August 2023 – Page 3 – Nishant Rana's Weblog

How to – Create an Automated low-code plug-in (Dataverse) (experimental)

In the previous post, where we installed the Dataverse Accelerator app and saw how to write basic low-code Instant Plugins.

How to – Create an Instant low-code plug-in (Dataverse) (experimental)

Here we’d look at the Automated low-code Plugins.

Select the New Plugin option in the Dataverse Accelerator app to create Automate Plugins.

We get the option to select the table, the event, define the behavior of the plugin using Power FX, specify pre or post-operation, and the solution as shown below.

To keep it simple, we have created a plugin on pre-operation that checks for null, the email address field in the Contact record on Create, and if blank throws an error.

On trying to create a contact record without an email address, we get the exception as specified in the plugin.

That’s all we are done with our plugin.

Now interestingly if we check our solution specified, we will not find our plugin there. We need to add them to the solution manually right now, here we need to look for FxExpression.

And all the details here

Hope it helps..

How to – Create an Instant low-code plug-in (Dataverse) (experimental)

Low-code plug-in is a new experimental feature released by Microsoft, for early adopters, not meant to be used in production. As per Microsoft, “the experimental features can change radically or completely disappear at any time“.

There are 2 types of low-code plug-ins we can write – Instant and Automated.

Instant plug-ins are triggered manually and support parameters, whereas automated plug-in as the name suggests, runs when a particular event (create, update, or delete) occurs on a table and they do not support parameters.

As a prerequisite, we need to first install the Dataverse Accelerator

We can install it from Admin Center >> Resources >> Dynamics 365 Apps

Or from the App Source, look for Dataverse Accelerator and click Get in now.

https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/dynamics-365/microsoftpowercatarch.dataversekit1?exp=kyyw

Specify the Environment to start the installation. (Should take around 5 minutes)

Open the Dataverse Accelerator App.

Click on + New plugin for the Instant Plugins

Provide the display name and the description for the plugin, and also select the appropriate solution.

We can specify optional Input and Output parameters along with the Expression that uses Power FX formulas to define the logic for the plugin.

Our sample plugin takes City as the Input Parameter and returns the total number of contact records having that same city.

Save the plugin and click on Test.

Provide the value for the input parameter and click on Run.

We can see the status as Success and the output parameter Result having a value of 4.

This completes our plugin.

Now to use it, click on the Integrate tab.

The tab provide us the required details.

We can copy the Power FX expression and use it inside the Canvas App.

We get the output as expected.

Below we are calling it from within the Power Automate Flow from a Perform an unbound action

The result –

Get more details and Check out the known limitations

Hope it helps..

Try the new modern look for the Model-driven app (Preview)

The new modern refreshed look for the Model-driven app can be enabled from Maker Portal >> Model-driven App (Edit) >> Settings >> Upcoming – Try the new look and feel (preview)

The new look makes use of the latest Fluent UI React Components