.NET Developers.. Power Platform is your Friend!
Photo by Cláudio Luiz Castro “Before software can be reusable, it first has to be usable” — Ralph Johnson Until recently, I hadn’t had much exposure to the Microsoft Power Platform. Coming from a .NET background, I must confess I had viewed Power Apps specifically as a product that doesn’t lend itself to good software engineering principles. However! A recent stint working on a… Continue Reading ekhor’s Article on their...
Introduction to SpecFlow for Power Apps
Make Power Apps testing simple, easy and reliable.Photo by Joshua NewtonStart with the Why?Let’s start with a question and be honest with ourselves, how many projects have you worked on and not performed any form of acceptance testing / UI testing for a Power Apps project? My guess is quite a few.The most likely reasons you do not perform UI testing, could be the lack of automation… Continue Reading Mark Cunningham’s...
Nulls are Evil
..and so are exceptions!Photo by Martino PietropoliNow that I have piqued your interest, it falls to me to explain why I feel that way — especially as there’s a 50:50 chance that you disagree, perhaps even strongly. One thing that I am sure we can agree on is, in programming, there is no avoiding Nulls or exceptions; things go wrong, servers may be down, data may simply not exist, the… Continue Reading Jay Barden’s Article...
Access Tokens for Dynamics 365 using Microsoft Authentication Library
Photo by Henning Kesselhut In this post, we will learn how to Acquire Access Token for the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CRM) Web API Access Token to perform different operations in dynamics using Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) in .NET. Architectural Overview CreateFromResourceUrlAsync method in AuthenticationParameters Class in Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory name… Continue Reading Vishnu...
Data Migration Engine for Power Apps
Photo by Miguel Andrade Last year the Capgemini Microsoft team released, as NuGet packages, a number of DevOps accelerators and tools that allow us to deliver high-quality Power Platform and Dynamics 365 projects. Currently we have 19 packages, with a combined total of nearly 40,000 downloads for one of these packages (Capgemini.Xrm.DataMigration.Engine). We have now made this package Open… Continue Reading Mark...
Capgemini Speed-Coffee Power App
Photo by Nathan Dumlao Speed-Coffee is a new app, built solely on the Microsoft Power Platform, that aims to connect users to another member of their team for a 10–15 minute coffee-break chat. Naturally, remote working has made it more challenging to maintain human interaction, which is how the idea for Speed-Coffee was born. Aiming to reduce the effects of pro-longed periods without human… Continue Reading Hayley...
Revision Guide for MB-600: Microsoft Dynamics 365 + Power Platform Solution Architect
Photo by Surface Exam Overview “Passing MB-600 validates the skills and knowledge to lead successful implementations and focus on how solutions address the broader business and technical needs of organisations. A Solution Architect has functional and technical knowledge of the Power Platform model-driven apps in Dynamics 365, such as Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Field Service,… Continue Reading Kieran...
Custom Web Portals and Dynamics 365 (CE)
Implementing Dynamics 365 with a Custom Web Portal Photo by Zach Woolf Overview I recently worked on the implementation of a new solution for a Public Sector Client in Utilities sector. This solution leveraged the following components: Custom, interactive, simple, responsive & modern self-service Web Portal using Azure Web ApplicationDynamics 365 for Case ManagementSharePoint 365 for Document… Continue Reading Simon...
A Guide to Hosting a Static Website in Azure
Photo by Georgie Cobbs Up until now I’d never considered Azure for hosting a simple website. I’ve previously setup and hosted several websites whether it be independently hosted, or through use of other platforms, WordPress, Squarespace etc. However, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that everything needed to host a static website in Azure for my purposes was almost free! If it wasn’t… Continue Reading Luke Phillips’s...
Custom Connectors in Power Platform
Photo by Fré Sonneveld Background I recently worked on a project where I was requested to build an integration with an API, and the custom connectors was a great help to achieve it. Before the release of power platform and custom connectors, to integrate with an external service, we must usually build the integration using plugin or custom workflow activity in order to connect to the API, which… Continue Reading Felix Davy...
The Future of .NET from Microsoft Build 2020
.NET 5, .NET Core, Blazor Web Assembly, .NET MAUI, Project TyeContinue reading on Capgemini Microsoft Team Blog » Continue Reading Logan Talbot’s Article on their blog The Future of .NET from Microsoft Build 2020 With Microsoft Build 2020 conference just finished (19 to 21 May), a lot of .NET features and highlights were shown which continue to confirm that the .NET platform has a very strong and stable future ahead....
Featured Tooling for Every Developer from Microsoft Build 2020
Github (Sponsors/ Mobile App), CodeSpaces, Windows Terminal, WSL, Code Conversations & MoreContinue reading on Capgemini Microsoft Team Blog » Continue Reading Logan Talbot’s Article on their blog Featured Tooling for Every Developer from Microsoft Build 2020 With Microsoft Build 2020 conference just finished (19 to 21 May), a lot of interesting tools have been featured which would benefit any type of software developer....
Dynamics 365 F&O Data Templates — What Are They?
Dynamics 365 F&O Data Templates — What Are They? Photo by NASA There have been some substantial improvements in the latest cloud hosted version of Microsoft’s flagship ERP system — Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management (D365 FSCM). For this post, I’m going to focus on successive improvements made to the Data Management Framework (DMF) which have led to the introduction… Continue Reading Ajay Odedra’s...
