On June 20, 2024, the Power Apps blog announced a new way to work with complex data models – by using the ERD view assisted by Copilot. This sounds absolutely incredible, and I immediately went to my environment to see if it was there to practice and play around with this new preview feature. Sadly, it’s not there yet – but let’s dive into the release blog and see what this will allow us to do.
Build Tables with an ERD Interface
WOAH! This is cool! When we head to Power Apps Maker Portal, we should see a toggle to Try the new data experience. (As mentioned earlier, I tried this today – with all Copilot feature turned on for my tenant and environment, and sadly it is not yet available here.) Once enabled, you are able to add tables, drag and drop relationships between tables and more! This is a great visual ERD framework that lets you simply view how tables connect and are related.
An amazing screen grab from Microsoft showing us the multi-table in ERD view!
New: Data Drawer
Moreover, this new data experience brings us a data drawer – showing schema and table representation of your entire data model alongside one another. Check out this visualization of the feature from Microsoft:
Describe New Tables with Natural Language
Another extension of one of my favorite “describe it to design it” tools! Now, you can create tables by describing them. This can be one table, multiple tables, with relationships, columns and more; all powered by Copilot. This has the potential to be a massive time saver – if it works as expected! Remember, trust but verify everything Copilot gives you from these natural language tools.
From Microsoft’s blog – showing us how you can describe new tables and generate them using Copilot.
Import Files from Excel or Lists from SharePoint
Now, let’s pair this with some of the most popular tools in Microsoft 365 and illustrate how they are better together. Bring your own data to the table by importing Excel files or SharePoint lists! Copilot will power the setup by suggesting table names, descriptions, columns and formats based on the data uploaded. This is similar to some tooling available today with the “Build a new app” features, but it’s great to see it here too.
The post New in Power Apps: ERD View Assisted by Copilot appeared first on Dynamics Communities.