The state of Teams as a platform
2 years since the Dataverse for Teams launch, it’s time to look how far we’ve come with the Microsoft Teams application platform story & what’s missing still. Continue reading The state of Teams as a platform at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog The state of Teams as a platform – Jukka Niiranen Two years ago I wrote one blog post that became fairly popular...
A few notes on the Timeline: model-driven Power Apps form tweaks
Notes rollup, multiple Timelines per form, customizable actions, modal dialogs for detail forms – there’s so many settings to optimize with this control in 2022 Release Wave 2. Continue reading A few notes on the Timeline: model-driven Power Apps form tweaks at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog A few notes on the Timeline: model-driven Power Apps form tweaks – Jukka...
Thinking Quarterly, Q3/22
Quarterly digest of my Power Platform and low-code thoughts posted in July-August 2022 to my LinkedIn followers. Now also available to subscribers of the Thinking Forward blog. Continue reading Thinking Quarterly, Q3/22 at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Thinking Quarterly, Q3/22 – Jukka Niiranen I haven’t been creating all that many blog posts here in the past months....
Your mental battery and the power of living
You can’t escape tiredness only by resting. Living your life to its full potential is the ultimate energy source, yet it also consumes your mental energy. Continue reading Your mental battery and the power of living at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Your mental battery and the power of living – Jukka Niiranen Earlier this year I wrote about how I became tired. I used the...
The future of Power Platform – Steve has a chat with Jukka
Microsoft MVPs Steve Mordue and Jukka Niiranen share their insights on where Power Platform is heading and why low-code is eating the world. Continue reading The future of Power Platform – Steve has a chat with Jukka at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog The future of Power Platform – Steve has a chat with Jukka – Jukka Niiranen If I had to choose only one blog I could...
Is blogging worth it?
How much time does blogging take and what do you get out of it? Reflecting on my 14 years of tech blogging, what I’ve gained from it and what it means to me. Why you should / shouldn’t start your own blog. Continue reading Is blogging worth it? at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog https://jukkaniiranen.com/2022/07/is-blogging-worth-it/ Blog Syndicated with Jukka Niiranen’s...
Forget static plans, use the Release Planner for Power Platform roadmap info
Release waves don’t tell the full story of what’s planned for Power Platform & Dynamics 365. The new Release Planner site provides a better roadmap view on the items currently being developed, rolling out or recently released. Continue reading Forget static plans, use the Release Planner for Power Platform roadmap info at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Forget static...
Podcast: Understanding Power Platform’s evolution
What are the market trends & client needs for low-code? How is Power Platform positioned in Microsoft’s cloud? What is the business potential for partners? These are some of the topics that I talked about in the podcast episode for “Demystifying Enterprise Innovation”. Continue reading Podcast: Understanding Power Platform’s evolution at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on...
Dataverse results inside Microsoft Search in Office, SharePoint, Bing
How to include Dynamics 365 data inside the Microsoft Search UI. What limitations does the free service have & how does it compare to in-app Dataverse search? Continue reading Dataverse results inside Microsoft Search in Office, SharePoint, Bing at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Dataverse results inside Microsoft Search in Office, SharePoint, Bing – Jukka Niiranen Whether you...
Share links with access to records in Model-driven Power Apps
Did you know users can now gain access to records in Dataverse even without any security roles? Time to explore how the new sharing links work. Continue reading Share links with access to records in Model-driven Power Apps at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Share links with access to records in Model-driven Power Apps – Jukka Niiranen Microsoft has been working towards a unified...
Sharing Dataverse for Teams apps outside the team
Using the “share with colleagues” feature to publish Teams based Power Apps into more than one team can be a bit tricky. Here are the steps needed to use your app outside the hosting Dataverse for Teams environment. Continue reading Sharing Dataverse for Teams apps outside the team at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Sharing Dataverse for Teams apps outside the team –...
Dataverse environment administration mode and storage consumption
When you restore the backup of a Dataverse environment into a new environment, it won’t remain forever in its original state. As a result, storage consumption can creep up on you. Continue reading Dataverse environment administration mode and storage consumption at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Dataverse environment administration mode and storage consumption – Jukka Niiranen...
