PL-400: Power Platform Developer

The learning path “Work with Microsoft Dataverse” offers a clear guide to using Microsoft Dataverse in the Power Platform. It starts with the basics, like relational databases and the Common Data Model, and moves on to more advanced topics, such as managing environments, customizing solutions, and creating tables and columns. It also covers setting up relationships between tables and defining business rules. The path teaches how to create calculated and rollup columns and implement strong security measures. Learners will gain the skills needed to build, customize, and secure business applications using Dataverse’s features.

The Introduction to Microsoft Dataverse module helps you understand relational databases, environments, tables, columns, and relationships while learning the differences between Microsoft Dataverse and the Common Data Model and exploring use cases and limitations of business rules and process flows.

In the Manage Environments module, you will create and manage environments and Dataverse data stores, add users, assign roles, manage environment settings, and identify different environments in Dataverse and their configurations.

The Manage Customisations with Solutions module covers learning about solutions and publishers in Power Platform, adding and managing components within solutions, and creating Dataverse tables while understanding the concept of unmanaged solutions.

The Create and Manage Tables in Microsoft Dataverse module teaches you to define table characteristics, understand dual-write vs. virtual tables, implement auditing, create and import tables in Dataverse, and create custom tables while enabling attachments.

In the Create and Manage Columns in Microsoft Dataverse module, you will define and add columns to tables, including auto-numbering and alternate key columns, understand different column types and their usage, and learn how to manage column properties and advanced options.

The Create Relationships Between Tables in Microsoft Dataverse module explains the importance of segmenting data into tables, teaches you to create one-to-many and many-to-many relationships, and explores how to edit or delete relationships between tables.

The Create and Define Calculated and Rollup Columns in Microsoft Dataverse module guides you in building calculations and rollups within Dataverse, creating and managing rollup and calculation columns, and understanding the benefits and usage of calculated and rollup columns.

In the Define and Create Business Rules in Microsoft Dataverse module, you will learn to build consistent business logic using business rules, create and manage business rules within Dataverse, and explore use cases for business rules to ensure data quality.

The Manage Security in Microsoft Dataverse module focuses on setting permissions and configuring security roles for data access, adding users to environments, assigning security roles, and understanding security concepts while creating custom security roles. In addition to managing security in Microsoft Dataverse, understanding system integrations with Microsoft Azure can enhance data security and compliance across cloud services.

This course will equip participants to automate various business tasks and processes, enhancing productivity and efficiency.

This learning path focuses on guiding users through the process of developing model-driven apps using Microsoft Dataverse. It begins with an introduction to model-driven app design, emphasising a component-based approach that requires minimal coding. Users will learn how to configure forms, views, and dashboards, utilise the command bar, and implement business logic with Power Fx or JavaScript. The path aims to equip learners with the skills to build sophisticated, data-centric applications by leveraging Dataverse’s robust data modelling capabilities.

The Get Started with Model-Driven Apps module introduces the concept of model-driven app design, focusing on a component-based approach. You will learn about essential building blocks such as dashboards, forms, views, and charts, and gain insights into designing effective model-driven apps with little or no code.

In the Configure Forms module, you will understand the structure and elements of forms within model-driven apps. You’ll learn to configure multiple forms and integrate specialised form components for enhanced functionality, covering essential techniques for creating user-friendly and efficient forms.

The Configure Views module provides an overview of views and their role in displaying data from Dataverse tables. You’ll differentiate between public (system) views and personal (my) views, learn how to manage them and explore speciality views like Lookup, Associated, Quick Find, and Advanced Find for tailored data presentations.

In the Configure Charts module, you will discover how to create and configure charts to visualise data within model-driven apps. Learn to incorporate charts into forms and dashboards for better data representation, helping you understand the visual aspects of data analytics.

The Configure Dashboards module helps you understand the purpose and structure of dashboards in model-driven apps. You’ll learn to add and configure various components on dashboards for a comprehensive view of business data, gaining skills to create informative and actionable dashboards.

The Command Bar module teaches you how to create or edit modern commands and work with classic commands in model-driven apps. You’ll explore the use of Power Fx for implementing custom logic and commands, focusing on customising the command bar to enhance user interactions and app functionality.

This path covers creating canvas apps using Power Apps, a suite of apps, services, connectors, and a data platform that enables custom app building with minimal or no code. The path includes modules on getting started with Power Apps, understanding low-code as a traditional developer, customising canvas apps, navigating canvas apps, using Power Fx formulas, working with canvas components, and testing canvas apps. Through this learning path, you will gain the skills to build, customize, and deploy effective canvas apps that connect to various data sources and are accessible across different devices and platforms.

