Power Platform Build Tools for Azure DevOps

What is Azure DevOps?

Azure DevOps is a powerful platform that streamlines the software development lifecycle by integrating key tools for planning, development, testing, and deployment. Here are some of its key features and benefits:

1. Collaboration: Azure DevOps brings together developers, project managers, and contributors to work collaboratively on software development projects. It fosters a collaborative culture that allows teams to create and improve products more efficiently than traditional development approaches.
2. Agile Tools: Azure DevOps provides Azure Boards, a suite of Agile tools for planning and tracking work. Teams can use Kanban and Scrum methods to manage code defects, issues, and work items effectively.
3. Source Control: Azure Repos offers Git repositories or Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) for source control of your code. It allows developers to manage their codebase efficiently and collaborate on changes.
4. Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD): Azure Pipelines provides build and release services, enabling continuous integration and delivery of applications. Teams can automate build processes, test code, and deploy changes to production environments.
5. Testing Capabilities: Azure Test Plans offers tools for manual/exploratory testing and continuous testing. Teams can ensure the quality of their applications by thoroughly testing them throughout the development process.

What are Power Platform Build Tools for Azure DevOps?

Microsoft Power Platform Build Tools for Azure DevOps provide a seamless way to automate common build and deployment tasks related to apps built on Microsoft Power Platform. These tasks include:

1. Synchronizing Solution Metadata: This involves managing solution metadata (also known as solutions) that contains various platform components, such as customer engagement apps (Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Marketing), canvas apps, model-driven apps, and connectors between development environments and source control.
2. Generating Build Artifacts: The build tools allow you to create build artifacts, which are essential for deploying your apps.
3. Deploying to Downstream Environments: You can automate the deployment process from development to downstream environments (such as test or production).
4. Provisioning or Deprovisioning Environments: Managing environments is crucial, and these tools help streamline environment provisioning and deprovisioning.
5. Performing Static Analysis Checks: The Power Apps checker service allows you to perform static analysis checks against solutions, ensuring code quality and adherence to best practices.

You can use these tasks individually or compose them in a pipeline to orchestrate scenarios like generating a build artifact, deploying to a test environment, or capturing maker changes. Additionally, version 2.0 of Power Platform Build Tools is based on the Power Platform CLI, providing enhanced features and better security.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can explore Microsoft’s official documentation. Additionally, there’s a helpful tutorial on how to deploy Power Platform with Azure DevOps available here.

Power Platform Publish Customizations errors

If you’re experiencing errors waiting for the response from the Power Platform after your pipeline executes the Publish Customizations, make sure that you are using the latest Task version of the PP-BT. At the time of this writing, the latest is PowerPlatformPublishCustomizations@2. This version includes AsyncOperation as an input, which when set to ‘true’ will allow the Publishing of customizations to execute asynchronously, avoiding timeout errors in your DevOps pipeline while waiting for a response.

Reach out to Beringer today!

The Power Platform Build Tools for Azure DevOps are a powerful collection of functions that can help to automate build and deployment tasks. Looking for help with Azure DevOps tools? Contact the Beringer team today!

Beringer Technology Group, a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Business Applications, specializing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and CRM for Distribution also provides expert Managed IT Services, Backup and Disaster Recovery, Cloud Based Computing, Email Security Implementation and Training, Unified Communication Solutions, and Cybersecurity Risk Assessment.