Microsoft 365 Community Power Platform, 18 May 2023

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From YouTube: Microsoft Power Platform community call – May 2023

Description

Power Platform community call delivered on May 17th.

Latest updates and news on Power Platform including community events and training opportunities.

3 demos - Integrating Power Apps with Azure Machine Learning & Open AI using Power Automate, ChatGPT - but with YOUR data in Power Apps, and Low code tips for fields in Power Pages.

Activities: 5 articles, 3 documents, 3 samples, 3 Power Platform related video conversations delivered.

This call was hosted by David Warner II (Microsoft) | @DavidWarnerII and recorded on May 17, 2023. Questions addressed in chat throughout the call.

Agenda items
00:00 – Intro
01:37 – Power Platform News & Learn Updates – Daniel Laskewitz (Microsoft) | @laskewitz
04:12 – Latest Power Apps Samples – Daniel Laskewitz (Microsoft) | @laskewitz
05:26 – Independent Publisher Connectors - Jocelyn Panchal (Microsoft) | @JocelynP_PM
09:27 – Power Platform Community Shows & Events - Daniel Laskewitz (Microsoft) | @laskewitz & David Warner II (Microsoft) | @DavidWarnerII
11:34 – Together mode picture
12:47 – Demo - Integrating Power Apps with Azure Machine Learning & Open AI using Power Automate – Aaryan Arora
21:20 – Demo - ChatGPT - but with YOUR data in Power Apps – Robin Rosengrün (EnBW) | @power_r2
35:01 – Demo - Low code tips for fields in Power Pages – Elaiza Benitez
56:23 – Resources
57:17 – Closing

Learn more (in YouTube post)
• See the full blog post for this call in the Microsoft 365 platform community blog - https://aka.ms/community/blog
• Microsoft 365 Unified Sample gallery - https://aka.ms/community/samples
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community in YouTube - https://aka.ms/community/videos
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community - http://aka.ms/community/home

A

B

With the community, this is the May 2023 Power Platform Community call today is May. 17Th I am so excited for everything that we have in store for everyone. Today, let's take a look at our agenda. We're going to get the latest updates and news on Power Platform by our amazing contributors, Daniel laskowitz, and then we're going to see some upcoming events in the community. We're going to have the opportunity to have a group picture time with together mode and then we're gonna have three amazing.

B

Presenters Arun is going to talk about integrating power apps with Azure, machine learning and openai, using power automate and then Robin is going to cover chat GPT. But with your data in powerapps, everybody loves a little of their own data and then Eliza is going to cover low code tips for fields in power pages. So we got a broad spectrum, but uh we want to hold our horses right because we got some updates to talk about first. So the first thing to keep in mind is that this is your community call.

B

We absolutely want you to be empowered to present on this. This is not Microsoft. Going out and saying: oh, we only want you and you and you we want everybody to present. So we absolutely welcome you. It doesn't have to be anything amazing. It can be a feature, a functionality that you've learned and you love a tip a trick. Anything and everything is welcome.

B

So all you got to do is go to AK dot, Ms, slash, Community, request, slash demo rolls right off the tongue right, you can copy and paste too and fill out that form and input. What you'd like to talk about and we'll reach out to you and get you scheduled. So please do not hesitate to reach out to us, and let us know that you would like to present this. Is your community call again?

B

It is for you by the community for the community all right, let's get over to some news right, so this is going to be dum news desk with Daniel askowitz.

C

I love this intro, really. Thank you. David um yeah, there's, a bunch of new uh news updates. uh One is about the improved variables and collection experience in the canvas designer. uh A lot of you probably already know this uh and noticed it in the left navigation. uh You can find it there.

C

There are a bunch of new improvements to the modern app designer like you can have the forms, for instance, and the views in in line of the uh of the editor uh there's also a new experience for custom connectors to create them from within Visual Studio. That's something that the uh the code first developers would love to love to see, of course, and- and this is one that's very near and dear to my heart- uh we started the Power Platform developer blog and uh the welcome to the Power Platform developer.

C

Blog blog is actually the opening that April did for the uh for the blog. So that's uh one, that's really cool, and last but not least from the news. um We also released a Power Platform, prompt samples repository so make sure to go there and check out all the prompts that you can use for the GPT experiences within the Power Platform, and we also have some learn. Updates.

C

Yeah David told me to to not say next slide, so I'm not doing that. Of course. This is me.

B

Not saying next slide.

C

So uh yeah, on the Learned side, uh there is a new uh security role. Editor uh experience so make sure to check that one out um there's also a doctor's article about how to create a new developer environment. We all know that the developer environments are now um renewed, so you have a new version of the developer environment. You can have three different developer environments now, and this goes all around that and the visual studio connected surface. That's also a doctor article that got released and that's part of the connector uh experience.

C

Custom connector experience for visual studio. So with that, that's the news and learn part should I say next slide. Please no I'm.

B

uh David GPT for Daniel.