Get Started with Power Apps

This module introduces you to Power Apps, a suite of tools for building custom business applications with minimal coding. Learn the basics of app creation, explore the interface, and understand how to connect to various data sources. By the end, you’ll be equipped to start building your first Power Apps application.

Understanding Low Code as a Traditional Developer

Designed for traditional developers, this module explains the principles of low-code development with Power Apps. You will learn about Power Fx, the formula language, and how to create and modify apps using minimal code. This module bridges the gap between traditional coding and low-code development.

Customize a Canvas App

In this module, you’ll learn how to customize your canvas app by adding and configuring controls, changing layouts, and exploring galleries. Discover how to enhance the user experience by integrating various UI elements and controls, making your app both functional and visually appealing.

Navigation in a Canvas App

This module covers the essentials of app navigation, teaching you how to use the Navigate and Back functions to move between screens. Understand how to create intuitive navigation flows that enhance user interaction and streamline the app’s usability.

Power Fx Formulas

Learn to use Power Fx formulas to set values, format outputs, perform calculations, and control the behavior of your app. This module focuses on leveraging formulas to make your app responsive and dynamic, responding to user inputs and data changes seamlessly.

Canvas Components

This module introduces canvas components, reusable building blocks that can be used across multiple apps. Learn to create, configure, and manage components, and understand how component libraries can help standardize and streamline app development in your organization.

Testing Canvas Apps

Explore the importance of testing in app development with this module on Power Apps Test Studio. Learn how to create and run test plans, automate testing processes, and document your app to ensure it meets performance and functionality standards before deployment.

This learning path delves into sophisticated techniques for developing and optimising canvas apps in Power Apps. It covers imperative development techniques, custom updates, and leveraging Dataverse choice columns with formulas. You’ll explore working with relational data, handling data source limits, and enhancing app performance through practical examples and best practices. By the end of this path, you’ll have mastered advanced methods for building efficient, responsive, and highly functional canvas apps that cater to complex business needs.

This module introduces imperative development in Power Apps, differentiating it from declarative approaches. You’ll learn to use variables and understand their types and scopes. By mastering imperative techniques, you’ll create more dynamic and responsive canvas apps.

Learn to use the Patch function to update data sources directly, bypassing forms for custom data updates. This module covers creating new records with the Defaults function and deleting records using Remove and RemoveIf. Gain the ability to handle complex data manipulations within your apps.

This module explains how to work with choice columns in Dataverse, including when to use choice fields versus lookups. You’ll learn to filter data based on choice values and integrate choice fields seamlessly into your canvas app formulas. Enhance your app’s interactivity and data handling capabilities.

Understand how to model and use relational data within your canvas apps. This module covers creating and managing one-to-many and many-to-one relationships in Dataverse. Learn to reduce data model complexity and improve data retrieval efficiency through relational data techniques.

Explore the concept of delegation in Power Apps, which optimizes data source interactions by processing data queries on the server. This module helps you understand delegation limits and how they affect data operations. Learn to choose the best data sources and functions to handle large datasets efficiently.

Focus on optimizing your canvas apps for better performance. This module covers common performance bottlenecks, such as data source interactions and unnecessary refreshes. Learn to use Power Apps’ monitoring tools and best practices to ensure your apps run smoothly and efficiently.

This module introduces the basics of Power Automate, focusing on creating and managing cloud flows. You’ll learn to automate tasks such as saving email attachments and sending reminders, along with essential flow control actions like error handling. This foundational knowledge is crucial for building efficient workflows.

In this module, you will explore the use of expressions within Power Automate to perform complex data operations. Learn to convert data types, perform calculations, manipulate dates, and handle control flow statements. These skills will enable you to enhance your flows’ functionality and precision.

This module focuses on integrating Dataverse triggers and actions into your Power Automate flows. Discover how to configure flow steps using Dataverse connectors to automate business processes. The module covers advanced inputs and techniques to make the most of Dataverse within your flows.

Explore advanced cloud flow features, including managing sensitive data with secure inputs and outputs, and using Azure Key Vault. This module also covers adding cloud flow steps to business process flows and configuring trigger filters and retry policies. These features will help you build more secure and efficient workflows.

This module provides insights into handling data source limits and delegation constraints in canvas apps. Learn how different functions and operators impact these limits and discover techniques to optimize your app’s performance within these constraints. Understanding these limits is key to building scalable apps.

Focus on optimizing your canvas app’s performance in this module. It includes strategies for testing, improving load times, and using tools like Monitor and Application Insights for diagnostics. These performance optimization techniques will ensure your apps run smoothly and efficiently.

