?
UlrikkeI think it's yours. But I am getting into it and it looks fantastic.
NickYeah, so basically it's uh it's a client library, and basically he he put this article together about, of course, about validation. And if you're using the out-of-the-box forms um and power pages, when you have those validation messages, they look a little ugly, they're kind of off the top of the screen, and you're trying to work below. Basically, with this library, you could actually make the whole thing look a lot more, again, what you said, user experience right with the particular field, making you highlighting it, making it very much like a more modern user interface that we're used to on other site. So basically, for required fields, now we may you may think, okay, this is just another little thing, but again, for PowerPages, again, these are the types of things that, yeah, we can we can build some pretty powerful websites using PowerPages and get everything going. These are the things that sometimes are a bit of a bit of a time suck because the customer will look at this going, yeah, can you make the required fields look a little bit better? And then of course you're going in, you're mucking around with JavaScript, and you're trying to do little tricks and stuff to make it look better. So again, this is another library that's just basically going to cut down the time and make it a lot easier and make it look a lot better.
UlrikkeYeah. Absolutely. Is there any trick? And I know this is one of those things that the the the UI guys are front enders. So when we've entered into Part Pages project, they're always kicking about this because it gives you all the things at the top. So if you have a a huge forum with all required fields and you don't put any of them in, it creates a list like this long about all the it's so ugly and frumpy and old. Yeah. Um, and also something other little
Power Pages: HTMX For Dynamic UI
Ulrikkesmall thing that I wanted to mention. The process maps in Plan for Power Apps is now generally available. And I was like, what process maps in plans for power apps?
NickYou didn't know.
UlrikkeNo, I did not. So then I thought, if I haven't seen this, then probably I'm not alone. So I brought it up. And it's and it's kind of hidden. But when you because I I pull it up now just to see what I missed. So when you've gone through you, you give plan your prompt. Uh so this is in make the power so com, you go plan, plan designer. We've talked about it bazillion times, and they keep adding new features to it. And so you give it your prompt, it it shows you the it goes through the business case and the the personas and the different apps you need to build your data model for you. And then in the when you have kind of the business case and the personas and the the kind of the process, you can go in and want to see the process behind it. It creates a process map for you where you can see what the different people were, how the process they'll go through and the apps that they use and the processes that they'll trigger and and all of the things, which is really neat. And it reminded me kind of of the paradomy flow kind of map that we got. And remember when you could see parent and child flows and how they relate to one another finally, and where data goes from one end to the other, and this triggers this flow, and then data flows here, and do da do. So that was a really neat map. So I thought it was worth mentioning because I hadn't seen it before.
NickYeah, and I hadn't realized this was now uh GA because I it was one of those things, it wasn't part of the original plan designer when that came out. Got clarity. So the tool is called plan designer, but you build plans and plan designer, like you create flows and power automate.
UlrikkeEliza and I would say, I don't think it's even called plan designer anymore. It's plan in power-ups now.
NickWe we confirmed before our thing in Vegas, actually. Oh yeah, because we changed her whole deck and then we changed it, and then we're gonna be able to do that.
UlrikkeYeah, because in in um because when we were in Vienna for European PowerPoint conference, everyone's talking about plan in power-ups. So it's kind of all right.
NickYeah, yeah.
Cleaner Form Validation On Power Pages
NickIt was a whole threat. At the end of the day, everybody knows what it is for building plans. So and but so the process designer was still one of those preview features, and it only would turn on if you click on the little use preview features button, but now it's GA, so it's there for everybody, which is pretty cool. Yeah, and like I said, plan designer is getting progressively getting better all the time. I ran through a demo last week as well with a few folks, and yeah, it was already because you can actually this is funny because there was a blog announcement about using plans on existing solutions, which had been around for a few months, but the official blog didn't only got posted last week, so everybody thought this was a new thing, and I'm like, no, it's an older thing, but I guess, like you said, of course, we can't keep on top of everything all the time. So I guess for a lot of people this was a new thing. Um, and if it's new to you, that's great. So you can try it out and uh be aware of it.