C

Okay, so for the Power Platform samples, there are a bunch of new samples, there's a really cool sample by reshmi about Instagram uh and that sample really showcases how you can use the Instagram connector. That's also part of the independent publisher connectors uh program, there's also a really cool sample for a requesting teams.

C

uh So when you want to have a new teams team, that's really a good thing to say quickly. After each other, so teams team, um you can request a team there and uh that's a really lovely sample as well. It's really well designed that's done by Katarina and last but not least, Natalie Landers uh created a kpi sample and that's something that will show you how to do uh colors based on uh Power effects, for instance.

C

So that's also a really cool sample and if you want to contribute, go to ak.mslash Power, Platform, Dash samples and yeah, that's about it for the samples.

B

Awesome, thank you. Daniel yeah I think we need the teams team in teams for a team right could make like a wrap out of it or something so all right. Well, we got some exciting news still coming for you. uh How many connectors are there? How many a thousand Jocelyn tell us more.

D

Hi everybody we are now officially at over 1 000, certified Power Platform connectors. Officially, it's actually 1023, as of today I'm sorry I've been a little quiet on socials. Lately, it's because this big news was coming out. We have a blog post about it. We have some team party pictures about it. We have so much to share with you guys and and David remind me. Is there something else that maybe talks about a little more coming out with me and you tomorrow, possibly.

B

uh There might be telling.

D

Me more tell me more, there might be. Is there possibly a Power Platform connections, episode where we get into.

B

It there is starring our very own Jocelyn.

D

I'm so excited to bring you this news, I'm gonna put a bunch of links in the chat, but in case anybody is new to the world of connectors. Just a reminder: connectors serve power, automate, powerapps and Azure logic, apps and our ecosystem of custom connectors is actually excuse me. Every connector starts as a custom connector, but our ecosystem is a certified. Connectors is the ones that go through our certification process to be part of that list of fully available connectors for all, and so many of those were built by the community of independent Publishers.

D

I know we have so many of you guys here. I know that we talked about rush me and we have Robin demoing all possible because of you guys. So, thank you all so much and if you can't get enough of connector content scan that QR code to join our connector specific Labs call usually held on the second Wednesday of every month. Links will be in the chat. Thank you all so much for making this a reality.

B

Awesome, thank you Joss. All right now, you may be wondering I want to create a connector I want to submit it to GitHub. What's this Hub of gits that everyone's talking about Hugo tell me more excellent.

E

David, thank you. uh Well, we have some guidance for you. uh We know how scary it can be to get started in the community. uh Doing your first GitHub pull request and doing your first. You know public speaking presentation, but don't worry we have sessions for you as as part of sharing, is caring and sharing is caring. Our Hands-On sessions that are never recorded in their safe space, where we'll show you how to do, for example, your first Power Platform sample and how to actually submit it in GitHub and trust me, it's not that scary.

E

We have more sessions coming up, they can be found at ak.ms. Sharing Dash is Dash gearing and we are looking for volunteers. If you'd like to help us run some of these sessions, please reach out to us. uh We will be needing help, because this is getting really really successful and crowded great, it's kind of is the right word. David I, don't know. I.

B

I know I I've been putting on some weight. I'll work on that crowding out. No, it's been great. It's been great absolutely now.

E

Once you have contributed to the community, you can actually show that you know your stuff by joining the community recognition program. So this is a program. That's run on credly the same credly that issues certification, badges, but it's absolutely free for you. All you need to do is to go to AKA to the mess Community recognition give us your GitHub account and your email address and, as you create a pull requests and other contributions that are recognized through the programs, you will automatically assign these Badges and then you can showcase them up.

E

You can put them on LinkedIn. You can put them in the resume and tell people that you know your stuff and that's it for me back to you, David awesome.

B

Thank you Hugo, and we are actually enhancing the recognition program. Everybody to bring more campaigns as well. Well as the registration process is going to be a little more streamlined, we're looking to use a service now for that that'll help. You update things so be on the lookout for more updates there. We're super super excited all right. Let's get into some Community shows and events we're going to invite Daniel back to the stage to talk about Loco Revolution.

B

C

So we had three new episodes. This month uh we had one from uh Julia Casper around API management authorizations and the Power Platform. So that's one that's really cool to watch. um We also have one uh with me and Marcel about uh the custom connector creation uh from within Visual Studio.

C

That I also talked about at the news and there's also a really cool episode about the new model view in power bi by Dave, taboo and Emily Lisa, so make sure to check them out on ak.ms low code Revolution show and if you want to be a guest, make sure to register through aka.ms low code, Revolution guests.

B

Awesome, thank you very kindly, Daniel all right. Let's talk about some other events that are coming up everybody's, so excited to start seeing each other again in person live, we have legs, we can see them. Let's talk about the European Power Platform conference. This is coming up at the end of June, uh and so you can get in on some early bird tickets. Pricing so take advantage of that. I'll put all these links here in the chat for these events.

