Spring ’18 summary of what’s new in PowerApps

Important

This content is archived and is not being updated. For the latest documentation, see Microsoft Dynamics 365 product documentation. For the latest release plans, see Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans.

These release notes describe functionality that may not have been released yet. Delivery timelines and projected functionality may change or may not ship (see Microsoft policy).

For a list of the regions where Dynamics 365 business applications are available, see the International availability guide.

April ’18 - General Availability

• Model-driven apps - You can build a new type of application with PowerApps: model‑driven apps. Create and customize model‑driven apps directly from PowerApps.com by using the app designer. Bring together entities, forms, views, dashboards, charts, and business processes to automatically generate powerful line-of-business applications. It's easy to get started building model‑driven apps. Switch to model‑driven mode, learn the basics, and then explore one of our great sample apps.

  • Entity forms for model‑driven apps - Create and customize sophisticated forms for Common Data Service for Apps entities directly from model‑driven mode on PowerApps.com. Create forms with visual drag-and-drop designers by using a host of custom controls that are available from a rich control library.
  • Entity views for model‑driven apps - Create and customize views for Common Data Service for Apps entities directly from model‑driven mode on PowerApps.com. Use point-and-click tools to create filters, set the sort order, and choose which columns to display.
  • Business process flows for model‑driven apps - Associate one or more business process flows with your model‑driven app to focus your users' experience through a specific set of guided steps.
  • Dashboards for model‑driven apps - Build and use custom interactive dashboards with rich chart controls that use data from Common Data Service for Apps entities. Embed Power BI dashboards in model‑driven application dashboards for deeper cross-system data analysis directly from the application.
  • Metadata-driven responsive user experiences - Model-driven application user experiences are automatically generated upon entity creation. A navigation model, basic forms, and a subset of views are available for customization. User experiences are responsive and metadata-driven. Applications provide consistent functionality across all surfaces, including web and mobile and support for right-to-left (RTL) languages.
  • Accessible model‑driven apps out of the box - Model-driven apps built using the Unified Interface infrastructure to meet Microsoft accessibility standards. The applications enable users, including keyboard-only users and touch-only users, to perform key tasks. The apps work well with screen readers and won’t block other accessibility tools, such as one-click devices.
  • Mobile player for model‑driven apps - Run model‑driven apps on mobile devices. For tablets and phones, applications are automatically optimized for the device.

• Canvas apps - The term “canvas apps” refers to apps built through the WYSIWYG screen design that provides complete control over the interface. With a canvas app, you start with a blank canvas to create a very tailored user interface. Then you connect that user interface to your choice of 200 data sources. You can build canvas apps for web, mobile, and tablet applications. With a model-driven app, you start with your data model. Build from your core business data and processes in the Common Data Service for Apps to model forms, views, and other components. Model-driven apps automatically generate a great user interface that’s responsive across devices.

  • Controllable delegation limits for canvas apps - Control delegation limits for non-delegable data sources that have up to a maximum of 2,000 records. This allows client-side operations to work on larger datasets.
  • SQL views for canvas apps - To avoid performance issues, use SQL views to combine data in SQL Server before bringing it into PowerApps.
  • Simplified access to entities through foreign key relationships - Intuitive access to entities included in a relationship (foreign key) in entities that are stored in Common Data Service for Apps makes it significantly easier to use related entities in canvas apps.
  • Tree-view updates in PowerApps Studio - To help improve the productivity of canvas-app makers, the Tree view in PowerApps Studio is now easier to use by default, and you can perform more common actions from the context menu.

• Apps connected to SharePoint can include attachments - Apps connected to SharePoint Online can now be used to view and upload attachments, including images and documents.

• Improved support ticketing for admins - Request help from a Microsoft support representative from the new Business platform admin center.

• GDPR compliance - To support the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), administrators can support data subject rights requests for PowerApps users.

• Automate governance with PowerShell - The administrative capabilities of the Admin Center are now available programmatically to admins through the release of the PowerApps PowerShell cmdlets.