Dataverse meets Teams: my presentation at #TeamsNation 2022
Exploring Dataverse for Teams opportunities for low-code app makers. How to position Dataverse for the Microsoft Teams user audience & limits to keep in mind. Continue reading Dataverse meets Teams: my presentation at #TeamsNation 2022 at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Dataverse meets Teams: my presentation at #TeamsNation 2022 – Jukka Niiranen I had the pleasure of attending...
Working with solutions in Dataverse for Teams
Solutions are hidden behind the scenes when building Power Apps in a Teams environment. While you can use them, there are some gotchas to be aware of. Continue reading Working with solutions in Dataverse for Teams at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Working with solutions in Dataverse for Teams – Jukka Niiranen For over a year now, we’ve been living in a world where Microsoft...
On being tired
What happens when your mental battery gets drained & how I’ve personally experienced this in recent times. Continue reading On being tired at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog On being tired – Jukka Niiranen This post is not about the usual technology topics I cover on my Thinking Forward blog. It’s about the human side for a change. Having spent the last five days in...
Modern advanced find test drive
How does the new 2022 wave 1 feature for Model-driven Power Apps pefrorm when compared to the classic Advanced Find tool from the XRM era? Continue reading Modern advanced find test drive at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Modern advanced find test drive – Jukka Niiranen The single most powerful end user feature of Dynamics CRM, XRM, CDS and Dataverse was always Advanced Find....
Canvas app source code editing with VS Code in your browser
You don’t even need to install Visual Studio Code and set up Git repository sync locally to access Power Apps source code, thanks to github.dev. Continue reading Canvas app source code editing with VS Code in your browser at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Canvas app source code editing with VS Code in your browser – Jukka Niiranen The experimental feature for connecting Power...
How to control the lookup view columns for a customer field
The customer lookup column in Dataverse has special behaviors that you need to know when configuring fields for Model-driven Power Apps form. Continue reading How to control the lookup view columns for a customer field at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog How to control the lookup view columns for a customer field – Jukka Niiranen It’s the little things in a user interface that...
Year 2021 in Power Platform
Wrapping up the year in Microsoft’s low-code business apps: what were the biggest themes of 2021? Continue reading Year 2021 in Power Platform at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Year 2021 in Power Platform – Jukka Niiranen Time to start wrapping up another eventful year in the Microsoft Power Platform ecosystem. Here are the highlights that came to my mind when reflecting on...
A Power Platform newsletter from our team
You can now subscribe to a monthly email digest of all the cool Power Platform tips, features and news that Team Forward Forever has discovered. Continue reading A Power Platform newsletter from our team at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog A Power Platform newsletter from our team – Jukka Niiranen Back in Spring 2020 when we launched Forward Forever, one of our guiding principles was...
Power Platform licensing, November 2021 updates
Updates to Power Apps licensing model from Ignite 2021 (Nov), including the pay-as-you-go model for apps and capacity. Continue reading Power Platform licensing, November 2021 updates at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Power Platform licensing, November 2021 updates – Jukka Niiranen The second Microsoft Ignite event of 2021 included several important updates on a topic that I cover...
Find contact’s LinkedIn profile with Power Fx & custom command bar button
Adding a low-code button for the contact form in Power Apps Model-driven app to search for a matching LinkedIn profile. Continue reading Find contact’s LinkedIn profile with Power Fx & custom command bar button at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Find contact’s LinkedIn profile with Power Fx & custom command bar button – Jukka Niiranen So far in my experiments...
Reopen tasks with Power Fx & custom command bar button
Using the command designer in Model-driven Power Apps to add new buttons for activity tables, to perform common status change actions. Exploring how the modern commanding features and Power FX formulas can be used in scenarios that previously required Ribbon Workbench and JavaScript. Continue reading Reopen tasks with Power Fx & custom command bar button at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their...
Did Power Apps really leak your customer data?
Over a thousand Portals were discovered with a security setting misconfigured. Why did this data leak happen and what can we learn from it? Continue reading Did Power Apps really leak your customer data? at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Did Power Apps really leak your customer data? – Jukka Niiranen Recently Power Apps made the headlines in a way that Microsoft would have liked to...
Is Dynamics 365 data now “free” in Microsoft Teams?
At Microsoft Inspire 2021, an announcement was made on supporting Collaborative Apps scenarios in Teams at no extra cost. What does this mean for Dynamics 365 customers in terms of exposing their CRM data to wider audience? Continue reading Is Dynamics 365 data now “free” in Microsoft Teams? at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog...