B

We also have ECS coming up next week, so there is still some opportunity to get in on board there. Power Platform rocks will get you 15 off. We have the dynamic mines coming up here shortly as well. Next week too, so we got things just right around the corner. We've also got some uh educon and a power educon coming up.

B

So a lot of excitement there around a number of events with DC, Seattle and Chicago again, a community code for you, it's 25 off who doesn't like discounts right, and you too could have your event highlighted so Community Days is a Microsoft program that provides you the opportunity to amplify and list all of the upcoming events that you may be part of or running here are some coming up in May and June that we've pulled from the community day site, but you can absolutely have your own at it as well, so check out AKA, dot, Ms, slash, Community Days, and we will make sure to get you included.

B

What time is it? It is picture time. So if you would like go ahead and share your fantastic faces, I am gonna, throw things into together mode here and we will set up the recording many many screens. Let's move that off and move this in all right, we still got some room still got some seats available.

E

B

Gonna, all right just ready who's ready for that, all right. All right, still a couple more seats, a couple more seats: anybody anybody, anybody all right, we'll start recording all right, let's wave to the community, everybody, let them know how in fantastic you are. We love you. Oh there you are more showing up awesome, all right, throw those hands up, I, see Cats Dino is joining in, so we're an inclusive community, Dino friendly dragon friendly.

B

All right all right looks great. Thank you all.

B

Okay, all right! Well, what time is it? It is time for our amazing presenters, so uh Arun is going to cover integrating power apps with Azure machine learning and open AI using power automate. You should be able to take over the screen. My man.

A

Hi everyone, so, firstly, I am Iron naruda and I am a beta Microsoft, learn student ambassador and a computer engineering student at Delhi, Technological, University, India I'm, also a open source developer, who has been contributing particularly to power platforms since the last 1.5 years and today, I'll be giving a demo on integrating power apps with Azure machine learning and openai using power automate.

A

So first is Introduction, so in this demo, uh I'll show you how you can build a health expense, planner power app to track your health expenses. So it is basically an app that is a powerful tool that can help you stay on top of your health expenses and save money. This sample basically allows the users to predict their health expenses using a machine learning model and then get a detailed personalized plan to save funds for it.

A

Okay, so moving on to the features, so the sample basically takes different parameters like the age sex, BMI number of children and whether they are a smoker or not. It uses a custom built SQL, automl model integrated to powerapps, using power, automate flow, and then it provides a customized plan to save. For the health expenses based on the inputs and the result of the Asian model, and it uses open, AIS API to create that plan so moving on to the solution components, so it basically comprises comprises the canvas app, which is the health expense app.

A

Then the other other component is the Azure automl flow, which is the power automate flow that links the canvas app to the uh to the Azure automl model. And thirdly, the the model itself for making predictions.

A

So this is how the app looks. The interface is kind of simple and give me a second okay. So, basically, first you provide all of our details like AIDS, sex, PMI, children and smoker, yes, or no, and once these parameters are provided, the expenses are predicted using these parameters and are provided here and based on these details of Health Plan is created, which you will look into later on. So this is the power automate flow, which basically is basically called in the PowerApp.

A

By pressing a button, then it sends an HTTP request to the automl endpoint and then once we get the response back, we pass that Json query to or to basically pass it back to the power app so that we can use it.

A

Then this is the snapshot of the data set that I used to build the model so like these are the various parameters and the link to the data set and I did not use the region parameters. That was not particularly relevant for this use case, and this is the the automl model. So it's basically the deployed endpoint. So this is the input that we pass to the end point, and this is the result that we get. So it's a float number representing the expenses in USD.

A

So what do we need to set up the powerapps? So, firstly, we need to get an API key from open AI. Then we need to have an account for powerapps and power automate. Also, you need to have an active account in Azure and you need to have deployed an Azure automl model so that you can get an endpoint for predictions.

A

So, moving on to the data sources, so the PowerApp basically includes the open, AI connector.

A

So we can add that connected to the PowerApp and then use it in the following way and also it includes the power automate flow, which is basically the flow that uh basically uh is called upon when the button is pressed and after that it sends an HTTP request to the model, endpoint and then gets the input passes at Json and that output is then passed back to the power app to be used and shown in the app so how the screens will look out like the results.

A

So, for example, I provide these parameters to the power app based on that it predicts the expenses and it creates a plan. So it suggests like creating an emergency plan and having your health insurance. So in these things one thing is to be observed that these parameters indicate that you have to create a plan. That's that requires you urgent planning.

A

On the other hand, if you take an input of a person who is more healthier and younger, so in that case the expenses are reduced and at the same time, the plan takes into account the fact that you are younger, so you can basically create a fund Slowly by contributing a thousand dollars per month and various factors.

A

So now we're moving back to the demo okay. So this is the PowerApp where we have basically all the elements uh like like the text boxes and the input parameters, and the main thing is the predict button where basically, we call the the automl flow and the and the open AIS connector. So we need to First ensure that we have added the connector in the data sources and also go into the flows.

