Power Apps February 2025 Updates

Microsoft has announced the general availability of Code View in Power Apps Studio, marking a significant advancement in their mission to enable seamless collaboration between citizen and professional developers. This update reflects Microsoft's commitment to enhancing user experience and productivity within the Power Platform ecosystem.

Here’s a summary of the new features:

• Code View: Work seamlessly with fellow developers in Power Apps Studio for faster, more efficient app creation.

• Power CAT Tools: Enhance your development across the Power Platform with a comprehensive suite of features.

• Power Fx functions: Easily create Power Fx functions for use in Canvas apps and Power Automate.

• Enterprise-grade Governance: Gain more control over critical environment settings with three powerful new rules for Environment Groups.

• Visualize with Copilot: Instantly transform business data into interactive charts for deeper insights.

Microsoft introduces .NET AI template preview to streamline AI development

Microsoft has unveiled the first preview of the .NET AI Template, marking a significant step toward simplifying AI integration for developers. This new initiative aims to streamline the process of building AI-powered applications within the .NET ecosystem. Stay tuned for more details on how this enhances AI development workflows.

Here’s how:

• Install the template: Run dotnet new install Microsoft.Extensions.AI.Templates in your terminal to make it available in Visual Studio, VS Code, or your working directory.

• In Visual Studio:

  • Go to File > New Project and search for AI Chat or select the AI project type.

  • Choose your project name and location, then select an AI model provider and vector store to begin.

• In VS Code with C# Dev Kit:

  • Install the C# Dev Kit extension.

  • Use the .NET New Project command to create a new project with GitHub Models.

Code View in Power Apps Studio now generally available for faster, collaborative development

Code View is now generally available in Power Apps Studio, making it easier than ever to collaborate and accelerate app development. This update enhances the development experience, giving teams more flexibility and control over their apps.

Here’s what’s new:

• Code View: Easily inspect the code for each control, making app functionality clearer and more accessible.

• Effortless Copy & Paste: Copy any control as YAML + Power Fx Code and paste it into a code editor for quick modifications. Plus, you can now copy and paste entire screens!

• Enhanced Code Format: Dataverse Source Control Integration lets you version-control your apps, while multi-screen snippets help you create reusable templates.

Microsoft introduces open-source AI evaluations for .NET with new tools and DevOps integration

Microsoft has introduced the AI Evaluations Library, a new tool designed to help developers assess the performance of AI models with ease. This release aims to streamline evaluation workflows, making it simpler to measure model accuracy and effectiveness. Whether you're optimizing existing AI solutions or developing new ones, this library provides a structured approach to ensure reliable results.

Here's what you need to know:

• Open-Source Library : The Microsoft.Extensions.AI.Evaluations library is now open source in the dotnet/extensions repo, giving developers greater flexibility to leverage AI effectively.

• GitHub Repository: New sample projects have been added to the library, providing both beginners and experienced developers with valuable insights and practical guidance.

• Azure DevOps Plug-in: Seamlessly integrate AI evaluations into your Azure DevOps pipeline, enabling continuous assessment of your AI models as part of your CI/CD workflows.

• Automated AI Evaluation: The AzDO plug-in streamlines the evaluation process, ensuring your applications meet performance criteria before deployment.

Microsoft releases new productivity features in Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio just got even better with a fresh set of updates aimed at enhancing developer productivity. These improvements make coding more efficient and seamless, reinforcing Visual Studio’s commitment to delivering a top-tier development experience.

Here’s what’s new:

• Customize file encoding – Set a default file encoding for saving files, ensuring consistency with your preferred format.

• Indent word wrap – Gain greater control over wrapped lines in the editor with optional indentation for improved readability.

• Preserve font preferences across themes – Maintain your preferred font face and size, even when switching themes.

• Enhanced horizontal scrollbar – The scrollbar now repositions above the system tray for improved accessibility.

Microsoft increases the connection limits for custom Dynamics 365 Contact Center reports

Microsoft is making it easier for IT professionals to optimize their custom contact center reports in Dynamics 365. With increased connection limits, organizations can enhance reporting performance and scalability, ensuring smoother data analysis and decision-making. This update empowers businesses to gain deeper insights without constraints.