Power Apps pricing drops by 50%
From October 2021 onwards, the Power Apps per app & per user plans will become very affordable. What’s behind this sudden drop in pricing for premium features? Continue reading Power Apps pricing drops by 50% at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Power Apps pricing drops by 50% – Jukka Niiranen It’s not that common to see Microsoft make an announcement where the price...
Virtual Dataverse tables with no code, via Connectors
How to bring external data from SQL Server tables into your Model-driven Power Apps with the new Virtual Connector Provider. This blog posts demonstrates how you can transparently combine the virtual & physical data onto a single screen for the users to work on. Continue reading Virtual Dataverse tables with no code, via Connectors at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Virtual Dataverse...
One-to-one relationships and forms within forms
Splitting data into multiple tables for security purposes and still providing a nice UX to work with business records on a single form. You can achieve both goals with Dataverse and Model-driven Power Apps! Continue reading One-to-one relationships and forms within forms at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog One-to-one relationships and forms within forms – Jukka Niiranen There’s...
Making Model-driven Power Apps visible (and hidden)
Managing end user access to Model-driven apps isn’t as straightforward as with Canvas apps. Here’s how the list of Power Apps actually works and what the “share” feature does & doesn’t do for Model-driven app. Continue reading Making Model-driven Power Apps visible (and hidden) at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Making Model-driven Power Apps visible (and...
Dataverse for Teams as your CoE platform
Power Platform Center of Excellence Starter Kit can now run inside a Microsoft Teams based environment. How can all those features fit in there? Continue reading Dataverse for Teams as your CoE platform at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Dataverse for Teams as your CoE platform – Jukka Niiranen If you’re serious about leveraging Power Platform low-code tools in your...
Democratizing code
Could low-code platforms like MS Power Platform democratize app development the same way Web 2.0 did it for social content creation and sharing? Here’s a collection of thoughts around how using less code may impact the business applications ecosystem. Continue reading Democratizing code at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Democratizing code – Jukka Niiranen Throughout my whole...
What will Power Fx mean for Model-driven Power Apps?
Will the common low-code programming language turn business app customization from GUI based tasks to a jungle of formulas, or will we just gain new powers? Continue reading What will Power Fx mean for Model-driven Power Apps? at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog https://jukkaniiranen.com/2021/03/what-will-power-fx-mean-for-model-driven-power-apps/ Blog Syndicated with Jukka Niiranen’s...
Account address capture & mapping with Power Apps
Using the new geospatial controls in Canvas apps to combine Azure Maps features with customer address data from Dataverse. Continue reading Account address capture & mapping with Power Apps at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Account address capture & mapping with Power Apps – Jukka Niiranen In the Power Apps team blog there was an announcement of the GA availability of...
Relational data on Model-driven forms, part 2: Form Component Control
How to make fields from a related table editable on a Power Apps Model-driven app form with the new “forms within forms” PCF control. This second part shows how to go beyond Quick View Forms and create a seamless data entry experience. Continue reading Relational data on Model-driven forms, part 2: Form Component Control at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog...
Relational data on Model-driven forms, part 1: Main Form Dialog
How to improve the user experience of Power Apps forms that reference data from multiple related tables in Microsoft Dataverse. In the first part we’ll explore the use of Quick View Forms together with Main Form Dialogs. Continue reading Relational data on Model-driven forms, part 1: Main Form Dialog at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Relational data on Model-driven forms, part 1:...
Year 2020 in Microsoft Business Applications
Here are the three most important topics that shaped the world of Power Platform and Dynamics 365 in the year 2020. Continue reading Year 2020 in Microsoft Business Applications at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Year 2020 in Microsoft Business Applications – Jukka Niiranen Recently I had the privilege to make my sixth appearance in the CRM Rocks podcast run by Markus Erlandsson....
How naming works in the Power Platform universe
Dataverse instead of CDS, tables instead of entities, Customer Insights instead of… Customer Insights. Don’t get too attached to any particular name in the Power Platform and BizApps world, as the only constant here is change. Continue reading How naming works in the Power Platform universe at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog How naming works in the Power Platform universe...
Make your Power Apps search experience more Relevant
5 tips for improving the search results that your Model-driven Power Apps or Dynamics 365 apps provide via the Relevance Search feature. Continue reading Make your Power Apps search experience more Relevant at Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Make your Power Apps search experience more Relevant – Jukka Niiranen Microsoft recently launched a brand new search experience for Model-driven...