A

We need to add the flow here as well, so I'll just show you as well, so basically it takes the endpoint URL and it sends a post request and then it gets. Basically, you have to provide the input parameters in the queries, and once that is done, we can get the response back, and this is a response schema. And finally, we can use that in the powerapps so moving on to the part.

A

So we can like add the we can call the flow from here directly by uh by calling it and passing it the parameters and for the open, AI connector. The the main thing is to use the correct model and also to provide a prompt. So in this prompt we provide the various things like the like. The whole input is provided in a textual manner so that the model can understand and then also the result of like the files that were that are required. So we add that as well. So let's see it in action.

A

So, for example, we say page 50. excuse me, let's say BMI of 31 children, let's say one and we give the parameters. Then we call the predict button. So it gets the response back from the prediction model and then this is passed further to the open AIS text, completion model yeah. So we get the response back and here it's kind of in between because some kind of a middle-aged group. So you also have to like create an emergency fund, but you can also plan your health savings and that's basically about the demo other than that.

A

This is the. uh This is the is your automl model which you can create using the machine uh as your machine Learning Studio, and we can go to automated ML and create the model, and once that is done, we can deploy the best model. That is present and we can use those end points in the PowerApp to directly link it, and this is open AI, which we can use to get our API keys and get started with the with basically the building process. And that's that's all from my side.

B

Awesome roon. Thank you, I, really, love seeing how creative everyone's getting with this Ai and chat, EPT and stuff like that right. It's it's not just about hey! Let me ask you to rewrite this thing: let's get a schedule but being able to do thick. Predictive models like this is very, very cool. Thank you for uh taking the time to share with us and the community all right. Next up, Robin is going to have another topic chat GPT, but with your data in powerapps, everybody loves a little of their data and everything so Robin.

B

F

Yes, give me a small second, and here we are because uh why would we want to use our data in chat TPT? Because when you ask jgpt for facts who knows how that Meme ends? You're gonna have a bad time. Well, this time we actually had a good time, because jtpd actually know the answer, but sometimes it's it's a big mix.

F

You get mixed results, you get hallucination and for one uh for one thing, we can't get facts out of jativity when we are using internal data that GPD can know about, because it is not on Wikipedia or not on the web. So not in the chatgpt training data and a little bit about me. My name is Robin I work at the German Energy company I'm, not a I.T guy I'm, a mechanical engineer and most important about that.

F

I have no clue how all these AI stuff works, but what I do know it's that they have really easy apis that we can use and leverage. So we don't know, we don't have to know how all of this works, but we can just connect to it and use it in our Power Platform projects, just like um the open, AI embeddings at point where you're gonna look at today, because we're gonna vectorize our data and yeah. Let's see how we can do that and how we can call that endpoint.

F

But first of all, let's jump into a small demo. Video right here. I made a movie database that consists of 7 000 movies and, as you can see, the the plots and genres and years of the movies and so on. And if we are now looking for a search term, then we will find movies that are similar to that search term. So um David I will need in a few minutes uh movie search term for you and we're gonna um search live for movies, and then it's a little bit like in the previous demo.

F

Then we provide jet gbt with context of the movies. So this could be any data, not um not data. That jgpt actually knows about like like movies, but this could be any any data, because in the prompt, we're gonna put the context in there and then let jet GPT make sense of that and tell it why we should watch those movies so um embeddings what are embeddings, what is vectorization and why do we need it?

F

um Well, it's a cool concept where we get a text or just a word and we represent the meaning of the text of word with a vector. So what can you think of that? How does that look like this is a simple Vector with two Dimensions. So um if we have an x value and a y value, we can show it in the plot. So for the word doc, we probably have this Vector for the word cat. We have this Vector, then we bring a third word into the mix. In this case it's Labrador.

F

It's probably here and now it's all just numbers, and then we can calculate the distance between those words and we see the distance between the word dog and Labrador is shorter than the distance between the word Labrador and Cat, which makes sense because it's a dog breed of course. In reality, it's not that easy, because we don't have two Dimensions open, AI use. It uses a model that has 1500 Dimensions, so a little more data, but the concept stays the same and the calculations stay the same and are easily doable for a computer.

F

So let's look exactly at that example. We had, but let's use real data so now I'm calling the open, AI API on this button and as we see we get a 1536 numbers back, which is the vector, the meaning of the word doc and we're doing the same for the word cat and then we're doing the vector, search and check the similarity for the word Labrador and as we can see, in fact, it has higher similarity to the word doc than it has to the word cat.

F

Let's see how the code looks like for that, because it's not that complicated at all make it a little bit bigger.

F

The actual API call really short and, as I said in the chat a little bit earlier, um this is not right now in the independent publisher connector, but will be in two or three weeks.

F

This is a custom connector I built, but luckily the documentation on open, AI page is really good, or you can just I already linked that in the chat and to the repo, where you will find all the connectors and there is the actual new version I put up there that will be deployed into a three weeks, so you can get started right now or wait two weeks and just use the independent publisher, connector and the platform, and all that the connector wants from us is the model which you want to use.