Here’s how you can increase the limit:

1. Download the Dynamics_365_Omnichannel_Realtime_Analytics schematic model from the Power BI portal and open it in Power BI Desktop.

2. Go to Options and Settings > Options.

3. Under DirectQuery, increase the Maximum connections value to above 300, then click OK.

4. Save and publish the schematic data model to the same workspace where you downloaded it.

5. Acknowledge the warning that this change will apply to all reports and dashboards referencing the model, then proceed with publishing.

Visual Studio enhances Git Integration for smarter code quality control

Microsoft is making it easier for developers to maintain high-quality code in Visual Studio with new enhancements to its Git integration. These improvements help catch potential issues earlier in the development process, streamlining workflows and reducing the risk of errors.

Here’s how the new feature works:

• AI-Powered Code Reviews – A new GitHub Copilot integration lets you review local changes before committing, helping you spot performance and security issues early.

• Seamless Integration – Enable it by navigating to:
  - Tools > Preview Features > Pull Request Comments
  - Tools > Options > GitHub > Copilot > Source Control Integration > Enable Git preview features

• Inline AI Suggestions – Once enabled, you'll see a sparkle comment button in the Git Changes window, which you can click to let Copilot analyze your code and provide inline feedback.

Microsoft announces the public preview of Data Exploration agent in Power Apps

Microsoft Power Apps continues to push the boundaries of AI-driven efficiency with its latest innovation. Designed to enhance user experience and streamline workflows, this new capability makes it easier than ever to interact with data in model-driven apps. Stay ahead of the curve with a smarter, more intuitive way to find the information you need.

• What it does: This powerful tool simplifies record searches by letting you use natural language instead of complex filters.

• How it works: Just describe what you're looking for using Copilot, and the agent will interpret your intent to deliver precisely filtered results.

• Availability: The Data Exploration Agent is available now via manual opt-in and is rolling out through the Monthly Channel under the "Natural Language Grid and View Search" admin setting.

Images can now be used in GitHub Copilot chat

Microsoft has introduced a new capability that allows users to attach images directly in conversations, making troubleshooting and collaboration more seamless than ever. This update opens up new possibilities for developers to communicate ideas more effectively within Copilot Chat.

Here’s how to use the feature:

- Enhance your queries by attaching images to better illustrate your ideas and get more relevant responses.

- Easily upload images by pasting from your clipboard or using the paperclip icon to select a file.

-Add context to your prompt—Copilot will analyze the image to provide more accurate assistance.

- Use cases: Perfect for UI development, debugging issues with error screenshots, or sharing design elements.

- Supported formats: PNG, JPG, and GIF, with up to three images per message.

2025 Release Wave 1: Power Platform, Dynamics 365 & Copilot updates

It's that time again...Power Platform, Dynamics & Copilot 2025 Release Wave 1 updates are on their way! Below you'll find a list of the latest changes coming to Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Copilot, and more.

Key dates:

• Early Access: Available now

• Rollout Starting: 1 April 2025

Couple of things before we start, if you want to stay up-to-date with the latest features, check out our YouTube channel, where we share daily 60-second videos on the Microsoft Power Platform. Our content is organised into playlists, so you can easily focus on the areas that interest you the most.

Lastly before we get into the 2025 Wave updates, check out our latest case study video where we improved and streamlined Human Resources NZ's membership management system using the Power Platform & Dynamics.

Dynamics Customer Service

• Agentic capabilities for Case and Knowledge management: This feature enhances the system's intelligence to assist agents with case management and knowledge access, leading to faster resolution times and improved service quality.

• Dynamics 365 Contact Center will improve overall contact center efficiency, ultimately leading to happier customers and lower operational costs. Please note, this is v1 from Microsoft...

• Update knowledge base using Customer Knowledge Management Agent: AI will automatically create knowledge articles from resolved cases and conversations, ensuring your agents and customers always have access to the latest information and reducing knowledge gaps.

