Microsoft 365 Community Power Platform, 21 Jun 2023

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From YouTube: Microsoft Power Platform community call – June 2023

Description

Power Platform community call delivered on June 21st.

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

3 demos - Cracking the Code: Demystifying the Data Outputs in Power Automate, Dataverse security tips and tricks, and How to Prepare for Microsoft Power Platform Certifications.

Announced - Microsoft 365 Copilot will be additionally fueled by Power Platform Connectors!

This call was hosted by David Warner II (Microsoft) | @DavidWarnerII and recorded on June 21, 2023. Questions addressed in chat throughout the call.

Agenda items
00:00 – Intro
01:30 – Independent Publisher Connectors - Jocelyn Panchal (Microsoft) | @JocelynP_PM
02:56 – Latest Power Apps Samples – David Warner II (Microsoft) | @DavidWarnerII
04:36 – Power Platform Community Shows & Events - April Dunnam (Microsoft) | @aprildunnam & David Warner II (Microsoft) | @DavidWarnerII
05:48 – Together mode picture
06:28 – Demo - Cracking the Code: Demystifying the Data Outputs in Power Automate – Cat Schneider | @YerAWizardCat
13:15 – Demo - Dataverse security tips and tricks – Chris Huntingford | @ThatPlatformGuy
25:41 – Demo - How to Prepare for Microsoft Power Platform Certifications – Keith Atherton | @MrKeithAtherton
39:02 – 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 from the European Power Platform conference, this is the June Power Platform Community call. We are so excited live here in the room with you all and all around the world. Let's take a look at our agenda. We are going to take the latest updates on the Power Platform. Then we're going to look at some upcoming events in the community and we're going to attempt our group picture time together.

B

So get ready for that, and then we have three fantastic amazing All-Stars here in the room live and In Living Color Kat is going to talk about cracking the code demystifying the data, outputs and power automate, Chris huntingford is going to go over dataverse security tips and tricks and Keith Atherton is going to tell us how to prepare for the Microsoft Power Platform certifications. Now you may be thinking I want to be there. I want to be presenting on this call. You absolutely are welcome to do that. We invite everyone to present on this call.

B

All you got to do is request it. You go to AK dot, Ms, slash, Community, slash, request, slash demo, and you are welcome to present on this call. You just fill out the title in the description that you would like to talk about and we will get you scheduled up, no problemo and don't overthink this everybody don't think it has to be some cancer curing solution that you're showing it can be simple. It can be a tip or trick.

B

It can absolutely be something you're passionate about someone will find Value in it, and so will we so don't hesitate, and if you want a buddy, we got your back. All you got to do is let us know, and we will pair you up with someone to make sure that you are comfortable and confident so check it out at AK, dot, Ms, slash, Community, slash, request, slash demo.

B

Now, let's get to some news. First things up Jocelyn with connectors.

A

Hello, everybody. Thank you. So much for coming and I hope everybody at the epbc is having a great time. The biggest news that we have in the world of Power Platform connectors is no longer just that we are over a thousand, but last month at Bill's we were actually able to announce that M365 co-pilot will now be fueled additionally by Power Platform connectors, so Power Platform connectors will be powering other scenarios across Microsoft, aside from just that within the Power Platform.

A

We're super excited to move forward with this there's still lots of work to be done on how to enable these scenarios, but we're looking forward on having all of those 1000 plus connectors being able to power other aspects of Microsoft products across the overall ecosystem, which is now still Azure logic, apps power, automate and powerapps. We are at 1048 total certified connectors with even more independent Publishers connectors made by community members, like you, then ones made by Microsoft as first party.

A

If you love connectors, a lot, just like me, feel free to scan that QR code to join our connector specific Labs call, which is once a month. The second Wednesday of every month and links will be in the chat for you to figure out how to get get started in your connector Journey. Thank you. Everyone.

B

Awesome, thank you. Josh now, we'll have all the other links that you typically get in. The chat by me. I will put those in at the end of the call dealing with a solo screen today, so I'm in pain, so uh just hold on tight for those and we'll make sure that you have them all all right. Let's talk about some Power Platform samples. There are a plethora of samples, and that means a lot right Hugo.