F

In this case the embedding other model and the text we want to vectorize, which is the text box in here and on the other side, we're first doing the same thing get a vector, but we are not using this this code, which would be the same as as the last time. But this time we can use the Azure open AI service.

F

So I saw a question in the chat where it just was like and we needed to be in this region, and if we have sensitive data, especially when we are from Europe, we have to be a gdpr compliant. So we don't want our information going to U.S service of open Ai and then, of course, we just deploy our own openai models in in Azure and use this and there's also a great connector you can use.

F

This is not independent publisher, connector, but a custom connector that then your last give it's built um the same that was speaking earlier and I've also added the embeddings endpoint there. So you can also download these from the from the repo and the whole calculation for the similarity.

F

I will not go into detail right here, but it's not too hard just a few lines of code and we can check the similarity of those two terms and let's get back to the presentation before we get to the movie demo, because I want to show you what I did here.

F

um We won't look, don't look into that, but just looking at it schematically I downloaded the movie data of 7000 movies from IMDb. They have free data set. You can play around with really cool stuff. There was no summary or plot in there, so I. Let jet GPT write summaries for 7 000 movies and store all the metadata up here into dataverse, and then I created embeddings for all of these 7000 movies. So yes, 7, 000 vectors with 1 500 numbers. Each and I did install them in dataverse, because dataverse can make sense of that.

F

They are specialized. Vector databases in this case. It's time cone, which has a free tier, so get an account and start playing around with it, and this database doesn't only help you with storing them, but also retrieving them and calculating calculating the um the distance in the back end, and when we are retrieving the data, then again we were typing in a search term, like you saw in the demo earlier, create an embedding of that.

F

We get the 10 most similar movies and then we puzzled back the the data we got because here are only the IDS of the movie stored. Then we get our metadata from our database database back and then just like in a previous demo. um We give context to check GPT and let it make sense of that. So the we give the the plots and the summaries and the name and the years of the movie and then chat. Gpt should tell us why this is a great movie.

F

I have to watch when searching for the search term. Xyz, oh David. Yes, sir. What kind of movie do we want to watch? Well.

B

Let's see uh Guardians just came out and there's a wide spectrum. What do we do? What, if we do, a search on Marvel will that work.

F

B

F

So um now we're getting our data from the database back any second Captain Marvel, of course, uh yeah really close, because it's in the title actually, but all these others don't have it in the title, and these are I, think all Marvel movies. So that seems to work. Was there one sneaking in no all Marvel movies? I think is this different Avengers, don't know um and now we're waiting for chat GPT.

F

This takes a little bit longer so about 20-25 seconds, and it will tell us why we should watch those movies when we are looking for a Marvel movie.

B

I wonder if jgbt can also add, like a post credit take like after we read it, it gives us like a sneak preview to what it see. What I did there.

F

Yeah um and yeah that then, given this uh his take um cat novel, fantastic movie uh and what it's about and I, also snuck in the URLs and let jgpt write an html text, so we can actually click on that. It's a little bit like the like the Bing, with the like the new Bing, with the numbers where we can click on the sources. So, let's really quickly look at the code on this button, also just a few lines of code in here.

F

um First of all, again we get the embedding. Then we do. The pine cone query uh did a custom connector for that, but they also have good documentation. So it took 10 minutes to set everything up and pass the vector in here. We want the top 10 results back. We puzzle the data back together.

F

This is my dataverse table and then we let jet GPT write our review for the movies and here we're actually passing the data we got from the database back in here and yeah got got our jet gpts take for that movie and for the last slide, let's again jump back to the document to the presentation, because we want to get back to business so back from the fun projects, to probably something more business related. Let's think about support cases like regular customer support or I.T support.

F

We have a database full of successful cases where we actually help the customer and let's check GPT, write a summary of every of those cases with the problem and the solution create an embedding of that and store everything in a vector database. Of course we're using Azure open AI for that, because we want to have control over where the data goes to and on the output. Probably this time we have a power virtual agent, where the customer can type in a search term. Then there's a embedding created.

F

We get back similar cases from our Vector database puzzle the data back together and then we provide the context to chat GPT. We provide the question the customer asked and then we provide the solutions of the three most similar case we had in that department and then it can make sense of that and probably formulate a solution that will actually help the customer. So we put our data in jet GPT, so really amazing stuff. What comes all of these Ai and my take? Is we it's so easy to connect to those apis?

F

Let it be open, Azure, open air, IAI or other AIS that come out, and my suggestion is start. Some fun projects get your hands wet and that and yeah start building something with it. Thanks everyone back to you, David Robin,.

B

Awesome awesome, stuff, I cannot uh I, cannot say how awesome this has been uh by saying it more than three times right, but really cool stuff. I also appreciate how you showed it can be fun that helps people learn right, I think that's a secret sauce for everybody. Who's wanting to get in this technology find something that's maybe not business related. Just because we do have a couple minutes. I did want to ask you. Is that something that helped you learn to keep going with the movies you were passionate about?

