Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 11 Jan 2022

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From YouTube: Office like commenting & co-authoring

Description

In this 20-minute citizen developer-focused demo, Emma Cooper focuses on 2 useful collaboration capabilities – commenting and co-authoring in the Power Platform. Regarding commenting - add comments, reply to threads, resolve and delete comments, @mention people, and receive an email across Power Platform products like done in Office apps. Roadmap for comments GA CYQ1’22, comments in Canvas apps CYQ2’22. Experimental co-authoring with git integration is available now (as experimental) in canvas apps. Users intentionally decide when to publish/merge edits to shared document. Update history stored in back-end. This PnP Community demo is taken from the Microsoft Power Apps community call – December 2021, recorded on December 15, 2021.

Demo Presenter: Emma Cooper (Microsoft)

Supporting documents:
• Article - Experimental Co-authoring for Power Apps Studio | https://powerapps.microsoft.com/blog/experimental-co-authoring-for-power-apps-studio/
• Documentation - Co-authoring in canvas apps (experimental) | https://docs.microsoft.com/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/git-version-control

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A

So today, like um we're talking about collaboration and really kind of all all about how low code is a team sport and a bunch of the new features that are really helping. People work together, so, basically, very rarely apps are made entirely in a silo. There's, definitely a lot of folks at different organizations like you can think of you know.

A

A citizen developer start working on their own, and maybe they start working with other people or they get help from their it folks, in order to get the right environment set up and creation experiences, so they can go, do things properly or even they might leverage uh fancy fancy.

A

Pcf controls, like brian, showed uh that that they use from someone else so quite frequently, there's actually like teams or different members in different roles, all working together to build digital solutions and really what uh what gartner calls these and you'll hear us start to hear this term a lot from from microsoft. I imagine they're called fusion teams, and so we want to enable more fusion teams and more collaboration across the power platform.

A

Really because you know just you know, our whole thing is building business apps fast or you know, building video games fast as it were, uh but the ability to divide and conquer and have you know only one person can only output. So much when you have a team of people, you can do a whole bunch of different stuff and move faster and avoid single points of failure. You can also with the different domain expertise.

A

Let people work on what they're passionate about, and so you know, if I'm a person in in the business and I've got a super cool finance background. I can take in leverage on my knowledge about you know all the different processes and regulations and apply that to the app and kind of like make sure that you know all that business knowledge is incorporated um and likewise for in terms of skills, people have trained up on different aspects and different skills over time.

A

Some folks are super familiar with with databases or iot connecting to different devices or even like ux design, and they should be able to contribute all of these different types of skills towards the project. To ultimately create a higher quality app at the end of the day, and so in our in in microsoft and in powerapps we actually see apps that are created by you know.

A

Fusion teams and teams of people have 25 percent more engagement than apps that are built by those alone, so uh they tend to have more users and more people using them over time, which is really really cool, and so just as a heads up the general shape of a fusion team that that we're seeing across organizations is, we tend to have, like you know, a core maker team which is kind of like the the train on the tracks like these.

A

This is like the people who are in the weeds of the project they're the ones who are actually like in the experiences working on on the apps um and on the data and kind of, like you know, identifying the the next steps and solving the bugs uh and doing everything on on the way, but they're they're. You know this could be just one citizen dev. This could be two.

A

This could be a multi-disciplinary group of individuals, but ultimately, there's also a lot of other folks in the organization that support them that are kind of like an auxiliary support team. So this could be like other makers in the organization admins that are helping clearing blockers leadership. That's coming in at different decision points to help you know direct the project um or even folks of the community who who might jump on a call with you or you get an answer from in order to to get unblocked and take the next steps.

A

um So this is kind of how we're thinking about fusion teams and we want to really kind of help enable um you know the way things are already working and the way people are collaborating better in the platform, and so uh with that there's you know a couple of of really exciting announcements of stuff that has been released recently at ignite.

A

We announced office style commenting and it's across the power platform, not just powerapps, but basically you can add comments and reply to threads and resolve and delete comments and mention people just like you would across all the office products in powerpoint and word and excel just like that, except in powerapps power, automate and power, virtual agent, which is super super exciting.

A

And so here I have a gif of the the modern app designer where I I can go in and add a new comment, and you know this lives alongside uh with the app and so, if I have other people coming in and also working on it. I can leave context. I can, you know, leave notes about things that are yet needed to do or cautions, and I can reply to different threads.

A

So we can have conversations with each other that stay in the context of of the app and when I'm all done, I can go and resolve the thread and remove them, and you can see, on the left hand, side that there's the different anchor points that let me know what what items have have comments on them. So definitely super exciting and even more exciting to help people pull in the folks that they need in in their organization.

