Power Platform ALM and Power Automate Tips: Pipelines, Power Pages ALM and ChatGPT
This page collects practical notes on two topics that come up on almost every Power Platform project: application lifecycle management (ALM), meaning how you move apps, flows and Power Pages sites between environments, and Power Automate tips for awkward requirements such as random numbers or calling OpenAI’s ChatGPT from a flow.
Contents
Application lifecycle management (ALM)
Moving solutions safely from development to test to production is the foundation of an enterprise-grade Power Platform. These notes cover the built-in options.
Set up Power Platform pipelines
Power Platform ALM. In this post, we will look at how we can set up the pipelines solution in power platform.
1. Navigate to the “Admin Center”
From the settings icon > navigate to the admin center.
2. Navigate to the Dynamics 365 apps
From the left navigation panel > under Resources > Select “Dynamics 365 apps”
3. Install the “Power Platform Pipelines”
Make sure you select the right region from the top right section, the region should be the same as your target environment (where you want to install the pipeline solution)
Locate the Power Platform Pipelines solution , and select install.
Once you click install, a pop-up will appear on the right side. Select the environment and agree to the terms of services 😁 (we always agree !) ALM.
4. Wait for the solution to be installed
Once, you click Install, you will notice a notification banner, wait couple of minutes for the solution to be installed for ALM.
When installed, you will find 4 managed solutions in your environment, as shown bellow:
ALM for Power Pages sites
In today’s session, Ulrikke Arerbaek, Low Code Practice Lead at Itera.
Yes, ALM is available for Power Pages ! you can now move your Power Pages between the different environments (Dev, Test & Prod), using Pipelines.
These are the steps you will need to follow to publish your sites
Power Platform Pipelines
In order to enable Power Platform Pipelines, you will need:
- at least two environments (Dev & Target), however, it is recommended to have test as well.
- You will need to install the Power Platform Pipelines (form the Power Platform Admin Centre> Resources> Dynamics 365 Apps)
Whether, you want to move Power Apps, Power automates or Power Pages, it is always down to moving
Power Pages
Now, when it comes to Power Pages, there is no difference compared to migrate any of your Power Platform solutions, you will just need to add your site and all its components to a solution, package everything and deploy the Power Pages site as a normal Power Platform solution.
Particular to Power Pages, you will need to :
- In the target environment, and only the first time, activate the site, as it will be initially migrated as inactive.
- When it comes to binding,
Power Automate tips
Smaller techniques that solve real problems in flows. For a full introduction, read the Power Automate tutorial, and see Power Automate expressions for the functions used below.
Generate a random number in Power Automate
Today I had to deal with a pretty tricky situation,
I was building a flow which captures meetings invites sent to multiple users.
For each user, I had to write into a sharepoint List an event capturing the details of the invite, I also had to include the list of other attendees.
The business PowerAutomate solution I was working on, had to write a unique entry for each person, and from each entry, you could see the other attendees.
So my approach was to generate a random number and include it in the notes PowerAutomate of each entry, another task or step of the flow was to capture all the events with the same ref (random value) and include in the OtherAttendees lookup (multi-select) the different IDs.
The approach was to hold in a temporary variable a random value as follow:
After validating the attendees against a contact list, the follow will loop over all the valid entries and assign in the otherattendees filed (multiselect lookup) an array of IDs which will link the events together.
Query ChatGPT (OpenAI) from Power Automate
In today’s article, I will explore the option of querying chat GPT from Power Automate.
In my previous Article, I detailed how you can create a custom connector to interact with ChatGPT.
If you missed the Chat GPT Custom Connector you can review it below:
Now, let’s assume that you have created successfully your ChatGPT Connector, tested it and everything looks good.
You can either use it (the custom connector) in Power Apps or Power Automate.
1. Context
Let’s try to create a automate which generates a thank you email each time it get’s triggered.
We will try to ask Chat GPT to give us an email body containing a thank you reply for purchasing a specific product.
2. Scenario
I will create a Power Automate which gets triggered from a Power Apps,
The PowerAutomate will receive two parametres
a. The product name
b. The email address
Next, we will ask ChatGPT using our custom connector to provide us with a thank you email for purchasing the product X,
Once you have created your power automate, you can just call it from a Power Apps Button, and pass the required parameters.
How Power Automate (Microsoft Flow) evolved: top 10 changes from 2019
10- MS Flow Online Conference 2019, + 20K Viewers #FlowConf2019
9- AI Builder, buid or pre-build AI models.
8- Ability to get guests to an approval
7- Trigger conditions
6- Ability to rename actions
5- Licensing model has changed (user plan, flow plan).
4- Run a child flow
3- Record app, for legacy systems
2- Copy Paste, the use of clipboard is enabled so we can copy a condition, switch or a block of actions, that we want to move to another flow or other branch.
1- Name change from Flow to Power Automate.
Power Platform ALM checklist
- Build everything inside solutions, never in the Default solution.
- Use separate Dev, Test and Production environments, ideally Managed Environments.
- Use environment variables and connection references so nothing environment-specific is hard-coded.
- Deploy managed solutions to Test and Production, with Power Platform pipelines or Azure DevOps / GitHub Actions.
- Govern the whole estate with a Power Platform Center of Excellence and the CoE Starter Kit.
Related: Power Platform CLI, securing and governing Power Pages sites and the Power Platform licensing guide.