B

It was fun, and then you kind of looked for the uh for the business side of it.

F

Yeah I I had the the business in mind, but um I couldn't I had no no database with business cases, so I looked for something that I was passionate about and I would have fun with a little bit so uh made my own database. Absolutely.

B

Awesome that is great stuff and a great, uh a great tip for all of us to be able to use that, because sometimes it can be hard to say what am I going to use this for maybe not having the passion. In this case, uh you absolutely use that for something you're passionate about and it led to what is an amazing success. So thank you for that awesome, stuff.

B

Okay! Well, our last presenter of the day now I'm gonna get real quiet because it's Eliza and she has a new baby-ish uh and why am I quiet, because it's 3 A.M, where Eliza's at she is connecting to us from New Zealand at 3 00 a.m. So you have our attention. Take it away.

G

Hey everyone thanks David for the intro okay. Let me share my screen.

B

And she's gonna be talking about low code tips for fields and power Pages. Yes,.

G

Yes, I am yeah like David said: I am based in New Zealand, so it's quite early over here, but I'm so glad to be joining the call right now. I'm Eliza I am based in New, Zealand and fun. Fact. When you look at the power automate home a landing page, if you scroll all the way down, you get to see me so there's me I'm on the power of automate um home page. So that's pretty cool.

G

um So just a little bit about me, I live in the capital city of New Zealand I first started out with Dynamic CRM version four, so it's now named as Dynamics 365. So this is way back in the day and fast forward to today.

G

I have picked up so much love for the water stack and I'm, pretty much well known for power automate, but before pair automate, I also fell in love with what was that called adx Studio portals, which is now power pages, and this is what I'm going to talk about today: I'm going to share some logo tips for Fields a pair of pages.

G

Now, if you have any questions, I can't really see the chat right now, so David or Hugo, or even just you might need to help me out, and let me know if there's any questions in the chat afterwards. Okay, so in terms of the agenda, this is what I'm going to go through with you all today. So the first one is how to format the date and time for your fields and pair of pages. So a typical use case for this is, if you are based somewhere outside of the USA.

G

So for me, I'm, based in New Zealand, our day format is different, so I want to display it differently on the portal. The second one is: did you know that you can make a dataverse, lookup column appears drop down? What you're about to find out and then for number three I'm going to show you how to pre-populate fields and pair of pages. I've got two tips there for you and then I'm going to show you how to form it. A phone number number field using regex.

G

So that's going to be really cool and then I'll talk about health and text. If we have enough time, then I'll show you how to change the label for a button without any code. So you don't need to use JavaScript. This is all inbuilt within parrot pages. Okay, so let's jump into it. I'm going to head over to my browser and over here I'm in the portal management model driven app.

G

So this is where you could do a lot of your configuration outside of the design studio, a pair of pages so for the purpose of this call, I just have a simple web page set up here. So in this webpage, I've got a list display and this list will allow you to create a new row in dataverse, so I've just created a application table with just some Fields just through the demo. Note that this para Pages site is not externally. Public I haven't made that available.

G

So this is all just inside within the confinements of pair pictures, okay, so the first one that I wanted to talk about was in regards to the date and time. So what I mean by that from what I said earlier, Nicole by default, the language um for power pages will be set to English us. So that means that the date and time Fields will always appear as m d y y. In other words, it will start with month and then I'll follow followed by the date and then followed by the year.

G

But if you live outside of the USA such as me, I live in New Zealand. um Our date format is different. It it goes by date month year. So how do we go ahead and change that for our overall site to compare pages, so the trick to doing that is you create a site settings record and in here is where you can Define what that date.

G

Time format will be so I'm going to create a new site, setting record I'm going to call this date time date, format and I'll select my power Pages site, and then the value that I'm going to put in here is mm, slash, YY and then I'm going to click save and close.

G

So this will now create that new site setting and because I've created a new or well parapages configuration record I'm, going to clear the cache and then once that has been cleared. I'm gonna refresh my pair of pages page and I'll. Show you what it now looks like so now when I create the button and as you can see, that date of birth date and time field has now been updated to show the format that I had entered in the excite setting.

G

So now, if I pick a date, um will now correctly show, as date month and year. So that's the first tip. So the second tip is to do with changing a lookup to a drop down, so I have a city, uh lookup, column and database. So this is just showing me the major cities in New Zealand. So as of right now it's showing as a lookup, you can search for it. You can select it and then it'll get added to the field. But what?

G

If you want to show that as a drop down to the end user, you don't want to go and change all of that in dataverse in backend. You can simply do it in the front end for parent ages and again to do that. We are going to head over to the portal management app and I'm, going to go to basic forms and I'm going to open up the basic form.

G

That represents the create form that you see that pops up so I'm going to click on edit and what I'm going to do is I'm going to add what we call basic form metadata and here's, where I can change that functionality so, instead of having it appear as a job lookup we're going to make it appearance of drop down.