B

He says yes, that means that you can take advantage of all these samples and you can contribute to these samples. So all you got to do is go to AK dot, Ms, slash, powerplatform Dash samples to check them out, use them, contribute to them and enjoy them, and there's one more new area that we have for samples and that's the Power Platform prompts so AI has become the biggest thing. I don't know. Have you all heard of AI anybody here.

C

D

B

Nobody AI nobody, okay! Well in case you haven't heard of it. There is an opportunity here for you to contribute to and use these Power Platform prompts April is hosting or leading this along with Daniel laskowitz, so take advantage for AI Builder powerapps, automate virtual agents, there's more to come in this repo, it's very exciting, reach out to get more involved now, once you have have contributed to this community, we want to recognize this recognition program is here to recognize all the amazing work that you're doing in the community.

B

This is a program powered by credly yep, the same credly where you get those badges or used to get those badges for certifications. We absolutely want to recognize the work that you're doing and we're continuing to provide these badges. We are, in fact, upping the number of Badges and the opportunities. So definitely if you haven't registered and opted in yet please do that.

B

Go to AKA dot, Ms, slash Community recognition, and we will absolutely ensure that we're tracking all the amazing work that you're doing and ensure that you are recognized for with these badges we're going to be upping. There's going to be a hackathon coming up that April is leading we're gonna do some badges for that, so don't hesitate to get involved, definitely go sign up. Opt-In only need to do it once and we'll make sure you're well taken care of all right.

B

Now there are some shows and events and April just came in the room so uh getting ready to sip some coffee. Would you like to talk about your low code, Revolution she's? Coming close, you see her.

E

Walking up so I could talk yeah, so we had the low-cut Revolution show where we share customer stories and all that great stuff and about how you've been revolutionizing with low code. So if you want to join, you can go to that link. There aka.ms4 low code, Revolution guests, we'd love to have you on the show and you can check it out at aka.msport glow code. Revolution show thank.

B

You and I just told them about the prompts.

E

Too, is there anything special you.

B

Want to add in there.

E

uh No just check it out. We have a new landing page for that, so we just launched for it, so you can better browse them, so just give it a check out and then we'd love to see your samples and your contributions on that.

B

Awesome and lots more to come there. Everybody so definitely get involved all right. We also have educon coming up so DC just finished. uh We've got Seattle coming up in August and Chicago in October through November, so definitely check that out and we've got a lot of other events coming up. We are currently at European Power Platform conference, as you can see, comms versus Dynamic 365 boot camp collab days, Microsoft, Community Days, all available to you to attend so definitely take advantage of all these amazing events that are spinning back up all right.

B

It's time for picture time, so get those fantastic cameras on and let me go over to together mode there we go all right. It is showing up here in the tree, all right, everybody, let's wave to the camera, literally know how awesome you are looking fantastic awesome, it's a little pixelated, but we're protecting your uh faces, making sure that no one knows who you are for your protection, all right conference Wi-Fi. So let's get this back over here all right. So it is time, then, for us to get into our amazing demos of the day.

B

So first up is cat Schneider on cracking the code demystifying the data outputs in power automate so.

C

All right so hello, everybody.

D

C

I am cat Schneider, so Power Platform, Enthusiast, self-taught coder programmer developer Scientist by Nature I'm, just naturally curious. It happened to be a native-ish Floridian, there's like six months, sometimes towards the beginning. We're we're not. We don't have time, but that's it, um but I am now a career. Switcher I was in business units in government for about 15 years. I am now Power, Platform developer, so I've done the whole career switch situation because of Power Platform, um but most recently um Microsoft business, apps MVP. As of this month,.

C

I love making the impossible possible or what other people think is impossible to be a possibility so um jumping into Power automate outputs, so actions within power automate. They output data in a whole variety of ways, and usually this is going to be in Json and it's Json, not Json in case anybody was wondering, but you've got strings. You have integers Boolean values, dates date times and grids, GUI IDs.

