PowerApps – Page 7 – Nishant Rana's Weblog

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..

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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

Or now we see the option to Try the new look in the app itself in the command bar.

Let us look at the changes

Grids now have the checkboxes added to it

(open the image in new tab to view it clearly)

Infinite scrolling

The same grid is applied to Sub Grid and Associated Grids

Forms now have a new Command Bar, refreshed BPF, Sections, etc.

Form fields now have a background, icon placement, stying changes, etc.

Get all the details here

Hope it helps..

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Interesting articles on Plugin behavior – Dynamics 365 / Dataverse

Found below interesting articles, do check out-

Can we create child records in Pre-Operation Plugin?https://community.dynamics.com/forums/thread/details/?threadid=1e757e7a-60b2-4fc6-9a94-acea44b18f8c

What happens when we use ExecuteMultiple within Plugin?https://www.inogic.com/blog/2015/11/executemultiple-workflow-or-plugin-assemblies/

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ParentContext property of IPluginExecutionContext – Dynamics 365 / Dataverse

Recently we had to write a plugin that should trigger only when a user has manually associated the record from the form (N-N relationship). This was because we were also doing the same association through another plugin, in which case we didn’t want this new plugin to trigger.

Here we can make use of ParentContext property to identify if the plugin is getting triggered because of another plugin.

Below we can see ParentContext property getting populated and also in the InitiatingUserId property we get the id of the user who triggered the plugin.

And if the user has manually performed the association from the form, we can see ParentContext being null.

Hope it helps..

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Set DefaultSelectedItems of Combobox on App OnStart – Custom Page -Power Apps (Dataverse)

Recently in one of our custom pages, we had to set the default value (DefaultSelectedItems) of the combo box based on one of the lookup fields on the record. We were opening the custom page from the ribbon button on the form.

Below is our function to pass the record’s GUID to the custom page from the button.


    openSearchCustomPage: function (primaryControl, firstPrimaryItemId) {
        var pageInputCustom = {
            pageType: 'custom',
            name: 'custom_searchproduct_570ed',
            entityName: 'lead',
            recordId: firstPrimaryItemId
        };

        var navigationOptions = {
            target: 2,
            position: 1,
            width: 1350
        };

        Xrm.Navigation.navigateTo(pageInputCustom, navigationOptions).then(
            function success(result) {
                console.log(result);
            },
            function error(error) {
                console.log(error);
            }
        );
    }

Next in App’s OnStart, we are setting the GUID of the record to a variable first, and than setting another variable to store the GUID of the Region lookup field on that record.

// text variable passed by the form / webresource/ ribbon
Set(varEnquiryIdWithoutCurlyBraces,GUID(Substitute(Substitute(Param("recordId"),"{",""),"}","")));

// get the Region Of Interest from the Lead / Enquiry ID
// If value present use it for prefiltering the Gallery Items
Set(varRegionOfInterest,LookUp(Enquiries,Lead=varEnquiryIdWithoutCurlyBraces, 'Region of Interest'));

And lastly, for the combo box (Items = Region (custom table)), we are setting the DefaultSelectedItems as follows