Power Platform guides

Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Pages, Copilot Studio, and the ALM and governance that keep a maker community healthy on a Dynamics 365 tenant.

59 guides · Last updated 2026-09-03

The Power Platform is the low-code, AI-first extensibility layer under and around Dynamics 365. The CRM apps are model-driven Power Apps; every serious implementation uses Power Automate for automation, Power BI for analytics, and increasingly Copilot Studio for agents and Power Pages for external portals. The line between a Dynamics customisation and a custom Power App is a licensing line, not a technical one.

The guides cover each product — canvas and model-driven apps, PCF controls, Power Fx, flow design and error handling, RPA, Power BI deployment and security, Power Pages security and Liquid — plus the governance layer that decides whether the platform becomes an asset or an audit finding: environments, DLP policies, Managed Environments, solutions and pipelines, the Center of Excellence kit, and ALM with Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions.

Start with the platform overview and environments, then solutions and ALM before the first production app. Pricing for Power Apps and Power Automate is in the pricing section.

Start here

  1. 1What is the Power Platform?Microsoft's low-code platform — Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Pages, Copilot Studio, and Dataverse.
  2. 2Power Platform environmentsEnvironments in the Power Platform — types, capacity, regions, and how they relate to Dynamics 365 and Dataverse.
  3. 3Canvas apps vs model-driven appsWhen to build a canvas Power App versus a model-driven app — pixel-perfect UI, data-driven structure, and the trade-offs each one forces.
  4. 4Power Automate flow design patternsHow to design reliable, maintainable Power Automate flows — triggers, retries, error handling, child flows, and what not to do.
  5. 5Power Automate error handling patternsHow to handle errors robustly in Power Automate flows — try/catch scopes, configure run-after, retry policies, dead-letter handling.
  6. 6Power BI for Dynamics 365How Power BI integrates with Dynamics 365 — pre-built apps, Dataverse and F&O connectors, Microsoft Fabric, and where the data actually lives.
  7. 7Copilot Studio for Dynamics 365Building AI agents on top of Dynamics 365 with Copilot Studio — topics, knowledge sources, generative answers, and Dataverse integration.
  8. 8Data loss prevention (DLP) policies in Power PlatformHow DLP policies in Power Platform restrict connector combinations across business and non-business data — policy design, environment scope.
  9. 9Power Platform ALM with managed solutionsApplication lifecycle management on the Power Platform — solutions, managed vs unmanaged, environments, pipelines, and source control.
  10. 10Managed environments in Power PlatformWhat Managed Environments add to a Power Platform environment — admin features, sharing limits, weekly digest, solution checker enforcement, and pipelines.

All Power Platform guides

Power Apps(11)

Power Automate(8)

ALM & governance(12)

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