C

However, you want to pronounce that, um but what they really truly mostly come out as are arrays in arrays of objects, so various action, outputs, I've done power, automate flows that send HTTP HTTP requests to SharePoint, there's a whole lot. There I've done it for power apps for admins to get apps as an admin and there's a whole lot in there, but it's Json and it's everywhere.

C

So the reason for my presentation or the little bit of background about this presentation is someone in the community, another good friend of mine. She had a bookings request that would come in and she was trying to get custom question responses back out of it. So this right here is just a compose action that took that trigger body and and dropped it in there. But we're going to focus on this bit here, which was getting the output values. So her problem was she needed both of the custom question answers that were included in here.

C

Those responses were stored, an array of objects and she tried creating a variable then using a for each action and then setting that variable to these answers, values which just over wrote the value from before so Lucian was use a compose action to generate new Json.

C

So we've got this compose action here. It's creating a new Json object, that's got a company value and an employee ID value, and it's getting that information out based on this bit here, so we've got trigger outputs, we've got questions, answers which option and then the answer. So what all does this mean?

C

So the trigger outputs? It's getting everything from the output of the trigger.

A

C

Then there's this question mark- and this took me the longest time to figure out, but the question mark just means if it exists, so if it exists, I want to get from the body object.

C

The get custom question answers, object and then I wanted to get the individual pieces out of the array and when it's an array, you have to pick that specific object from the array using the index. So the first object always starts at position zero and then moves up from there and then I needed the answer field that that was the key that I needed to get. So all that being said, you stick that in this compose action and now I've got a Json object with a company value and an employee ID value.

C

So you take away from this question mark super helpful, but it's not necessary if the object always exists. So this here that I'm showing is the exact same as this is just taking that question mark out. If it's always going to be there question mark it's not needed, but if there's a slight chance or possibility that the object is not going to be there. Do yourself a favor and put the question mark in there.

C

The forward slash it's a helpful shortcut when accessing an object within another object.

C

This is the same thing you just take out that slash, but you put that slash in there and now you don't need an extra four or five characters, but all key names they have to be within that single set of quotes within the within those square brackets and then selecting an object with an array. It requires you to use the index. You cannot do the forward, slash this or the forward, slash that when it's an array, you've got to select it with an index and then just fun.

C

Facts, I, use, parse, Json or compose action to get the the outputs of any actions that I'm trying to work through so I'll, throw in a parse Json I'll, throw in a compose um to get that out, run the flow and see what it returns.

C

But the parse Json like with this one here, I put in the body from the bookings app and then to get around the requirement for the schema I put in two curly braces and that's that's all that's needed to get that requirement fulfilled, run the action and I can get the whole thing to come out copy paste that back into the parse Json later for the generate from sample, and it works. It just works.

C

So if you're still lost from here, though, fear not because you can get me out on the interwebs. So that is my presentation.

E

B

So the Sun never sets on Jay's son right, sun, no sun, no sun, I.

A

B

That's okay, I got credit yeah yeah. All right next up is the one and only Chris hunting for it. So he's gonna take over the. uh Are you gonna? Oh yeah, yeah. We gotta make you presenter. Let.

D

Me move this over, so we're gonna do some stuff in dataverse today now um I'm aware some of you might or might not know what this is, but I'll get you through. It.

A

Very shortly, right.

D

No, but this is a real database.

A

D

Yeah so my name's Chris um I'm part of the load code team at a company called ANS, also I just wanted to have more badges than everyone else so like that sort of dirt, I have a badger badge as well, literally means nothing anyway. So just a quick one. You can read all of the stuff up on the Microsoft security side so on the database uh Pages, it's all there, except for the hackie, but at the end, I'm going to show you and probably get into trouble for it yeah.

D

So just keep me honest inside you'll get it. Thank you, sir Okie dokes. So um I worked with this company, probably around a year ago and they're about 75 000 people in the business, and they have a lot of environments. I was like oh man. This is this is insane like. How do we manage all the people accessing this stuff and they said Chris. What we want to do is we have about I, don't know 40 50 countries where people are coming from at the time database.