A

You can actually at mention people and they will, you know, be able to get access to the the app and go right to where that comment had been made, um and so they'll receive an email very much like like the office style yet still like you know, retaining a lot of the the power platform aspects of it and if they click that button they'll go direct into the app where the comment is and be able to collaborate with people.

A

So super super super exciting. uh It's it's. It's definitely rounding out the collaborative capabilities and before people ask so uh our ga time frame uh for the modern, app designer is just in in a couple months in the new year and then in canvas app slightly a couple months later. um So super super soon.

B

Emma quick question: you said it's: the comments are stored in the solution. um Somebody had asked: are these comments stored in solution? Is there any historical record.

A

uh Yeah, so these comments are actually their own table in dataverse. um So all of the comments and their anchors are in the dataverse table, um so you can actually go, and you know audit and see all the comments and and everything like that.

B

A

Awesome so that that's it for for comments, I hope folks, are, are uh excited about trying that out and in in terms of uh whether like it is stored in dataverse, but we're actively working on making sure that that's not a blocker for core collaboration functionality uh and so that it won't be an issue for too much longer.

A

Currently right now, this feature is reliant on dataverse um and and hopefully soon we'll we'll be able to figure out a way to to enable that for for everyone, so switching switching gears over to co-authoring.

A

So everyone on this call is probably familiar with with this dialogue, if you're working with other folks on an app where currently there's only one person allowed in at a time- and it can be very frustrating and limiting in terms of helping people work together and so really that something really exciting uh is that at ignite we announced experimental co-authoring for for powerapps, and so we're going to talk a little bit about it.

A

Do a quick demo and and yeah that'll that'll be super good, so there's a blog and some docs that kind of walk through how to do this and have all the latest details on. uh You know how to get set up. What the current known limitations are, and everything like that, so basically how this experimental, co-authoring works, is kind of like our traditional software development, where you essentially are each working on a copy of the app and then you intentionally decide when you want to merge.

A

So basically I would work in app one, and I wouldn't see you know what brian's working on in his copy of the same app.

A

But I can you know select when I want to merge and my changes would would kind of go to the the master branch or source control, um and I would also be able to fetch any uh changes that brian has made there as well, and so this relies on the yaml interpretation for canvas apps, and so here's, uh the the gif that was in the blog, uh but we'll take a look in and what it looks like and how to set it up in demo.

A

So emily on the left, john on the right, you can go, emily adds you know a label and updates things notice that this is the exact same studio experience except for one little refresh button. So all everyone can use the same tools that they're used to so they can go.

A

If john goes and presses refresh he's able to get the hello world label and and information from the repo that emily worked on and he can go and make changes, and you know then commit them and when emily goes- and you know does the same refresh, she can fetch all the changes that uh john has made. And so, if we go and look in devops, we can go see.

A

uh You know the the screen as well as like who made what changes that are there, so really super powerful to be able to have the the kind of same experience and tools we're used to building apps to do most of the work, uh but also have the same kind of get powered integration aspects to see and manage all the changes uh on the back end, and so it doesn't have to be devops.

A

It could be github or bitbucket or any git provider, but this is certainly a very exciting step for us, so to quick jump over to the demo. I'm short short on time, so we'll go we'll go quick, um you're.

C

B

C

You can go like at least another eight minutes.

A

Okay, cool: I want to make sure I'm a good good participant, so this is the docs that everyone can have access to, and so here you can see like there's all the different steps and screenshots and everything for for doing this. I wanted to call that out, because um it's not just this call that you will see it on there's other documentation to help you through and get set up and so over to our app.

A

So this is a net new app.

A

So in order to to kind of get started, the first thing you need to do is to save the app so make sure you save it and it's saved and then from here on, I can go to settings and upcoming features experimental and I can like search git and so there'll be this setting that I need to turn on so basically, I turn this on and I get a new kind of section in our settings where I can go set up my get version control, and so here I can go and hit connect and I need to fill out everything for a git repository.

A

So I would put my url here what branch I want and the name of the directory that would be in in the repo, and so I have an app where I've set this up already, but uh once you kind of set this up and hit apply, um the app will then be connected to to that repo um and all the changes that will be made when you hit commit will go there.

A

And so, if I go to the app where I've already done this here, we have our hello button and I have another screen where I've just added a list really quickly. So that's what it looks like and if I've just gone and connected it to to our this repo experimental get one two three. uh We can see that on screen one. I have my hello button as well as on screen.