Renewed Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide for October 2020
Microsoft has removed the Customer Engagement and FinOps buckets from their licensing documentation and now offers a single menu of Dynamics 365 apps. What should the CE professionals now identify themselves with in this new world? The post Renewed Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide for October 2020 appeared first on Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Renewed Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide for...
How Microsoft Teams can scale up low-code: my 5 min explanation
Video of my presentation from Microsoft Ignite 2020 event: “How Power Platform Now Empowers All Microsoft Teams Users”. The post How Microsoft Teams can scale up low-code: my 5 min explanation appeared first on Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog How Microsoft Teams can scale up low-code: my 5 min explanation – Jukka Niiranen At the virtual Microsoft Ignite 2020 event I had...
Microsoft Teams as a platform
Teams started out as a pure collaboration tool, but it’s now becoming a platform for no-code, low-code and pro-code business apps. Here’s an analysis of the potential impact Teams will have for Power Platform and Microsoft 365 application development. The post Microsoft Teams as a platform appeared first on Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Microsoft Teams as a platform –...
There never was a “Microsoft Dataflex”
Due to trademark issues, Microsoft had to back off from their plans to rebrand CDS as “Dataflex”. How does something like this even happen? The post There never was a “Microsoft Dataflex” appeared first on Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog There never was a “Microsoft Dataflex” – Jukka Niiranen There are a lot of benefits in taking long enough...
Dataflex: the day after
How did the outside world react to Microsoft’s announcement of Dataflex and what questions should we focus on after the dust settles from Inspire 2020. The post Dataflex: the day after appeared first on Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog Dataflex: the day after – Jukka Niiranen Microsoft dropped a big bomb this week with their Dataflex announcement. I don’t think I’ve...
Dataflex is more (and less) than CDS
The new name for Common Data Services is Dataflex Pro. What about the non-Pro version then? That’s where the story gets really interesting, with a Microsoft Teams licensing bundle that will allow the creation of Power Apps on top of relational data for pretty much all Office users in the world. The post Dataflex is more (and less) than CDS appeared first on Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their...
Why Power Platform licensing is complex, part 4: the role of CDS
The Common Data Service is a foundational element of Power Platform, yet it isn’t an actual software product that would be sold directly on a per user basis. The history as well as the future of CDS make it a complex part of the licensing puzzle for customers – and Microsoft. The post Why Power Platform licensing is complex, part 4: the role of CDS appeared first on Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s...
First impressions on Power Platform 2020 Release Wave 2
The low-code platform from Microsoft is becoming an increasingly mature foundation for business apps of all shapes and sizes, based on this latest roadmap. Uniting citizen dev & pro dev tools and offering pahts from Power Platform tools to Azure is a common theme in 2020 Wave 2. The post First impressions on Power Platform 2020 Release Wave 2 appeared first on Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on...
PPAC is your new Dynamics 365 Admin Center
Power Platform Admin Center has taken the place of the old CRM era admin tools. Where are the features now and what’s different for Dynamics 365 admins? The post PPAC is your new Dynamics 365 Admin Center appeared first on Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog https://jukkaniiranen.com/2020/07/ppac-is-your-new-dynamics-365-admin-center/ Blog Syndicated with Jukka Niiranen’s...
ALM for low-code: are we there yet?
Application Lifecycle Management often deals with tools and concepts from the pro-developer world that aren’t necessarily easy to apply as-is to the new world of low-code applications. What do you need to consider in your ALM strategy to align it with the citizen developer language and mindset? The post ALM for low-code: are we there yet? appeared first on Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their...
Why Power Platform licensing is complex, part 3: light use scenarios
Whether you are using a particular feature on a daily basis or once a year doesn’t make a difference when it comes to the licensing requirements of Business Applications. Why is it so hard to offer a license type for the “light touch” scenarios? The post Why Power Platform licensing is complex, part 3: light use scenarios appeared first on Jukka Niiranen. Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s Article on their blog...
Why Power Platform licensing is complex, part 2: multiplexing
The low-code tools are making it easier than ever to have data flowing between different systems and presented in a custom UI that may bypass the original enterprise applications altogether. However, this does not free you from the requirement of having a license for these systems. Welcome to the world of multiplexing. The post Why Power Platform licensing is complex, part 2: multiplexing… Continue Reading Jukka Niiranen’s...