D

Sorry, the maker experience didn't have an environment filter which was not great. So when you log on as a maker, you get um assaulted with what I would kind of call this experience. Yeah now imagine you have 75 000 people accessing the maker experience, so this is where this all stemmed from okay, so anywho we were like okay. Well, how do we do this? How do we? How do we control where people make stuff and if you know, governance and Power Platform, there are only three questions you ever need to ask: who is making stuff?

D

Where are they making stuff and what are they making? If you can answer those three questions, congratulations, you've done governance rights, Okay, so first things first, is um we found this really cool piece of functionality? Called groups teams brought from you brought you from the same people that made teams teams right and groups teams is actually a really cool set of security that you can use in low code to do some stuff.

D

The second thing we did was we built our own custom environment pickup, because the maker experience wasn't cutting the mustard for us I'm, going to show you how to do this today. So first things. First, if you understand that the the kind of security layers in Power Platform, it is not limited to five there's lots of stuff that happens in between, but these are kind of like the five core things. One of the key things that I always look at is well.

D

Do I need dataverse or not, and the answer is you always need database and I'll? Tell you why? Because first of all, it is not just a database, it is a governance tool that gives you lots of really good stuff in an environment to do managements of the way in people into sorry the way in which people interact with the environment, okay, so how's that called their divorce instead of us work.

D

If I don't have database I, don't get Alm I, don't get all that good stuff, but also I don't get to control as much of the people who are accessing things new or not. This brings me to a slight quandary right, we're looking at the dataverse layers. We know there's a lot of really good stuff in there right. We can all agree that you've got Alm. You've got the ability to store data, but also you've got the ability to again deeply control security Okay.

D

So all good and well, why do I have a picture of a waterfall? Let me explain it's actually quite simple: when people ask me how to how their diverse security works, it is really around. You know it looks a bit like a waterfall to me and did you know whenever you create a database environment? Two things happen. The first thing is you get an organizational business unit and that is the thing: the umbrella of the whole business units, and then you get given a bunch of users.

D

You can either do the security at the environment level, using a security group as a call or you can leave it completely, have everyone in the environments and then control how they access things through user roles. Everyone happy with that. So MSU really wants to assign user roles one by one to a user which is a pain in the ass. You have to use something called groups teams or the xrm toolbox, plug-in hat that works pretty well as well. So the way I see it is that it is kind of like standing on a waterfall.

D

The people at the top can see everything down. The people in the bottom can see straight to that, but they can't see up and you can control the way in which they interact with data. This model has been in database for years and years since I've been around for Syria in version three. So obviously, when Microsoft Pride dataverse out of the cold dry hands of the Dynamics Team uh yeah, we got this now.

D

The other cool thing is: you can build your database structures out from a security perspective using these business units and every time you make a business unit you get given a team. This is important. The team is effectively the mechanism to house the users and the business units, the umbrella that creates the invisible walls between the data. What's also cool is you can have sub business units as well now in tools like Dynamics.

D

This is really useful, especially when you're dealing with things like sales and customer service, because it gets big right and, if you're dealing with a global organization, you have to segregate my country by region, and you can do this using the business units.

D

I mean there's this thing called teams inside database and it basically hacks through the whole thing right, so you can just like whack a team and file through the whole thing and be able to interact with data across these different business units.

D

This solves a lot of problems in places like Banks right or we have organizations with large sales regions or people and kind of silos. There's always a use case for firing through their data layer. I promise I'll get to the point of why this environment picker thing came up, so we're like okay, so number one did we make one giant environment and do we say, okay, everyone put all your data in there and then we'll just segregate through business units. Or do we create lots of environments and use the localized data structures in that way?

D

And that's what we did? We had localized environments. We didn't just Hammer everything into one dataverse environment. If you do that, you will create a massive data overhead for yourselves Okay. So a couple other things that came up there are three core roles in dataverse that you need to care about, those the only three, the rest of it.

