Today, July 8, 2020, Microsoft released the Power Platform and Microsoft Dynamics 365 2020 Release Wave 2 plan documentation with a list of all the features that will be made available in the Wave 2 timeframe which starts October 2020 until March 2021. Going through all of the features is almost impossible unless you want a few hundred pages of documentation.
In this post, I am going to review some of my favorite and anticipated features in the Power Platform, especially Power Apps Portals and Model Driven Apps.
Let’s start with some of the anticipated changes to Power Apps Portals. Screenshots were not yet available for the Power Apps Portals, so I will just list some of them out:
Power Virtual Agents as a component of the Power Apps portals Studio. This will allow portal makers to drag and drop a Power Virtual Agents bot component on their portal, similar to the way that it is done with the Power BI Component.
Power Apps component framework control suppose in Power Apps portals. This will allow app makers to create code components to use across apps. As part of the initial release, this will include support for code components created sing Power Apps component framework inside of Power Apps portals. This feature is expected to be in Public preview on December 2020.
Power Apps portals web API General availability. This feature will make Power Apps portals CRUD web API generally available for all customers. It is expected to be in GA in February 2021.
Next, let’s look at some of the changes that are coming to our Model-driven apps.
Makers can add custom page in the model-driven app designer. This enabled model apps to create custom layouts and use PCF controls in ways that are not possible with the model-driven app form and dashboard pages. Using the modern app and sitemap designers, custom pages can be added enabling more flexibility in the components, behaviors and visuals. These pages are authored using Canvas designer with no code/low code support and configuration of controls and components. These enhancements will be in Public preview in December 2020.
Modern model-driven app and sitemap designers enable more productivity. This enhancement enables authoring model-driven apps and sitemap within context and aligned with the other designer in the Power Apps shell. The new app designer makes app authoring easier, with page based authoring approach that complements existing sitemap/entity authoring. A preview canvas is added to clarify the parts of the app that are being edited, and leverages the modern entity, form and view designers as well as providing access to other classic designers. These enhancements will be in Public preview in December 2020.
New and improved global search experience in model-driven apps. The Global search experience in model-driven apps is easy, intuitive and modern. The search bar provides suggestions on recent records, automatic records suggestion on types query, improved search results page, high quality results that allow users to search for information quickly and easily. The improvements to the search experience will also allow users to use relevance search on the desktop. This will be in GA in October 2020.
Improved model-driven app header, sitemap and app switching. The model driven app shell has gone through various enhancements and has an updated Office app launcher. When clicking on the app name, it will open the inline app switcher. When the website is opened without an app parameters, the message bar enabled switching to a specific app. The classic sitemap controls have been replaced with modern sitemap controls for better usability. This will be in GA in October 2020.
There are a lot more enhancements that the ones I mentioned in this post, and not only in Power Apps, but also in Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, AI Builder, Power Platform Administration and the Common Data Model.
You can view or download the full Power Platform 2020 release wave 2 plan from here.