Exploring New Features in Microsoft Power Platform 2024 Release Wave 2

Microsoft Power Platform empowers users and organisations to analyse, act on, and automate data, driving digital transformation. The platform currently includes five products: Power BI, Power Apps, Power Pages, Power Automate, and Microsoft Copilot Studio, alongside the AI Builder add-in. The 2024 Release Wave 2 introduces hundreds of new features across these applications, enhancing Power BI, Power Apps, Power Pages, Power Automate, Microsoft Copilot Studio, AI Builder, Microsoft Dataverse, and governance and administration capabilities. This release plan unveils the latest updates, preparing customers for upcoming features. In this article, we highlight some of the key features we're excited about.

Key Features and Enhancements:

Work together in real time to create canvas apps

The new co-authoring feature in Power Apps Studio allows multiple makers to create and edit canvas apps simultaneously. This real-time collaboration accelerates app development, enhances debugging, facilitates code reviews, and improves training. Previously, only one maker could edit at a time, but now makers can see each other's changes and presence in real-time, similar to the experience in Microsoft PowerPoint and Word. This feature empowers fusion teams to speed up their development process and enhance their collaboration.

Act on your data efficiently with new grid features

New grid features in model-driven apps enhance data management by allowing users to group and aggregate data, reorder columns, and adjust column widths easily. With the Power Apps grid control, users can group data by a single column, with groups initially collapsed but expandable as needed. Users can also aggregate numeric columns to display sums, minimums, maximums, or averages. These features are enabled by default for read-only grid components and the pipeline view, but must be manually activated for other instances via the Enable grouping and Enable aggregation settings. Grouping and aggregation options are accessible through the column headers for supported column types.

Experience enhanced file upload for Power Pages sites

Microsoft addressed long-standing customer feedback by improving the site experience for visitors through expanded file upload options. Now users can easily drag and drop files or upload them directly from their camera.

Feature Details

File upload enhancements in this feature include:

• Upload larger files with an increased file size limit for SharePoint storage.

• Drag and drop files.

• Scan files for malware.

• Configure file upload for SharePoint storage with a streamlined experience in design studio.

Use generative AI to achieve a process in AI flows

Instead of creating complex rules-based processes manually, you collaborate with AI to develop an automation plan. When executed, the large language model (LLM) dynamically selects the best actions using available resources to achieve the desired outcome.

AI flows leverage generative AI to analyse unstructured content and determine the necessary steps and sequence to achieve a process outcome, based on natural language instructions and parameters you provide.

Manage your source code for canvas apps

Developers can now access the underlying code of canvas apps to understand their functionality and manage source control, supporting robust ALM practices for enterprise scalability. You can export a canvas app as a .msapp binary file and use the Power Platform CLI to convert it into source code files. The source code is now available in a human-readable YAML format, with each screen having a separate file. This code can be viewed directly in Power Apps Studio or through external code editors.

This new capability helps you to:

• Store the files in a code repository.

• Automate generation of a canvas app.

• Improve the generative canvas app models.

• Refactor canvas apps without using the designer.

• Native git integration for Power Platform.

The 2024 Release Wave 2 for Microsoft Power Platform brings an array of innovative features designed to enhance collaboration, streamline data management, and leverage the power of AI. From real-time co-authoring in Power Apps Studio to improved grid features in model-driven apps, enhanced file uploads for Power Pages sites, generative AI capabilities in AI flows, and robust source code management for canvas apps, these updates empower users to drive digital transformation more efficiently and effectively.

As organisations continue to adopt and integrate these new capabilities, the potential for innovation and productivity within the Power Platform ecosystem will only continue to grow. Get ready to harness the full potential of these exciting new features.

For a detailed look at all the features planned for the 2024 Release Wave 2 for Microsoft Power Platform visit the Microsoft Release Planner.

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