D

I kind of just bolts onto the side, and the three rolls are your environment maker role, your system, customize, the role and your system, admin role, and the whole idea is that environment maker is supposed to give makers the ability to make applications but not straddle the database, whereas the customizer all bolts onto the bottom of the make role to give you dataverse access, and then you have the system. Admin which is kind of most people in the room would be my guess.

D

So when you look at the roles, it starts getting really interesting. So the first thing is a couple of gotchas defaults environments. Every user in the defaults environment is in your business, has got an environment maker and a basic user. When you actually open up those roles, the basic user has more rights to dataverse than the environment maker right sort of explain that one.

D

So if your entire default environments has got a database which it likely will have because somebody is a running approval flow or you know, file that database up in there, you've got a problem because that basically means your basic users are accessing this data structure. Anyway, that's just the Bible.

D

So how does this all work? Well, let me give you a quick peek effectively inside database. You can pop into your Power Platform admin sensor. Select your environments and you've got all your goodies over here. Okay, I'm not going to go through all of them. Alternatively, straightforward, so users be users, users are either added one by one or two ad groups. Okay, the next thing is you've got your business unit structure and users belong in business units. We can all agree that right and the third thing is you've got teams.

D

Now teams is where I'm really going with this, because business units are cool, but they complicate the hell out of things. So did you know you can create a thing called a groups team where you can actually connect to an Azure ID group assign that group's team security roles and users they're not added to their groups, team or removed to their group's team from ad? It's a very, very, very cool feature so effectively.

D

All that you're really doing is, if I say, um create a team I'm going to give it a name whatever it doesn't matter the business unit. You can select from your set of business units, so you can have an entire data structure linking up to AED security groups and controlling the groups through aad, rather than directly a dataverse praise the Lord right. So you don't have to worry. You don't have to have the Power Platform admin doing it.

D

You can actually have somebody, that's an Azure admin, doing it so I'm just going to pick a random one. uh Edmund I'm, just gonna, make me of course, oops.

D

There we are, and the team type you've got your aad security group, so all I do is pop it in there select governance, because I've got an AED group of governance and we're bam. What I'll, then do is I'll select my security role. Now this is where it starts getting super weird. Did you know that of those three security roles? There are sorry there are only three security roles that allow users to go to make.powerapps.com and actually see the environments. You cannot see environments if you have a custom role, it will not work.

D

You can only use environment maker system, customized and system admin. Yes, next thing who controls the security rules? None of you all do Microsoft do and what happens if you change the security role, that change will not persist. If Microsoft make an update against that role, it will likely break so what now we have a problem, because if Microsoft control, all the security rules and control ECS make the powerapps.com as admins you, we have a bit of an issue, so I found a way around it, of course. So what we did was we said.

D

Okay, that's fine. We've got, uh we've got groups teams just by the way to let you know, groups. Teams is a real thing. He has the security page with it on c groups. Teams right it actually is a real thing and they named it that anyway, that's what I did was I thought. Okay, I have a bunch of users looking to access, make.powerapps.com they're, probably not going to go to the maker experience.

D

What's the best way to do it, so we make a custom roll called Chris environment maker, and we save it now, here's the thing they can't go to the maker experience to see that custom role and because they can't they have the custom role that I'm controlling that will persist with updates. How do we, how do they get access to make.powerapps.com?

D

This is where the interesting book comes in. We decided that using groups teams, we would have a massive control sensor in Azure, making sure that those users behave themselves, and then we thought. Actually you know what, if you go into the center of excellence, starter kit and you look in that model driven app.

D

What can you get you get the environment URL interesting, so we made a custom environment, pickup I'm, going to show you a very bad version of this today, all right and all we did, as we said, okie dokes, here's a uh SharePoint list and, uh and you can actually see I've got Dave testing live with the environment URL. You can obviously obfuscate that if you really want to users, never have to see that it's really easy to do, and you can do your three screening create an app right bam.

D

It's going to give it a random name cool and uh what will happen I'm going to do what they do in those baking shows. You know when they put a chip duck. They marinate a chicken put it in the oven in one second to take it out. Yeah watch this boom right there. It is so this is a custom environment pickup.