• Use Copilot-powered email template recommendations: This feature uses AI powered suggestions for email templates based on the context of the customer interaction, saving agents time searching for the right template and ensuring consistent messaging.

• Use Copilot Studio agents for customer surveys: This feature allows you to easily create and deploy surveys across different channels using Copilot Studio, and provides summarised insights to supervisors, enabling quicker improvements based on customer feedback.

• View customer sentiment indicators on email: You'll be able to display sentiment indicators directly in the inbox and email editor, allowing agents to prioritise and tailor their responses based on customer sentiment, leading to improved customer interactions and escalation management.

• Insert Copilot prompts in email templates: Administrators will be able to add Copilot prompts to email templates, which Copilot then uses to automatically populate the template with relevant content, further speeding up email responses and improving agent productivity.

• Automate case lifecycle tasks with Case Management Agent: This feature automates routine tasks like case creation, updates, summaries, and follow-ups during live chats and emails, freeing up agent time for more complex issues and improving customer satisfaction.

• Create personalized case views in the inbox: Enables agents to create and add personal views to their inbox, helping them prioritize and organize their work more efficiently, leading to increased productivity.

• Inbox view is on by default for service reps: This feature automatically enables the unified inbox view for all service representatives, providing a consolidated location for all their work items and streamlining their workflow from the start.

• Configure timeout rules override in SLA-based automatic actions: Allows agents to temporarily override SLA-based automatic actions like timeouts, giving them more control to manage conversations that require extra time or non-standard handling.

Dynamics Sales

• Upgraded integration with Exchange: By improving the connection, it aims to make sure your sales activities and customer interactions are always in sync, reducing missed follow-ups and improving overall tracking.

• Boost qualified pipeline with sales qualification agent: Imagine having an AI assistant that helps you focus on the most promising leads. The "sales qualification agent" automatically researches leads, recommends which ones are worth pursuing, and even drafts personalized emails, allowing you to spend your time on high-potential deals instead of manual lead qualification.

• Expand qualified pipeline with leads from service interactions: This feature helps you identify leads from customer service interactions, like support requests, so you can proactively reach out to existing customers who might be ready for upsells or cross-sells, expanding your pipeline from your existing customer base.

• Increase response rate by automating follow-up communications: Following up with leads is time-consuming. This feature automates personalized follow-up emails based on lead behavior, even handling out-of-office replies and offering self-scheduling options. This ensures consistent engagement and increases your chances of getting replies and booking meetings without manual effort.

• Increase pipeline quality with intent-to-buy analysis: This feature uses AI to analyze customer replies and automatically classify their intent (interested, not interested, support request). This allows you to prioritize warm leads and automatically route less promising leads to marketing or support, improving your pipeline quality and efficiency.

• Provide your own tone of voice across all email communications: You can now define your own writing style or choose from predefined tones (like formal or casual), and then applies that tone automatically to your emails, helping you build better rapport with prospects and improve engagement.

• Improve qualification rate by grounding agent in external data sources: Make your AI sales qualification agent even smarter and more tailored to your specific business. This allows you to connect the agent to external data sources beyond your CRM, like industry reports or internal documents, so it can provide more informed and accurate lead qualification recommendations based on your unique business needs.

Customer Insights - Journeys

• Outbound is being turned into read-only mode: By June 2025 you will need to transition over to Real-time Journeys. This is very important, get in touch with us if you haven't planned to do so.

• Create journeys by using Copilot to describe them: This feature lets you use natural language to tell Copilot what kind of journey you need, and it will build it for you, saving you time and making journey creation accessible to everyone.

• Export your data to your own storage for custom reporting: You will be able to export journey data for custom reporting and analysis within your existing systems, giving you more control over your data and insights.

• Wait on segment membership to trigger next step in a journey: Pause a journey and wait for customers to qualify for a specific segment before continuing, ensuring they receive the most relevant and timely messages based on their current status.

• Respect quiet times, engage based on location and time zones: This feature lets you set quiet times based on customer time zones and regions, preventing messages from being sent at inconvenient hours and improving customer experience.