Learning Path 6 focuses on empowering developers to effectively utilise the Microsoft Power Platform by leveraging its robust set of developer resources and tools. This path begins with an introduction to the foundational elements of the Power Platform, including key components like Dataverse and the Common Data Model. It then progresses to practical usage of developer tools for extending the platform, such as the Configuration Migration Tool and Plugin Registration Tool.

The path also explores the technical architecture and various extensibility options, guiding developers on when to use configuration versus custom code. Finally, it delves into working with Dataverse APIs, providing hands-on examples of interacting with data using tools like Postman and understanding authorisation mechanisms. By the end of this learning path, developers will have a comprehensive understanding of how to extend and customise the Power Platform to meet specific business requirements.

This module aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the developer experience within the Microsoft Power Platform ecosystem. It introduces the various resources and tools available to developers, focusing on providing foundational knowledge for those new to the platform. Key components of the Power Platform, including Dataverse and the Common Data Model, are highlighted to establish a baseline understanding of the development environment.

This module focuses on the practical aspects of extending the Power Platform using various developer tools. It covers essential tools such as the Configuration Migration Tool, Package Deployer, and the Plugin Registration Tool. Developers will learn how to utilise these tools to perform key development activities, enhancing their ability to manage and deploy custom solutions within the Power Platform environment.

This module delves into the technical architecture and extensibility options of the Microsoft Power Platform. It provides guidance on when to use configuration versus custom code, offering insights into making informed decisions based on different business scenarios. By understanding the architectural components and extensibility points, developers can effectively customise and extend the platform to meet specific business needs.

In this module, developers will explore how to interact with Dataverse using various APIs. It covers the basics of working with the Dataverse Web API, including authorisation with OAuth and querying data using OData. Practical examples using tools like Postman are provided to illustrate how these APIs can be leveraged to perform common operations, enhancing the developer’s ability to integrate and manipulate data within Dataverse.

This path covers performing common actions with client scripts and best practices for using these scripts effectively. You’ll learn to implement client-side logic using JavaScript and TypeScript, enhancing the functionality and interactivity of your applications. The modules delve into manipulating form controls, customizing the command bar, and utilizing the web API for CRUD operations. By the end of this learning path, you will have a solid foundation in client scripting, allowing you to create more dynamic and responsive user experiences in your model-driven apps.

This module focuses on performing common actions using client scripts in model-driven apps. It provides practical guidance on writing client scripts to automate business processes and manipulate form controls. By the end of this module, developers will be able to effectively implement and use client-side logic to enhance app functionality and user experience.

In this module, developers learn best practices for using client scripts in model-driven apps. It covers advanced scripting techniques, including the use of JavaScript and TypeScript API methods. Developers will gain insights into optimizing scripts for performance and maintainability, ensuring robust and efficient client-side solutions.

Learning Path 8, titled “Create code components with the Power Apps Component Framework,” is designed to equip developers with the skills to build custom, reusable components for Power Apps. This path introduces the Power Apps Component Framework (PCF), emphasizing its advantages in creating rich, interactive user interface controls that go beyond the capabilities of standard out-of-the-box components.

Developers will learn to implement components using HTML, CSS, and TypeScript, understand the framework’s lifecycle methods, and leverage the Power Platform CLI for development and deployment. By the end of this path, participants will be able to enhance their Power Apps with custom code components, ensuring a more dynamic and tailored user experience.

This module introduces the Power Apps Component Framework (PCF) and its architecture, providing a foundation for creating custom, reusable components. You’ll learn about the tools and setup required to begin developing with PCF, enabling you to build components that enhance the functionality and user interface of Power Apps beyond standard out-of-the-box options.

This learning path is designed to equip developers with the knowledge and skills needed to enhance and customise Microsoft Dataverse to meet specific business requirements. This path begins with an introduction to Dataverse for developers, covering essential concepts and CRUD operations using SDKs.

It then progresses to creating and deploying plug-ins, providing hands-on experience in automating and enhancing business processes by responding to Dataverse events. By mastering these modules, developers will be able to leverage Dataverse’s full potential, creating robust, custom solutions within the Power Platform.

In this module, you will explore the fundamental concepts and capabilities of Microsoft Dataverse from a developer’s perspective. You will learn how to execute various functions against the Microsoft Power Platform using SDKs and perform essential operations such as create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) within Dataverse. This module sets the stage for understanding how Dataverse can be extended and customised to meet specific business needs.

This module delves into the creation and deployment of plug-ins within Microsoft Dataverse. You will gain hands-on experience in building plug-ins to automate and enhance business processes by responding to events within the Dataverse environment. The module covers best practices for writing, debugging, and managing plug-ins to ensure they perform efficiently and reliably. By the end of this module, you will be proficient in extending Dataverse capabilities through custom plug-ins.