D

You can see that it's sorting my country, the empty um this one's for you buddy there we go. I fought to buy my country for Finland I, just fire it up and launch the environment done deal. I never have to go to make the powerapps.com to select an environment again. I can use my custom picker and that works super.

D

Well, obviously, you can make it a lot more sexy and hopefully we'll have a couple more filters on here and what I've done is I was actually looking at the users region because an Azure active directory you can use the connector look at where they're coming from and you can filter the environments pre-even before they've logged in so they literally never have to go here, and that folks is the gloriousness of groups, teams and custom environment Pickers.

D

Now the one thing to hear just as a heads up, if you take the approach, just be careful, you have you risk business unit Armageddon and you also risk Azure ad group Armageddon. Okay, it's a great way managing people in the business, but also it's going to happen anywhere right. People are going to be accessing either directly through dataverse, so you can control the role there or why not just put it on the backs of our Azure, for instance, to manage in um aad so that that's that folks, I hope that was fun.

D

uh Thank you very much and everybody.

B

All right, thank you. Chris give us just a minute to reset the stage everybody and we will call Keith up all right. Let's invite and give a warm welcome to Keith Atherton on how to prepare for Microsoft.

E

Power Platform, certifications.

F

Okay, thanks Chris thanks Kat for great presentations. That's going to be a tough one to follow um so yeah. My name is Keith hoverton I've been a developer for over 20 years. um Also recently announced there's an MVP uh yeah.

F

And also Power Platform Community, super user.

F

And I get up to uh or the shenanigans as well.

F

But today we'll go through some tips and tricks on Power Platform certifications, just a few things that I've picked up along the way that I'd like to share with everyone. So first up what are certifications.

F

So when we see all these cool, blue badges, the current certifications are role based. So if you want to be an App Maker, a solution, solution, architect or whatever the role may be, it's designed around that, rather than the products themselves that that you use.

F

But when you do see the cool blue, badges, we've got some there at the top right. So with the fundamentals. This is more of a good starting point about understanding the concepts and they don't expire with, associate and expert level. These are a bit more Hands-On. They do have a one-year expiry and we'll cover renewals in a moment as well and there's some specialty ones as well. So Niche things like Cosmos, DB and many other things as well. You can actually drill down to quite a specific level with those and talking of cool badges.

F

You come to the right place, because this community recognition program also has its own cool badges that you can earn. So if you're, a Blog author or you get involved with, sharing, is caring, which is super awesome and there's going to be dates coming up for that I know or your community co-presenter like we're doing right now, there are badges available, I should say as well with all these links as well. No need to make notes because we'll be sharing the links after the session.

F

So when I started with certifications, I must admit. I was a bit overwhelmed because there's a big choice, I didn't really know where to begin I didn't know many people who'd taken them either, but one thing that was really useful was the certifications chart. So we can see all of the the platforms there. We've got Power Platform, of course, as well as Dynamics Azure and the other ones there and on the right hand, side.

F

We've got the zoom in of the Power Platform ones available, so we do have the fundamentals and then there's five Associates and one expert level at the moment. Another thing that works well as a companion with this is the training and certification guide as well. So if you're aiming for a certain role, you know dealing with Solutions, you know architecting them or just getting started. This does give you a bit of a road map and Direction Where to go with them now, everyone's reasons for taking certifications will be personal to them.

F

This is a good article on Microsoft, learn with some statistics. You know improving your skills or getting that next job. Perhaps but everyone's got their own reasons for doing this. For me, initially it was to get a role. Was it actually going to be using these skills? I didn't just want to learn for the sake of it now to get the certification, it might be one or more exams, and when you go ahead and book these you've got two options. You can either take them at a test center, which is my preferred option.

F

It just gets me in the exam mode when I'm there, but you can take it at home as well as an online proctored exam. So there's a couple of options: whatever works best for you, the time you get for an exam can vary depends. Is it fundamental as a social expert? It's Labs involved as well. You might have some performance-based testing where you do some labs and you get a bit extra time at the seat as well for reading the NDA at the store, leaving feedback on questions at the end.