G

So in here for the type I select attribute and in here, I select the control style as render lookup as drop down and then in the next field that you see down below is the attribute logical name. So this will now show me all of the fields that are added to that basic form. So if you don't see a field uninformed, it's because you haven't added it to your form. So that's another tip there for you!

G

So now, I'm going to select City and I'm gonna again hit, save and close, so we'll go back and clear locations, because I've created a new configuration record for the metadata for the basic form. So now, if I hit the refresh button and we'll repeat those steps, I click on create.

G

We can now see that the lookup is rendered as a drop down C. So just with a bunch of clicks, no code, I can get it looking as a drop down cool. So the next one that I'm going to go through is pre-populating a field. So in here um we've got an email address field and as the sign-in user it gets my profile account. I have been denied. So what if I want to pre-populate this field? Can I do that without code?

G

Yes, you can same thing, go to your portal management model, driven app and in your basic form for that form that you want to pre-populate data with. You want to create new uh metadata again, so I'm going to click on that new basic form, metadata, I'm, going to select attribute, and this time I'm going to select email address. So now, when I scroll down, we keep going.

G

There is a section here called pre-populate field, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to select um current portal user as a type and then in here it's going to show me all of the fields that are associated to the contact table and all I need to do is find that email address field. So, if I go and select um the email field and I hit, save and close and we'll repeat those steps, it'll clear the cache and then I'll refresh this.

G

I'll click on create.

G

There you go so a pre-populated, the email address field.

G

um What I'm going to do next is I'm going to show I'm going to hit submit because there's one other tip that I want to show that comes up very frequently with pair of pages FAQs, so I've created my application now, if I go back to the actual model driven app, that shows me the applications and, if I hit refresh you'll notice, that the content field is blank. So how do we go about that? Do the populating it well this time around, instead of creating your basic for metadata, then you can't do it.

G

It will work. What you want to do is head over to the additional settings. Tab and in here is where you're going to see several Fields, oh and removed interesting, and then we come across it before um anyways, Ricky skull town, we'll see a section called associate. Current total user on insert and in here is where you want to check this tick box and in the drop down field you want to select um the look up column that will reflect that sign-in user. So in my scenario, it is this contact, lookup, column field.

G

So now, if I hit, save and close.

G

And I'll clear the cache quiche. However, you want to say it and then I'll hit the refresh button, and so now, if I click on Create and if I now hit submit.

G

And I go back here.

G

It will now automatically populate that lookup field behind the scenes because of those changes that I made to the additional settings tab of the form, okay, so down to the last two tips, which is applying regex to a phone number field.

G

So again, um we could do this out of the box by creating metadata, so I'm going to go to the basic form, metadata form, I'll, click on, add new basic form, metadata, I'll, select attribute, and then, in this view of the attribute, logical name, I'll select the fault number field and if we scroll all the way down, there is an area where you can provide some validation, and in here is where you have the option to enter some regex I'm, just going to go ahead and copy one that I prepared with Notepad just where's my mouse.

G

So here we go so I'll just go and paste that in there and I'll explain it in a bit and then I could also provide a warning message as well. This is so that when a user tries to submit a phone number that doesn't meet what you've defined in here, it'll throw that message so I'll just paste it in there.

G

So, basically, what this regex is saying is that it needs to start with plus six four or zero and then the second lot of numbers need to either start with two or eight and then the digits need to be between 7 and 9, and the dollar character represents the end of the string value and then, with my validation message.

G

I can enter it here, so I'm going to hit, save and close and I'm going to go back to portals uh services and clear the case, your cache and then I'll go back to my para Pages site, I'll, refresh it and then I'll hit the create button.

G

uh So now, if I don't start with class six four, so let's say I start with five: six: seven, eight zero and I also don't eat the number of digits. If I try to hit submit it's going to show and throw that validation, error message and if I click on that, it's going to take me to the field. So this is, if I had a long list of fields on the web form if I click on this hyperlink it'll take me directly to the field.

G

So now, if I follow the format, that's been specified or just do. This I should now be able to submit, and it's allowed me to submit because I've conformed to the requirements or what I've defined and just another tip. If you don't know how to create regex Expressions I did a quick check to see you know what AI tools are available out there and so I found this. So if there's something that you're trying to validate- and you want to create it as a regular expression, um give this website a go, not sponsored at all.

G

I just tried it out myself and I put it into pair of pages, and it worked. So there you go um okay, so then the last tip that I want to talk about is help protects so helper text. I didn't know this by the way I really found out about this years ago, when I was looking into this helper text is the the um the bit of a text that appears on fields on websites or or web forms, and they help educate the end user.

G

What it is that they need to do with this field, so sticking with the phone number. um That's what I'm going to show you next so I'm going to go back to the basic, warm meditative field and I'll just edit this and then, if I, scroll down through the Section on here called description instructions.

