Data Integration – Carina M. Claesson

Canvas apps, Data Integration, Dataflows, Dataverse, Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dataverse, Model-Driven Apps, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Platform, Power Platform Dataflows, Power Virtual Agents, PowerApps, Release Waves

2021 Release Wave 1 – First impressions

27 Jan, 202127 Jan, 2021 carinamclaesson

The Release Wave 1 Release Plans are out! You find them here: Microsoft Power Platform 2021 release wave 1 plan and Dynamics 365 2021 release wave 1 plan. Don’t forget that some new features are made available as early access and there is an early opt-in option. Then features will roll out from April to September. Also remember to keep an eye on the change log chapters in the Release Plans. Features presented might me moved to a later wave or dates might change, new features might be added. As always, new features are either available by default or you will need to turn it on. I have created a new page here with general information about Release Waves if you want to read more about how it all works.

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Custom Connectors, Data Integration, Dataflows, Export to Data Lake, Power Platform, Power Platform Dataflows, Release Waves

2020 Release Wave 2 – Let’s look at CDM and data integration highlights!

10 Jul, 202010 Jul, 2020 carinamclaesson

In my previous article I shared some general information about Release Waves. How it all works, when they come, how can we prepare etc. I also highlighted some Power Apps features that come with 2020 Release Wave 2. The purpose of this article is to highlight a chapter of the Power Platform Release Plan that contains some Power Platform built-in features for data integration – the chapter with the heading Common Data Model and data integration.

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Data Integration, Dataflows, Power Apps, Power Platform, PowerApps

Combining information from multiple data sources with Power Platform Dataflows

19 Mar, 2020 carinamclaesson

Power Platform Dataflows can be used to load data either into the Common Data Service or into an Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2 resource, both for utilizing the data in your Dynamics 365 apps or your custom Power Apps and for analytical scenarios. I have written about Dataflows earlier, even before the feature was called Dataflows. Last year Data Integration in Maker Portal was rebranded into Dataflows as part of the 2019 Release Wave 2. In this blog post we will look at how to combine information from different sources and write to the same entity in the Common Data Service.

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Canvas apps, CDS, Community, Custom Data Provider, Data Integration, Dataflows, Embedded Canvas Apps, Model-Driven Apps, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Platform, PowerApps, Scottish Summit, Virtual Entities

Scottish Summit 2020 – Deep Space in Power Platform

12 Mar, 202013 Mar, 2020 carinamclaesson

It has now been almost two weeks since the sound of bagpipes and the sight of kilts. I can still feel the excitement and passion which filled the air at the University of Strathclyde on that Saturday, when we were all united because of the passion for what we do. As usual it gave me so much inspiration and positive energy just to meet with like-minded enthusiasts, all with different experience, viewpoints and great ideas.

In my previous blog post I shared my story – my day – including pieces of what I learned from attending other sessions. In this blog post I will let you in on the session that I held.

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Custom Data Provider, Data Integration, Model-Driven Apps, Power Platform, PowerApps, Virtual Entities

Virtual Entities – How to put the pieces together

27 Feb, 2020 carinamclaesson

This is the last blog post in a series of four about Virtual Entities. We have reached the moment where we will put all the pieces together in order to get a working example of Virtual Entities. In my previous blog posts I have given an introduction to Virtual Entities and showed how to create and register a Custom Data Provider which can be used to display SpaceX Rocket Launches in a Model-Driven App. Take a look at part 1 here. We will now create a Virtual Entity which uses the Custom Data Provider and see the result in an app.

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Custom Data Provider, Data Integration, Model-Driven Apps, Power Apps, Power Platform, PowerApps, Virtual Entities

Virtual Entities – Registering a Custom Data Provider

12 Feb, 202012 Feb, 2020 carinamclaesson

This is the third blog post in a series of four about Virtual Entities. In my previous blog post I went through an example of how to develop a Custom Data Provider. In this one we will look at the steps needed in order to register the Custom Data Provider. In the last blog post I will put the pieces together, set up a Virtual Entity and use the Custom Data Provider that was created in the previous blog post.

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Custom Data Provider, Data Integration, Power Platform, Virtual Entities

Virtual Entities – How to create a Custom Data Provider

30 Jan, 202030 Jan, 2020 carinamclaesson

This is the second blog post in a series of four blog posts about Virtual Entites. In this one I will let you in on how to create a Custom Data Provider. As mentioned in my previous blog post, Virtual Entities provide a possibility to display and work with data (display in views, make advanced finds, show the records etc.) without having the data stored in the Common Data Service.

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CDS, Data Integration, Model-Driven Apps, Power Platform, Virtual Entities

Virtual Entities – A forgotten feature which is still alive

19 Jan, 202020 Jan, 2020 carinamclaesson

Virtual Entities have been on my radar since it was released back in July 2017. I have not used it in any customer project yet though and you do not hear so much about it nowadays (as indicated in the title of this blog post). However, last year in October there was a session at eXtreme 365 where Matt Barbour said “Virtual Entities are not dead”. My friend Jonas was there to witness it live. Great to hear that Microsoft are doing investments within this area, i.e. it is not a completely forgotten chapter in the product portfolio.

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Canvas apps, Custom Connectors, Data Integration, Embedded Canvas Apps, Microsoft Flow, Model-Driven Apps, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Platform, PowerApps

Using embedded Canvas Apps to display external data in Model-Driven Apps

21 Dec, 2019 carinamclaesson

This is the second blog post in a series of two about embedded Canvas Apps. My previous blog post was all about the concept of embedded Canvas Apps. If you want to know the difference between Canvas Apps and Model-Driven Apps (both together being the building blocks of Power Apps) and find out when you can combine those and utilize an embedded Canvas App on a form in a Model-Driven App, go back to my previous blog post and you will find out more about that. In this blog post we will look at a specific use case and how to set that up.

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CDS, Data Integration, Flow, Microsoft Flow, Model-Driven Apps, Power Platform, PowerApps

Creating CDS records from an open API – Nasa’s Astronomy Picture of the Day – using Microsoft Flow

30 Oct, 201930 Oct, 2019 carinamclaesson

For about a week ago I had some fun exploring one of Nasa’s Open APIs, Astronomy Picture of the Day. I made a Canvas App which displayed the picture of today (with a Microsoft Flow in the background). As a separate thing I also created a Microsoft Flow which I scheduled to run each day, it gets me the picture of today and saves it as a record in the Common Data Service. Before I set up the flow I created an entity to hold this information. This blog post will let you in on how I set up the flow which creates CDS records and how to display the records in a Model-Driven App.

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