F

If you need to do that too, so, when you do take an exam, you get your results pretty quickly. In my experience, you do get your results there.

F

All the technical exams have got a thousand points and you do need to get 700 or more to pass and the useful thing is you get a bit of a rough breakdown of the different skills measures they're looking for so, if you let's say unfortunately did fail it you know, maybe where the weaker areas are that you can then focus on for your retake if you're lucky enough to pass an exam and get a certificate, you do get an email with instructions on how to get that badge and at the moment, but not for much longer.

F

You can share it on the credly platform as well. So this is where you can put it there share it on social media and I should say as well that this Microsoft certification partnership with credly is ending this month. So after the end of this month, they won't be going up there anymore, Benny, badges that you currently have. There will stay up there for a period of time, but also the community recognition program will keep posting badges up to the credly platform going forward, don't pass the exam.

F

You know what it's not the end of the world. You can just go ahead. Do a bit more study again focus on the areas that you need to do a retake book, the exam again.

F

So when you do have something that needs renewed again, the associate level upwards as well um renewal. These days is a bit more straightforward. You can do it for free online at home. uh It was a bit different. Previously, you had to take the full exam all over again get another two years: uh validation on that certification, but these days it's a bit more straightforward. It's a lot shorter assessment to do as well, and you can take it up to six months before the expiry date.

F

Okay, next up, let's look at some learning resources and number one for me is always Microsoft learn. This has sort of improved a lot in the last few years, really tailored quite closely to the exams themselves and it's broken down into various modules and you get trophies and badges and things like that and it's free and it's just super awesome and included on there as well. We've got some skills measured. So this is what they'll be looking for in the exam, so these bullet points we've got right here is for the Power Platform fundamentals.

F

You've got a breakdown of the percentage that they make up with the exam, but when you go on the skills measure, there's a bit more detail of what they're looking for as well. You know the kind of things they'll be asking for in the exam, so it's really useful.

F

Another great option is Microsoft virtual training days. These are webinars. You can book the date and time for the ones available and actually see like a pre-recorded video by an expert trainer and if you're new to exams as well. The exam box is really useful. This will show you the UI that you're actually see in the exam as well. So it's useful if you've never done one before you just want to be familiar with.

F

You know what the progress bar looks like you know, the kind of the build lists and multiple choice, kind of options that you get another fairly recent option is uh exam reading a stone. These are plenty of videos on exams in general, as well as exams, specifically as well, and it keeps getting added to as well.

F

The other thing is some example: exam sample questions, so this is typically 20. Multiple choice, questions. uh They give you some options. They show you the correct one, but also links we can learn more about them as well. So it's almost kind of like a like a free short practice test before you take a final thing along the similar lines as well is practice assessments. uh Power Platform has got plenty available now they keep adding to these, and this is where you take it throughout the UI. You submit your answer.

F

It tells you, if you're, correct or not and again, there's a link to where you can. You can go and learn more if you need to.

F

So there's also plenty of learning material online YouTube's got a lot of great uh material out there. Some really good instructors um books, there's plenty of books, uh I, would say with books and anything else as well, just bear in mind how to date, the material is. You know if your exam has been updated three months ago, but you're studying from a book that was published five years ago. It's worth considering help to date that information is udemy's got plenty of Great Courses. uh You tend to pay per course.

F

You keep it for the lifetime and pluralsights got some really good options as well and uh Pro tip, as well with the premium options. Some of them have got exam prep courses with practice tests. So if that's why you're on pluralsight, it may be worth the extra money in learning. It's got some Great Courses too. uh Full disclosure I'm a LinkedIn learning instructor myself, but I was a fan and a subscriber for years before becoming an instructor with them as well. They've got some Great Courses.