A

Two too, I have all of the the different sets of controls that are on screen too, and so now, if I go back to the app, we can go and add something new, just a label- and I can say hello, community.

A

Apparently I have caps on that's great.

A

uh There we go and we can just hit save or the the commit button, and if we go back to our our get over here and refresh the page or it's actually already there, we can see that it says hello community with all of the different properties that I've set um available right there in get. And so, if multiple people were working on this, we would be able to see everybody who's who's done this and be able to see exactly what changes in everything that they've made uh and, and so super super exciting stuff.

A

So you this is just kind of like the the the beginning bits of how you can see all of this co-authoring stuff coming together. Definitely the just the start, because there's definitely some known known limitations around how how that's actually uh working, and so uh some things are like the pcf components- are still kind of iffy. So that's definitely one known limitation that we're currently working through and in the future. We don't want it to be just canvas apps.

A

We want it to be entire solutions and everything across the the power platform able to have multiple people working on it and have that kind of source control view, but today we're starting off with canvas, because we have a lot to learn here is, is the big part and that's part of why we wanted, to put it in experimental.

A

Co-Authoring is definitely a super challenging area to go and build around, and especially knowing you know how what how we should handle merge conflicts. What you, what set of ui, is needed, how you know low code no code? Can we be with this type of of co-authoring and get integration in all of the office products? Today they are very opinionated and they pick a winner if there's a merge conflict and currently we're doing that too.

A

There is no merge conflict resolution, it's the last person wins, but we know we probably have to introduce some capabilities there in order to help people address those conflicts, and so I guess, like the call to action, for this would be. You know, come and tell us about. uh If you try, it out, tell us about your experience, what issues you've run into.

A

We definitely want to continue working and making this great and able to be something useful for everyone and in the future, where we want to have you know, real-time co-authoring, just the same way that you would use in in office, so you're able to see who else is there at the same time uh see what changes they make? They can see what changes you're making and so like the first phase will be multiple viewers where multiple people can get in and view.

A

But you know, there's we don't handle any of the edits gracefully and then we will add in the co-editing capabilities for this so kind of making sure that everyone, this is you know a multiplayer game. Everyone can come in and and see who's there and collaborate together and it's definitely a super exciting space.

A

And so like I pulled this quote, I couldn't find uh who, like the original origins of the proverb, but like alone, I go faster together we go further and I would probably say, with the power platform we we go together further and faster, and so you know thank you so much for for coming and kind of like spending the time to hear a little bit about collaboration.

A

I am happy to take a look at the chat and answer any questions now, because I was not really able to keep up on it while I was presenting. So thank you. Everyone.

C

Thank you. These are great things, a couple questions right off the bat that I've got saved here um and we can jump into wrapping up the call a couple of folks phil asked: are there other pre-requirements for co-authoring? I'm not seeing this in our tenant.

A

Yeah, so right now it is currently rolling out uh to folks the I would. I can double check the kind of like deployment rollout because around the holidays it gets a little weird because people are out, and so I can double check when it will be everywhere for everyone.

C

Cool um the second one was a kind of an observation matt had we were talking about this yesterday together too, do you have a recommendation regarding co-authoring, for instance, would you recommend that I edit one page while matt's adding another page in there or do you say, yeah go, have at it and edit everything together.

A

So I think, uh when people think about co-authoring they're always worried that everyone's gonna, edit the same things and step on each other's toes in that way, but really, if you think about other cases where, where we have co-authoring like if we're in you know powerpoint, for example, and we're all jamming together on a slide deck, you know you tend to naturally avoid where other people are working on things, because you you, you know, even in powerpoint, you can go and edit the same slide at the same time.

A

But even then we tend not to right, because we we want to kind of like coordinate and con coordinate that, and so I would say like in terms of recommendations, uh you see most people kind of divide things up at the screen level. Today, if they're kind of like collaborating on different, you know sets of ui and controls and stuff. We tend to see people. You know naturally divide at the screen level.

A

So like that works, um I would say like if you're working together on the same, uh you know properties at the same time, like probably uh not great, so you might want to coordinate a little with each other. There.

C

Cool awesome, that's some great stuff. I I have a lot more questions here, too I'll. Let you get to the ones in chat there, but I think I'll hit you with a follow-up email later today. If that's okay,.

A

C

A

Happy happy to follow up with with anyone. um This is. This is all brand new, so uh I'm sure there's a lot of questions.

C

Right, especially when it's in that experimental phase still awesome well, thanks again emma come back again, please, we always have great features. You're working on.

A