G

So what you want to do is you want to change a description from node ES and in here it allows you to position the helper text, so you can either have it above the field below the field or above the label, so I'm going to have it as below the field, and in here you have the option to use the description that you've entered for the column or field in dataverse when you created that field in the first place, so I'll select. No because I want to customize it a little bit again.

G

This is not using any code. This is low code, so in here what I can do is I can let's say, add this piece of text so I'm just going to paste this into here and I'm, going to hit save and I'm going to clear the cache cache cash me outside. Does anyone know about that?

G

um Okay, so I'm going to hit create and, as you can see, we have that helper text appearing. um So that's pretty cool. That's done for that low code, so I'm going to show you a few more cool tips in case you don't know so this time, I'll change it to above the field. So what you could do is you could actually um include HTML tags. So what I need is, uh if I, just copy and paste this one here from a notepad in here I've got the hyperlink, HTML tag.

G

So what's going to happen now is when I hit save and when we go and view that updated configuration in the portal we're now going to see a hyperlink so that an end user could click on that. So this is typically used when you have something like terms and conditions, or you know, read the fine print here. This is something that you can do as well, and you have to text. Well, what wallet did it work?

G

Okay, we're turning my demo. So why does that not work? Okay, I'm, not sure, but normally it does. uh But what would happen is that it would show it uh and it would load. So then, if we go back here, um other things that you can do is change the color. So if I go ahead and just grab, this is paste it in here so in here, I can use some more HTML tags and here I'm defining what the color should be or the font.

G

This is if I want to use it outside of the CSS of the parapages site. I can also put in italics as well. So if I hit, save and we'll go and refresh the pair of pages site and I'll hit refresh and now, if I click and create, we should see it as green and in italics um yeah. So then, the other thing that you can do is you can also use hex colors as well.

G

So what I showed you earlier was that I just simply uh defined the color by its name, but if I used a hex color as well, that will work so I'll hit, save and close oops. Sorry I forgot to remove a character in there one. Second, let me just remove it.

G

And we refresh and I'll refresh my web page and then it should now appear as gray, which is so. Those are my low code. Totes I have one more slide that I'm just going to go back to um so here it is so one thing that you can do um if you want to.

G

You know, get up skilled and learn about pair of pages and something that's helped me greatly in terms of doing a refresher, because I've stepped away from work in the last few months because, as David said, I've had a baby so, and here is where you can find a link to Nicholas hayduk's para Pages training course, so Nicholas Hayek is and other Microsoft MVP based in Canada. He started with the actual company adx Studio portals. So he really knows what he's talking about.

G

If you don't want to do the training course, there are other materials that you can find online, such as YouTube or podcasts.

G

um If you guys are familiar with nickdomen and Ulrich, I won't pronounce her last day because I don't know how to pronounce it. I don't want to get it wrong. They both have a new podcast called I believe it's called the para platform boost podcast if I've got them that wrong. If next in the core I am sorry and if you want to connect with me, here's where you can find me I have my own YouTube channel and I also have a Blog.

G

um So thank you very much for having me in this month's Power, Platform, Community call and I hope you all enjoyed my Loco tips, and uh you can hear me correctly because I am talking very quietly right now, because when you want to you, don't want to wake a baby trust me. You do not want to wake a sleeping baby.

B

Absolutely thank you. Eliza I, I kind of was thinking like you need your own theme song now like it's 3am and my demo is awesome right. We get Matchbox 20 to to review that, for us, maybe I, don't know we can see I'll make a call. It's.

G

Funny that you mentioned Matchbox Twenty, because they actually are coming to New Zealand next year, awesome.

B

They are actually out here yet the Hollywood Bowl this week actually or next week, or something so yeah awesome. Well, thank you. I mean go, get some rest, you've earned it. If this is Eliza at 3am. Wow like uh you, must be even more amazing uh during regular during regular hours, so you've earned it. Please go get some sleep. Thank you for staying up and uh sharing or getting up early. Actually she didn't say we talked about this before I was like.

B

Please tell me, you're not staying up all night to come to this, so she got up early. So thank you. So thank you. uh Thank you. Arun. Thank you. Robin uh fantastic demos today really exciting stuff, a great broad spectrum of everything for us to see. uh Let's wrap this show up some resources for you. Now there was some talk about wanting to ask q a and all that in the in the chat we have. Our community call conversations ready for you, so please don't hesitate to reach out to our amazing presenters.

B

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B

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B

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B

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B

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B

So do yourself a favor go to AK dot, Ms, slash, Community, videos find all of the YouTube channels that are provided to you by us in the community and subscribe, and then you can also follow on Twitter at microsoft365 Dev or at m365pnp. uh The next call June 21st I will actually be in Ireland with April and Daniel, and a number of amazing other community contributors. So we will be having it live from Ireland. uh You can check it out at ak.ms, powerplatform Community call thank you, everyone for all the you bring to the community.

B

You are amazing and we would not be a community without your love and support. So thank you. Everyone have a great day and a wonderful rest of the week.

A