F

If you work in partner land like I, do Microsoft partner. University is another great set of videos tailored per the exams. Again yours may be available, could be really useful and maybe a bit more uh high cost option is going with a Learning Partner, which is typically a third-party training organization. They'll have an instructor on hand, so you can ask questions. You can draw a bit deeper into areas if you need to depends on your budget or your your company's budget Microsoft also have official practice tests themselves.

F

So there's plenty of options there, they're all unofficial practice tests available, uh they may vary in quality. I will say: let's apply this way. I can put that one.

F

F

And what we'll do is we'll look briefly at some discounts again. I know this is going to be a bit of a speed run, but we can share the links afterwards. So there's things like 30 days to learn it where you can take a challenge of going through some Microsoft learn modules, and if you do it within 30 days, you can get 50 exam voucher. The Microsoft build Cloud skills challenge which unfortunately, has just ended, but it seems to come around quite often again.

F

You get several challenges available in this case, if you complete all the modules by the deadline, you do get a free exam, voucher and also worth checking with your employer. You know: do they provide support like money towards online training towards the exam costs? uh Many of us are quite busy, so it could be the the time during work hours to study or, if you're on the bench um as well, so bear in mind.

F

If you put the case together, there are benefits for your employer, they might be working towards becoming a Microsoft partner or they just want trained, enthusiastic employees who knows we'll finish up with some study tips very briefly, and first up is managing exam stress. It's Perfectly Normal affects everyone differently, but, looking after your mental health and well-being is critical, so you know there's plenty of support out there plenty of people. You can speak to plenty of guidance online as well.

F

So it's it's worth putting that first I would say: we've gone through ways of preparing, so there's lots of ways we can study, but also you can spin up a free, Dev environment. You could go and have a play with some of these features. You know get yourself as prepared as you need to for the exam, and if you are prepared, then be confident right. You know maybe not overconfident.

B

F

You know if you've done all you can you're ready for this exam. Then don't doubt yourself just go for it. Another thing is reading the question properly. uh Yeah I don't find any of these exams tricksy in any way, but it may be worded as you know, what service would you not use in this example? So it's worth just taking the time, don't feel rushed and talking of not feeling rushed as well use all the available time.

F

uh You know in some cases you can go back and review questions so if you've got some time at the end, and you can do that and you feel that's worthwhile. It's worth considering um also don't skip any questions. You don't get penalized for any wrong answers, so your best chance of success is to answer everything, even if it's an educated guess and finally, one that works well.

F

For me, it's different for everyone is when I see the question, I, try and think of the answer before I see the options, otherwise I might get a bit biased. So hypothetically, if I was asked Hugo used to have a different job. What was it now? I know something about food or some I, don't know something rings. A bell I.

B

Know I know, do you know, do.

F

You know well, let's see the options then so did Hugo used to be a stunt. Man.

B

He's still a star man.

F

Okay, yeah did Hugo used to be a movie star, I.

A

Could see that yeah I mean it's.

F

Possible uh did Hugo used to be a chef.

F

Okay right or an American football player, you know I, think it's chef and if you did too you'd be correct.

F

So again, a bit of a speed run so hit me up on LinkedIn or Twitter always happy to help if you've got any questions at all. But apart from that, thank you for your time.

B

All right, everybody that was fantastic, so lots information there again. uh If you did not get all those links, we will absolutely add them to the chat. Don't worry about that after the call, uh but let's wrap this call up. So there are some resources. If you would like to have continued conversations with all of our presenters today we have a dedicated page for each of them on the powerapps Forum site, so utilizing these URLs and or the QR codes you can go. Let them know any questions. You've got.

B

Let them know how awesome they did just tell them. They're fantastic.

D

All right, yeah.

B

Everybody's fantastic, so thank you. There are lots more resources. You can join the community. You can check out the video samples communities for power, apps, Power, Platform power, automate power, Pages power, virtual agents, all the power all the time, all available, 24 7.. Now the community calls are still up and running for all of our other platforms. We've got the Microsoft 365 and Power Platform weekly. That is going on a summer break the last one is next Tuesday, but that is only Microsoft speaker.

B

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B

Power, Platform Community calls thanks everybody for joining today and thank you all for being in the room.

E