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Force Users to Refresh or Update Power Apps After Publishing a New Version

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Posted on by PA-12060353-0

Hi Everyone,

I have a Canvas App in Power Apps that is used by many users.

Whenever I make changes, save, and publish a new version of the app, some users continue using the older version because they do not manually refresh or reopen the app. As a result, they do not see the latest updates and fixes.

I would like to know:

1. Is there any way to force users to load the latest published version automatically?

2. Can Power Apps automatically refresh the app when a new version is published?

3. What are the best practices to ensure all users are always using the latest version of the app?

Currently, users often keep the app open for long periods and continue working on an older version without realizing that an update has been published.

Any suggestions or recommended approaches would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

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11manish 3,333 on at

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Unfortunately, Power Apps Canvas Apps do not provide a built-in way to force all active users to immediately switch to the latest published version.

When a user opens an app, that version is loaded into their browser or mobile session. If they keep the app open for hours or days, they can continue using that

version until they refresh, close, or reopen the app.

For your scenario, you can go with below workaround:

Store the current app version in a SharePoint list or Dataverse table.

Hard-code the version number in the app.

Compare the two when the app starts (and optionally every few minutes using a Timer).

Display a warning or block usage when users are on an outdated version.

Ask users to reopen the app to load the latest published version.

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WarrenBelz 155,838 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @PA-12060353-0,

I do exactly this on a number of my app. Firstly I have a seperate SharePoint (it can be anything) list called Parameters which I use for storing all sorts of counters and variables I use for a lot of apps. It contains a single record including a Number field called CurrentVersion1 (I have other similar fields for other apps) and this contains the current Version (eg currently 2.15).

I than have this OnStart of the app
Set( gblThisVersion, 2.15 ); With( {_CurrentVer: Value(First(Parameters).CurrentVersion1)}, Set( gblNotCurrent, gblThisVersion < _CurrentVer ) );

You can update the first Variable each time you change versions, but only need to manually update the CurrentVersion in Parameters only if you want to enforce version change. The second Variable returns either true or false - false if the Power Apps version is the same or greater than the Parameter figure or true if less than it.

I then have a HTML Text control on the landing screen with
"<h2><center><b><font color=red>You are not using the current version of this app</font></b></h2> Close the app and re-open, selecting <b>Refresh</b> from the topbar if this appears or clear your cache and re-open.</center>"

which has the Visible property of
gblNotCurrent

Anything else on the screen which I want hidden when this is displayed, I set the Visible to
!gblNotCurrent

So they cannot navigate off the screen - they must close and refresh the app.

I also have a Label on the screen with
"Ver: " & Text( gblThisVersion, "#.00" )

so the users can report what version the using and I also write this back to the data source, so I can see every day what versions everyone is using (I do not always enforce update).

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