• Pause and resume journeys to handle unplanned events: You'll be able to easily pause active journeys in response to unforeseen events like crises or outages, and resume them later without losing progress, protecting your brand reputation and customer relationships.

• Allow individuals to reenter a one-time, dynamic segment journey: This feature lets you re-engage customers who might have gone through a journey before but now meet the criteria again, ensuring they don't miss out on relevant offers or information.

• Target right audience based on signals from earlier campaigns: You will be able to create segments based on customer behavior in previous journeys, ensuring you reach the right audience with the right message and maximize campaign ROI.

• Maximize event capacity with waitlist registrations: This feature automatically manages waitlists for events and sessions, filling in spots when attendees cancel and ensuring you don't lose valuable registrations.

• Set up and execute pre- and post-event communications: Pre-configured out-of-the-box journeys for pre- and post-event communications, making it easy to manage all event-related messaging and ensure attendees are informed and engaged throughout the event lifecycle.

• Collect extra customer info without updating your data model: This feature allows you to add custom fields to forms to collect extra details for specific campaigns or purposes, without needing to create permanent custom attributes in your data model.

• Create event portals with event and registration details using Power Pages: Easily create professional and informative event portals for your website. This feature provides pre-built templates and Power Pages integration to quickly build event portals that showcase event details and streamline registration, enhancing your event promotion and customer experience.

Power Apps

• Select columns downloaded on mobile devices: This feature lets app makers choose exactly which data columns from tables are downloaded to mobile devices for offline use. By selecting fewer columns, apps will download data faster, saving users time when working offline.

• Find records and filter views using natural language: Users can now use everyday language to search, filter, and sort data within model-driven apps. Instead of complex filters, users can simply type what they're looking for, making it quicker and easier to find the data they need.

• Copilot helps you plan out solutions to business problems: Copilot will assist makers in the early stages of app development by helping them plan out solutions to business problems. It can suggest user roles, requirements, data structure, and even recommend which Power Platform tools to use, making the initial planning process much smoother.

• Add AI record summary to model-driven apps: This feature adds an AI-generated summary to records in model-driven apps. This allows users to quickly grasp the key information of a record without having to read through all the details, saving time and improving productivity.

• Improve form fill assistance by adding custom knowledge: Makers can now upload relevant documents to Copilot to improve its form-filling suggestions. By providing custom knowledge, Copilot can give more accurate and consistent suggestions when users are filling out forms in Power Apps.

• Visualize the data in your view easily with Copilot: Users can easily turn tabular data in their views into charts with a simple button click. This allows for quick data visualization and insights directly within the app, without needing separate analytical tools.

• Building modern apps: Power Apps is getting a range of updates to modernise the look and feel of apps by default. This includes modern controls, responsive templates, and offline app capabilities, leading to better user experience and developer productivity.

• Copilot for Power Apps makers and users: Copilot is being integrated to help both app makers and users. Makers can use AI to build apps faster, and users can use natural language to interact with apps and analyse data more effectively.

Power Pages

• Enhanced file upload for Power Pages sites: Uploading files to Power Pages sites will be improved with larger file size limits, drag-and-drop functionality, and virus scanning. This makes it easier for website visitors to upload files and ensures better security for the site.

• Add a section contextually with Copilot: Makers can now use natural language to describe the type of section they want to add to a Power Pages webpage, and Copilot will generate it. This speeds up website creation by using AI to build page sections based on simple descriptions.

• Set up Microsoft Entra External ID with wizard: Configuring security for Power Pages using Microsoft Entra External ID will become much simpler with a new guided wizard. This wizard streamlines the setup process, making it easier to manage user authentication and security for your website.

• Enhance modern list with custom JavaScript and new controls: Modern lists in Power Pages are getting more powerful with the ability to add custom JavaScript for styling and new controls. This allows for more visually appealing and interactive lists on websites, bringing them on par with classic lists in terms of customization.

