In this lab, you will go through the following tasks:
- Creating a new browser profile
- Logging into the account you are going to use during the workshop
- Creating developer environments
- Installing the Creator Kit
- Creating a GitHub account
- Creating a fork of the EPPC23-ALM repository
- Creating a codespace
- Installing the Power Platform Tools extension
- Connecting to the Power Platform environment
It's always good to have a separate browser profile for your work and for workshops like this. This way you can keep all of your credentials separate and not have to worry about logging out of your personal / work accounts.
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Open Microsoft Edge
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Click on the profile icon on the top left corner
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Hover over "Other Microsoft Edge Browsers" / "Other profiles" and then select Add Browser / Add profile
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Click Add
This will then open up a new browser window on your taskbar.
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Pin that browser window to your taskbar
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In the new browser window, select Start without your data
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Then select Confirm and start browsing.
It may prompt you to configure your new browser theme. If this happens, just select Next and then Finish.
With the credentials that were provided to you, let's log into the account you are going to use during the workshop.
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Go to make.powerapps.com
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On the sign-in screen, enter the email address that was provided to you and then click Next
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Then enter the password and click Sign in
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If you're prompted to stay signed in, click Yes
You should now be logged in and on the Power Apps Home Page.
Developer environments are very helpful when you want to try out features, they are meant to be short living environments.
For this workshop, we are going to create three different developer environments:
Dev
: The environment where we are going to import our solution later on.Test
: The environment where we are going to deploy our solution to in lab four.Prod
: The environment where we are going to deploy our solution to in lab four.
To create developer environments, you can create them in two ways:
- Via the Power Platform Admin Center
- Via the Power Platform CLI
In this workshop, we will create the environments through the Power Platform Admin Center.
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Go to the Power Platform Admin Center
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Exit the Welcome / Tour pop up. You can do this by clicking on the X in the top right corner of the pop up screen
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Click on Environments in the left navigation
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Click on New in the top navigation
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When the right-hand side dialog pops up - enter the following information:
Field Value Name Dev Region Europe - Default Type Developer Purpose Developer environment for EPPC23 -
Click Next
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The next section is asking you to add Dataverse. Finally Click on Save
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Now do the same for the Test and Prod environments with the following information:
Test Environment:
Field Value Name Test Region Europe - Default Type Developer Purpose Developer environment for EPPC23 Prod Environment:
Field Value Name Prod Region Europe - Default Type Developer Purpose Developer environment for EPPC23 -
Once you have created all three environments, you should see them in the list of environments. Click the Refresh button on the top navigation if you don't see them yet.
The solution that we will be working with in this workshop relies on the Creator Kit as a dependency. The Creator Kit is a set of components based on Fluent UI which you can use in Canvas Apps.
The Creator Kit is not available out of the box, so we will need to install it in the Dev
environment.
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With the Power Platform Admin Center still open, click on the Dev environment to open it
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Select Resources from the top navigation bar and then select Dynamics 365 apps
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Click on the Install app button on the top navigation bar
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On the right-hand side popup screen, select the Creator Kit and then click Next
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Select the I agree to the terms of service checkbox and then click Install
This process may take a couple of minutes, you can refresh the page by selecting the Refresh button in the command bar at the top.
Once the installation is complete, you should see the Creator Kit in the list of apps with the Installed Status.
For this workshop, we are going to be using GitHub. If you already have a GitHub account, you can skip this task.
- Go to the GitHub website
- Click on Sign up on the top right corner
- Enter your email address (Use your personal email address) and then click Continue
- Create a password and then click Continue
- Enter a username and then click Continue
- Select whether you want to receive product updates or not and then click Continue
- Solve the puzzle to verify your account and then click Create account
- Enter the code that was sent to your email address and then when you've navigated to the welcome screen, click Skip personalization
You now have a GitHub account. Welcome to the community!
Now that you have a GitHub account, we are going to create a fork of the repository for this workshop. A fork is a copy of an existing repository. Forking a repository allows you to freely experiment with changes without affecting the original project.
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Go to the EPPC23-ALM GitHub repository
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Click on the Fork button on the top right corner
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Once the "Create a new fork" page opens, review the information and then click Create Fork
Once your have created the fork, you will be redirected to your forked repository. You can see that you are in your forked repository by looking at the top left corner of the page. It should say your-username/EPPC23-ALM forked from microsoft/EPPC23-ALM.
A codespace is a cloud-hosted development environment you can access from anywhere. It has everything you need, including a text editor, terminal, and debugger. Codespaces are powered by Visual Studio Code and run in a containerized environment. For this workshop, we are going to use codespaces to do our development.
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Make sure that you are in your forked repository (your-username/EPPC23-ALM) and then find and click on the <> Code button
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On the Code pop up, select the Codespaces tab
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Click Create codespace on main
A codespace will now be created for you in a new tab. This will take a few seconds. But once it's done, you will have a fully functional Visual Studio Code environment in your browser. You can now start developing!
The Power Platform Tools extension is a Visual Studio Code extension that allows you to interact with the Power Platform from within Visual Studio Code. It is a very important component of the ALM story for the Power Platform and for this workshop.
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In your codespace, click on the Extensions icon in the left navigation
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Search for Power Platform Tools and then click Install on the Power Platform Tools extension
After installing the Power Platform Tools extension, you will be prompted to "Select File Icon Theme". Select any of the 2 options.
With the Power Platform Tools extension installed, you can now interact with the Power Platform from within Visual Studio Code. But before we can do that, we need to connect to a Power Platform environment.
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In your codespace, click on the Power Platform icon in the left navigation
You'll more than likely see that there is "No auth profiles found on this computer". Let's create one.
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If you don't see it open already, let's open the Terminal. Click on the Burger menu icon in the top left corner and then hover over Terminal and then click New Terminal
A terminal window has now been opened for you. This is where you will write all of the following commands in this lab and in the upcoming labs as well.
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Type the following command in the terminal and then press Enter:
pac auth create --deviceCode
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You will be prompted to use a web browser to authenticate. Copy (ctrl + c) the
code
that is provided in the terminal and then Ctrl + click on thelink
that is provided in the terminal.Once you click on that link, it will open a new browser tab where you will have to paste that code into the browser and then click Next
Note: If you are using a Mac, you can Ctrl + click on the
link
that is provided in the terminal and then enter thecode
provided. -
Pick the account that was provided to you. If you can't see it on screen then log in.
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Then type in your password and click Sign in
You will then see a page asking if you're trying to sign in to Power Platform CLI - pac.
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Click Continue
You'll then see a prompt confirming that you have successfully signed in to Power Platform CLI - pac. Close the browser tab and return to your codespace.
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Refresh the Auth Profiles section by clicking on the Refresh button next to "Auth Profiles"
You should now see at least one auth profile. If you have more than one, you can select the one you want to use by clicking on the Select Auth Profile button next to the auth profile.
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With the correct Auth Profile, in the terminal type the following command and then press Enter:
pac org list
This gets a list of all the environments that you have access to. You should see the Dev environment listed as one of them. This is the one we want to eventually connect to.
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Take note of the Environment ID of the Dev Environment and copy it.
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Then in the terminal, type the following command and then press Enter. Make sure to replace
00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
with the environment id that you copied abovepac org select --environment 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
You should then see confirmation that you have successfully selected the Dev org for the current auth profile.
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To have further confirmation that you have successfully connected to the Dev environment, in the terminal type the following command and then press Enter:
pac org who
This command will return information about the environment that you are connected to. You should see the Dev environment listed as well as other unique information about the environment including the User email you're connected as.
This is the end of lab 01, select the link below to move to the next lab.