Navigating Updates: Your Guide to Microsoft Power Platform Updates

This article provides a high-level overview of managing updates for the Microsoft Power Platform and Dynamics 365. It is important to stay informed about the latest updates and understanding the different types of updates that are deployed to ensure platform stability and minimize disruptions.

New features, optimisations, bug fixes, deprecations, and security patches are constantly being deployed, making this guide essential for anyone whose role involves managing Power Platform environments. It covers both new and existing information that is crucial for effective management.

In this article I will be focusing on three core concepts:

• Release Wave Updates – Major updates to the Power Platform service that are generally available twice per year in April and October. These updates are deployed automatically.
• Early Access Updates – Updates designed for testing functionality in test environments, available ahead of the automatic wave updates. These updates are deployed manually.
• Refresh Cadence (Incremental Updates) – Updates that occur between Wave Release cycles and can be deployed weekly or monthly. These updates occur automatically.

Release Wave Updates

Release Waves are major updates to the Power Platform and Dynamics 365, including product enhancements, bug fixes, deprecations, and optimisations. Release Plans are available in January for Wave 1 and July for Wave 2.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/release-plan/2025wave1/

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/release-plan/2024wave2/

These updates automatically deploy in April and October. Unlike in the past, updates cannot be delayed and will be rolled out automatically to ensure platform stability. Therefore, it’s important to test features early through Early Access Updates.

Early Access Updates

There is potential for Release Waves to contain deprecations and breaking changes that could affect administrative functions, end user experiences or the maker-authoring experience and therefore should be tested within a non-production environment prior to the Automatic Wave Update of your production environments.

It is for these reasons outlined above that Early Access Updates are made available. Microsoft will release early access to Release Waves for testing in pre-production environments according to the following schedule:

Release Wave 1

• Early Access – First Monday of February
• Sovereign Cloud Early Access – Second Monday of February

Release Wave 2

• Early Access – Second Monday of August
• Sovereign Cloud Early Access – Second Monday of August

You will see the update available within the Power Platform Administration Console, and depicted below.

Figure 1 – Available Updates are Shown within PPAC

Once deployed, this will enable early testing of new features – it is important to report any critical issues via Microsoft Support to ensure that defects can be detected early and remediated prior to GA.

Refresh Cadence

Additional to Release Waves, Microsoft will often deploy minor enhancements to the Power Platform. They include optimisations and bug fixes through to access to new features (both experimental and generally available).

Power Platform administrators have the ability to control the frequency of these updates through an environment setting known as Release Cadence.

Figure 2 – Refresh Cadence Setting in PPAC

The following options are available:

• Frequent – Access the latest updates and newest features multiple times once per month. Usually once per week over weekends.
• Moderate – Access to updates and features once per month.

Release notes are available through the following website:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/released-versions/powerapps

Microsoft practices safe deployment practices, new versions are rolled out to specific clusters and regions in a staggered manner in order to detect problems early and pause rollout if necessary.

The following is an example of the current versions for the Unified Interface (Model-Driven), Power Apps Studio/Mobile (Canvas) and Maker experience.

Figure 3 – Example of Current Versions of Power Platform

In order to verify your currently deployed version within your environment, this information is typically available within the Support menu under settings.

Figure 3 – Current Version (Authoring)

Staying Informed of Updates

The Microsoft 365 Message Center is a crucial tool for administrators to stay informed of upcoming changes, features and any planned maintenance for the Microsoft Power Platform.

Figure 4 – Example of Message Center Screen

Of particular importance on the Message Center screen are the following:

• Service – Which service this will be impacted (e.g. Power Automate, Dataverse, etc)
• Tags – Showing the impact or change type (e.g. New Feature, Admin Impact, User Impact, Major Update etc)
• Status for your Org – Showing the status as it relates to our organisation instance (e.g. Scheduled, Rolling Out, Launched)
• Relevance – High denotes immediate action is required to avoid disruption, Medium indicates new features or an early announcement of a breaking change, and Low refers a change likely requiring monitoring but likely not to impact your organisation.

Detailed information of the change is available when you click on the selected item. The information window will show information such as:

1. Maintenance windows
2. How the change affects you
3. What additional actions need to be taken prior or post change

Figure 5 – Change Information

Summary

Ensuring that you stay informed about changes to the Power Platform is crucial for the smooth operation and continuity of services. By understanding the impact, relevance, and necessary actions associated with these updates, you can proactively manage them and avoid any potential disruptions to your operations. It is important to regularly check Message Centre updates, understand how they affect your organisation, and take the required steps in a timely manner.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.