Power Automate (Cloud Flows)

• Create generative actions in cloud flows: Instead of building complex step-by-step automations, you can now use AI to describe what you want to achieve, and Power Automate will figure out the best actions to take. This makes automation more dynamic and easier to create for complex tasks.

• Create a flow on a file in Teams: You can now easily create automated workflows directly from files within Microsoft Teams. This lets you automate tasks related to specific files right where you are working on them in Teams.

• Generate process maps for multi-flow automations: Power Automate will now visually map out complex automations that involve multiple flows, desktop flows, and work queues. This helps you understand the entire process, troubleshoot issues faster, and improve efficiency.

• Create and edit expressions with Copilot: You can use natural language to tell Copilot what kind of data calculations or manipulations you need in your flows, and it will create or edit the complex formulas (expressions) for you. This simplifies working with data within your automations.

Troubleshooting Copilot in cloud flows designer: Copilot can now help you fix errors in your cloud flows by providing suggestions and even offering to automatically correct them. This makes it easier to debug and resolve issues while building your automations.

• Create automations with natural language: You can describe the desktop automation you want to build using natural language, and Copilot will create it for you. This makes desktop automation accessible to everyone, even without coding skills.

Copilot Studio

• Add suggested prompts to custom copilots: When building a custom copilot, you can now add suggested starting questions or prompts for users. This helps users understand what the copilot can do and encourages them to interact more effectively.

• Use a single connector for both knowledge and actions: Use one connector to both provide your copilot with information and enable it to take actions. This simplifies connecting your copilot to data and functionalities, making it easier to build more capable agents.

• Discover and install Agents from Copilot Studio: Administrators can now easily find pre-built agents created by Microsoft and install them directly within Copilot Studio. This makes it simpler to add new capabilities to your copilots by leveraging ready-made solutions.

• Enrich agents with third-party data using extensions: Connect your copilot to data from other services using pre-built extensions. This allows your copilot to access and use information from various sources to provide richer and more helpful responses.

• Action usage for agents: Detailed analytics on how often and how well the actions in your copilot are being used. This data helps you understand which actions are most effective and identify areas for improvement to optimize your copilot's performance.

• Knowledge source usage for custom agents: You can now track how your copilot uses different knowledge sources you've connected. This helps you understand which information sources are most helpful and accurate, allowing you to refine your copilot's knowledge base for better responses.

• Get enhanced diagnostics to help troubleshoot your agent: Copilot Studio is getting better tools to help you understand and fix issues with your copilot. These improved diagnostics will show you exactly what your copilot is doing and where problems might be happening, making troubleshooting easier.

• Test and debug agent actions in Copilot Studio: You can now thoroughly test and debug the actions within your copilot before making it live. This ensures that your copilot's actions work as expected and helps you catch any problems early in the development process.

Dataverse & Governance

• Standardise security role and system application docs: Documentation for Dataverse security roles and system applications will be improved and standardized. This makes it easier for users, admins, and even non-admins to understand security roles and permissions, improving overall security knowledge.

• Use Dataverse AI functions to enhance data quality: Dataverse will offer built-in AI functions that can automatically summarize, categorize, and extract key information from data.

• View all pipelines and get recommendations in deployments hub: The deployment hub for app makers will be improved to show a complete history of deployments and suggest ways to improve your app management process (ALM).

• Delegate admin responsibility with group admin roles: Administrators can now assign admin roles to groups of users for specific sets of environments. This allows for better control over who has admin access and makes it easier to manage administration responsibilities across teams.

• Use the new and improved Power Platform admin center: The Power Platform admin center is getting a refreshed and more user-friendly design.

• Extend IP firewall to Microsoft Copilot Studio: You can now use IP firewalls to control access to Microsoft Copilot Studio, restricting access to only authorized IP addresses.

• Mask sensitive data fields with column-level security: Administrators can now mask sensitive data fields in Dataverse at the column level. This helps protect sensitive information by preventing it from being fully visible to all users, especially when exporting data in bulk.

• Permit or deny guest access to an environment: Administrators will have a new setting to easily allow or block guest users from accessing specific Power Platform environments. This provides a simple way to control external access and enhance security for your environments.