Setup Release Pipeline using PowerApps Deploy Package task in DevOps
Setup Release Pipeline using Power Apps Deploy Package task in DevOps Photo by Quinten de Graaf In this post, we will learn how to setup a release pipeline in Azure DevOps using OOB Microsoft Power Apps Deploy Package task, available in Power Apps BuildTool, assuming that build pipeline has configured properly to create a package and published to the artifacts. For details about how to create… Continue Reading Vishnu...
Utilising the Application Ribbons in Model-Driven Apps (Power Platform)
Utilising the Application Ribbons in Model-Driven App (Power Platform) Photo by Samuel Austin In this post, I’d like to highlight the Application Ribbons component within Power Platform’s Model Driven Apps. They aren’t new, but in a recent feature I developed, customising this component was the ideal solution. Ribbons If you aren’t already familiar with the Ribbons within the Model-Driven… Continue Reading Tom Ashworth’s...
Adding Logging without cluttering existing code
Adding logging without cluttering existing code During software development, it is often required to add logging capability to specific objects. However, in order to support the future maintainability of the solution you may want to keep this logging functionality separate from the existing code. This post presents an approach which we have successfully deployed in the past to decorate… Continue Reading Aidan...
Power Automate — Create Child Flows using Power Apps Trigger
Power Automate — Create Child Flows using Power Apps Trigger Power Automate is a powerful business application that allows the user to create and automate flows across multiple applications and services. People are building flows in Power Automate that need lots of steps, however, if you try to put all these actions into a single flow, it can be difficult to navigate and maintain… Continue Reading Satya Kar’s Article on...
Gathering Effective Requirements
Photo by Nik MacMillan Effective requirements are a crucial part of creating an accurate product. They are the difference between instilling confidence in your client and causing frustration. Yet far too often, rushed discovery phases, result in limited and under detailed requirements. How can you build from 1 to 10 if you only know 3, 4 and 7? Why Discovery is Crucial to A Successful Product The… Continue Reading Kieran...
Automating your cloud deployments using Pulumi & Azure Pipelines
Automating your Cloud Deployments using Pulumi & Azure Pipelines In the previous post, we saw how to use Pulumi and C# to define and deploy cloud resources to Azure. In this post, we will learn how easy it is to setup a continuous integration and deployment pipeline in Azure DevOps to deploy a Pulumi stack. The code for my cloud stack is available on GitHub, and we will use Azure Pipelines to… Continue Reading Vignesh...
Dynamics 365 TypeScript Development Setup for the Average Joe .NET Developer
Dynamics 365 TypeScript Development Setup for the Average Joe .NET Developer Photo by Christopher Robin Ebbinghaus on Unsplash “You’re building your own maze, in a way, and you might just get lost in it.” — Marijn Haverbeke Recently we were faced with the prospect of migrating a client’s Dynamics 365 estate to support the Unified Client Interface (UCI). Recognising the opportunity… Continue Reading ekhor’s Article on their...
Continuous Integration for Power Apps — the Development Hub
Continuous Integration for Power Apps — the Development Hub The Development Hub is an open-source Power Apps app which simplifies the continuous integration process for teams working with Power Apps. This blog post should hopefully offer some insight as to why it exists and how it could help you to deliver Power Apps solutions at scale. Power Apps development strategies Scaling up… Continue Reading Max Ewing’s Article on...
Power Apps Export and Import Utility and ModelDrivenFormIntegration
Credit: James Oleinik Background I worked on a project where I was requested to build a Canvas App that trigger Flow on the click of a button. The Flow uses the custom connector to authenticate and interact with an external API, so I had to combine the Flow with the custom connector in order to implement the solution. ModelDrivenFormIntegration Limitations The Canvas Apps needs to be embedded… Continue Reading Felix Davy...
Infrastructure As C# Code
If you have been deploying code to Azure or any other cloud vendor, chances are you are provisioning resources using PowerShell scripts, ARM templates, CloudFormation, Terraform or a combination of these popular options. While IaC has grown both in popularity and practice in the past few years, often when using one of these products you are required to define the infrastructure in a JSON… Continue Reading Vignesh...
If you love Fluent API’s and write Integration tests with C#, read on…
Background Over the last few months I have been spending more and more time wondering why testing (particularly Integration / End to End) always seems to be a challenge on large scale projects and it has taken me on quite a journey to discover some of the common patterns, misconceptions and behaviours associated with this discipline. During the process I have learned that there are very few… Continue Reading Mark...
My Apprenticeship Experience
The first week of February 2020 was National Apprenticeship Week, a chance for all apprentices to come together as a community to celebrate movement away from the traditional university route. In this post, although late, I’d like to share my apprenticeship experience from first thoughts to the present day. Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash Who am I? Good question. I am both a software… Continue Reading Tom Ashworth’s...
The Power of Documentation
“Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation.” — Satya NadellaContinue reading on Capgemini Microsoft Team » Continue Reading Sahjan Soomro’s Article on their blog The Power of Documentation “Our industry does not respect tradition – it only respects innovation.” – Satya Nadella As developers, some of us may roll our eyes at...