Learning Path 10, “Extending Microsoft Dataverse,” provides a comprehensive guide to integrating Dataverse with Azure services. It covers key integration methods, including using Azure Active Directory for authentication, Azure Service Bus for messaging, and Azure Event Hub for event streaming. Additionally, it offers practical labs on creating Azure Functions for automation and configuring Dataverse to publish events externally. This path equips developers with the skills to enhance Dataverse’s capabilities, enabling robust and scalable custom solutions through advanced integration techniques.

This module provides an introduction to integrating Microsoft Dataverse with Azure services. You will learn how to publish Dataverse events to Azure Service Bus and create a Service Bus Event Listener to consume these events. The focus is on establishing a seamless connection between Dataverse and Azure, enabling efficient event-driven architectures.

In this module, you will explore various features of Dataverse that facilitate integration with external systems. Key topics include change tracking to monitor data changes, the use of alternate keys for data consistency, and the upsert method to handle data insertion and updates. These techniques are essential for maintaining accurate and synchronized data across systems.

Learning Path 11, “Custom Connectors,” is designed to empower developers with the skills to create, manage, and optimise custom connectors within Microsoft Power Platform. Starting with the basics of custom connector creation, it progresses to advanced integration techniques using Azure API Management and standardised OpenAPI definitions. The path also covers the application of policy templates to modify connector behaviour dynamically. By mastering these modules, developers will be able to extend the capabilities of Power Apps and Power Automate, integrating a wide range of external services and APIs seamlessly.

This module introduces you to the role and importance of custom connectors in Power Automate. You will learn how to build a custom connector from scratch, understanding its lifecycle and how it acts as a wrapper around a REST API. By the end of this module, you’ll have a solid foundation for creating and utilising custom connectors to integrate external services into your Power Apps and Power Automate workflows.

This module focuses on using Azure API Management (APIM) to enhance and manage custom connectors. You will learn how to publish and control access to APIs, leveraging APIM to create and manage custom connectors efficiently. The module covers steps to integrate APIM with Power Platform, providing a robust framework for API management and governance.

In this module, you’ll explore the use of OpenAPI definitions to create custom connectors. You will learn how to import OpenAPI (Swagger) files to define API endpoints, actions, and triggers in a structured format. This module helps streamline the process of connector creation by utilising standardised API definitions, ensuring consistency and ease of use.

This module delves into policy templates, which allow you to modify the behaviour of custom connectors at runtime. You’ll learn how to apply policies for data conversion, request routing, setting parameters, and more. By using policy templates, you can enhance the flexibility and functionality of your custom connectors, adapting them to various runtime scenarios.

This learning path provides an in-depth guide on implementing ALM within Microsoft Power Platform. It covers essential concepts such as creating and managing solutions, understanding solution dependencies, and using environment variables. It also delves into the differences between unmanaged and managed solutions, the importance of solution layers, and the process of importing and exporting solutions.

Additionally, it highlights the use of tools like Solution Checker for maintaining solution integrity and the benefits of automating ALM processes using DevOps tools like Azure DevOps and GitHub. This comprehensive overview aims to equip developers with the knowledge and best practices needed to manage the entire lifecycle of Power Platform applications efficiently and effectively.

This module provides an in-depth understanding of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) within the Power Platform. You will learn to create and manage solutions, add and remove components like apps, flows, and tables, and understand solution dependencies. The module also covers environment variables, solution checkers, and the processes of importing and exporting solutions, culminating with automation strategies for solution management.

Learning Path 13 focuses on the process of creating a technical design for solutions within the Microsoft Power Platform. It covers key aspects such as designing the technical architecture, authentication, and authorisation strategies and determining when to use out-of-the-box functionalities versus custom solutions.

The path also delves into designing solution components, including Dataverse data models, Power Apps reusable components, custom connectors, and automations using Power Automate and Azure integrations. This comprehensive path aims to equip developers with the skills to design robust, scalable, and secure solutions tailored to specific business requirements, ensuring effective implementation and management throughout the application lifecycle.

Module 1: Technical Architecture provides a comprehensive overview of designing the technical architecture for solutions within the Microsoft Power Platform. This module covers the foundational principles of architecture design, including system integration, data storage strategies, and ensuring high availability and disaster recovery.

You will learn to identify critical components and their interactions, plan for scalability, and create a resilient infrastructure that supports business requirements. The module emphasises best practices and methodologies to ensure that your solutions are robust, efficient, and capable of handling future growth and changes. By the end of this module, you will have the knowledge to design a solid technical framework that underpins successful Power Platform implementations.