Power Pages: Migrate standard data model sites to enhanced data model – Part 1

The standard data model was built by using custom tables, and it was optimized for the configuration of each website component that is stored as a record in a dedicated table in Microsoft Dataverse. The standard model requires more time to load the different solutions, tables, and metadata when a new site is provisioned. Updates to website tables in the standard model require manual and time-consuming application of package updates.

The enhanced data model is a combination of system tables, nonconfiguration tables, and virtual tables.

The enhanced data model for Power Pages provides the following benefits:

• Website provisioning is faster.
• Design studio experiences are faster.
• Website configurations can be contained in solutions to provide smoother application lifecycle management (ALM) experiences.
• Updates of Power Pages enhancements and bug fixes are improved.

Read more about the enhanced data model here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-pages/admin/enhanced-data-model

We are going through the trial migration at the moment following the steps in the article below: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-pages/admin/migrate-enhanced-data-model

As we encountered some issues and were able to overcome them and move forward, I would like to share our ongoing journey with the community. I hope it saves some of your time.

The section in the article refers to the original article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-pages/admin/migrate-enhanced-data-model. Open it in a separate tab of your browser.

Prerequisites

Check all the packages, and versions, check carefully as we checked then failed then checked again then upgraded to the correct version…check it carefully.

Step 1. Download and check customization for existing standard site metadata.

Use the command below to run the customization report:

pac powerpages migrate-datamodel --webSiteId [WebSiteId-GUID] --siteCustomizationReportPath [PATH]

To find the results look in the My Documents folder, it doesn’t respect the path you specified in the siteCustomizationReportPath parameter.

I found the report results very limited. We created a report of our own using the tips from the section “Considerations for site customization when migrating sites from standard to enhanced data model“: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-pages/admin/migrate-enhanced-data-model#considerations-for-site-customization-when-migrating-sites-from-standard-to-enhanced-data-model For this, we went through the source code of the website listing all the components with potential after-migration issues. It will help us to test the website after the migration.

There are five types of site customizations on adx metadata tables:

• Custom columns on adx metadata tables
• Relationship between custom tables and adx tables
• Adx table references in liquid code snippet
• Adx table references in fetch xml
• Custom workflow and plugins on adx tables

All customization related fixes will be done after migration to the enhanced data model.

Step 2. Migrate the site data from standard to enhanced data model

Do it before, not after running the next command. Go to PPAC following the path in the screenshot below to unblock the js extension.

I know you think you unblocked it already by doing it here:

But it is not the same!

Trust me, you don’t want to waste your time like we did.

Now just run the command:

pac powerpages migrate-datamodel --webSiteId [WebSiteId-GUID] –-mode [type-of-data]

Currently, we are up to Step 4. I will let you know how we go in the next article.

Two more things.

Thing 1. If it didn’t go as planned…

You can re-run the command but delete the migration tracker first:

You don’t have to delete a newly created website, it will self-update.

Thing 2. We had some local issues with one of the laptops.

We had some weird ArgumentOutOfRange exception. Try a different laptop if you get something similar that doesn’t make sense.

This is it for now. I will keep you updated Hope it helps.

Original Post https://msolenacrm.blog/2024/08/06/power-pages-migrate-standard-data-model-sites-to-enhanced-data-model-part-1/