UlrikkeYep, absolutely. Also, talking about Ignite and uh big announcements at Ignite, as they all know, everyone knows, or actually at PPCC, they declared the power platform was dead and then that it had been reborn. So I think this was in Vegas that Victor and Vlad recorded a video, Victor Dantis, um, about kind of how the power plat what the power platform looks like when it's reborn. So thinking about power platform AI first and what capabilities you have and working with Pro Code. But of course, this is Victor, so he will have the PowerPages perspective on this, of course. Um but it's a neat video where Victor shows off kind of how he's working with PowerPages at the moment, which is very code first and very AI first. And going from a s a blank team template until or um into um a power pages site that looks like um model ribbon app for customer service, which is really neat. So it's a it's a nice conversation between two superpowers in this uh space, and it's well worth uh watching. They're both so incredibly professional that all of us look like juniors, um, which is a lot of fun and very well produced, Vlad. So yeah, definitely worth uh checking out. And then we have two more kind of fun posts before we're gonna wrap it up. And then also a few other I mean, and then of course this is this is Victor again. Uh also I spelled Nathan's name wrong. This is Nathan Rose.
NickYes.
UlrikkeDid you see this when we posted it?
NickI see it, but no one else
Process Maps In Power Apps Plans
Nickdoes, so this is all very entertaining.
UlrikkeYou get this firsthand, don't you? Nathan sends you this in private, and then okay, and then you post that right. So I saw Nathan's post first, where Nathan is playing a very nice, sweet song on the piano, and he talks about how he's using the piano, uh, he's learning to to play the piano, uh, and how it's and he's picking it up because Victor Nentis posted a uh video of him playing the piano and a Christmas tune. And the topic is my computer's uh bugging me. So the question is does AI now take over more of our creativity? And I I have said this a lot of times, I know a lot of people that say this, and Victor also says in his um post if AI can just do our laundry and kind of walk our dogs and feed our kids. Feed our kids who want to do ourselves, but do the stupid things around the house that we don't want to be, then we can play the piano, we can make art, we can be creative and take photos and do editings and we want to do the creative work, right? But AI's taking over more and more of that. Yeah, and I love Nathan's take on it. It's like, so do we allow AI to take over too much of our creativity? And he argues that no, actually, AI he uses AI to kind of find the chords of the song he wants to play, and then he can freestyle from that, but just getting that foundation in place, and that's the same thing I did when I created a song for my friend for her uh bachelor party, right? I had Chat DBD create this backbone of a song, just to structure and kind of getting the the layout right, and then I filled in all the gaps and all the stories and and made it fit. So it's a collaboration.
NickWhat do you think? No, no, I I agree. I think AI is using AI as a tool is really, really cool. It could take a lot of the tedious stuff out, even some of the creative aspects. Like, um, you know, I haven't got I haven't sat down and written creative writing in a long time, but I also think that I could potentially use it for kind of doing some of the the the the the kind of the background stories or kind of fleshing out things or whatever. Again, at the as long as you're in control, it's like anything else, you're using a tool. So definitely on terms of but in terms of some creativity, maybe in some aspects, no, you you you get the more joy of doing everything, but if there's some things that you can kind of utilize it as a tool, like anything else, like you would use a computer to write, or sometimes you would use some drawing program to do some artwork or something like that. AI is just again one of those other tools. If you completely turn over the whole creative aspect to AI to create for you, well then that's what it is. It's AI generated stuff. So you kind of lose that creative edge, it's not really yours anymore. So that's just sort of my
Power Platform “Reborn” And Power Pages Code-First
Nickmy take on it. Um I can I could see using it like I using it for some things, but if you're just going letting AI create something for you, like completely vibarting it, maybe it produces something good. Maybe yes, you prompted it, and maybe that's a form of art. I don't know.
UlrikkeYeah. Well, that's our kit take on it. So there, Victor, you have your answer from us, and keep the discussion going. Because I like the you know, having that discussion is so good. So yeah. And that's the end of the episode, and we're gonna wrap it up. And also, our next episode is gonna be released on December 1st. So we're actually wrapping up the year on the last day of the year. So I'm really looking forward to that. But until then, have a lovely Christmas, and we'll catch you in the new year.
NickWell, their last episode will be on the last day of the year, so not quite so.
UlrikkeThe last day of the okay, have pallihts then. Okay.
NickYeah. Who knows? Well, it's all good.
UlrikkeBye bye.
NickBye. Thank you for listening. If you like this episode, please make sure you share it with your friends and colleagues in the community. And be sure to leave a rating and or a review on your favorite streaming service. That makes it easier for others to find us. Follow us on social platforms and make sure you don't miss a single episode. Thank you for listening to the Power Platform Boost Podcast with your hosts, Ludic Akebeck and Nick Dolman. See you next time for your timely boost of Power Platform news and updates.
