Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

All,

We are in the process of Migrating to M365 and starting to Train on Power Query, Power Automate, and Power Bi.

I am including the below, long winded information, as our environment will play a part I believe in the answer/discussion. Also as a throwing Mud on the wall approach as we are new to this technology.

We are a small development group (3 - 2 Microsoft/1 IBM) that is very thin as we we support 7 Factories consisting close to 1500 users. There are two network Admins and respective managers. Our environment is in a constant flux the company has had 2 separate buyouts in the past 7 years. It was prior a International Company. now its much more Global. Upgrading is always occurring now. I came into this environment 2 years ago. - Thanks Covid.

With that out of the way we typically use GitHub for our version control (brought in by myself) - nothing was in place prior. Typically VB.Net (WinForms), ASP.Net, and legacy MSSQL Scripts are stored on GitHub. There are a unknown number of applications but of course big hitters but the number of apps are large. New apps are discovered every so often even by people who have been at the office for over 20 years. There may be RPG support files out there as there is a IBM ISeries machine at the corporate office running many RPG. The company IBM legacy code I believe goes back 40+ years while the machine is 3-4 years old I am told.

We have created two Power Query (Excel) files that are going to be used 1) Complete two Month End business requirements, 2) As examples for our Customers (departments) to use later, and 3) possibly to help direct this organization plans on Power Platform.

I have some Azure DevOps/Power Bi experience in a much more modern environment but that was prior to Covid. Also it was mostly in Power BI. I have 25 years Development experience and am Microsoft Alumni (7 years). I have seen some differences between my prior employment and now utilizing this technology.

As we do not have Azure Databases, or a Azure environment at this time we are utilizing the Desktop versions of Power Apps. Currently the Databases in place, which there are 7 Servers, are MSSQL 2008 R2 with 2 now at 2012. There is some discussion on upgrades but the networks needs to be addressed (think rural factories). Also there are SAP implementations in route at one of the plants.

Other things we utilize daily, Teams, Click Once Deployment, Visual Studio 2019 (Microsoft Developers(2))

With all that said, (sorry I know its long winded.)

What are the best practices to use for Version Control with Power Apps (Power Query) and how are others managing their deployments?

Thanks in advance,

Chris

Categories:

Power Apps Pro Dev & ISV

All.

As I have not had many responses on this thread and the current discussion at the office is the following;

The Release is considered the Gold version.

We are going to store the Gold copy out in Source Control (GitHub) under a specific repository describing its a Power App and the Department. For example PowerApps_Accounting could be a contender. Then this Gold Copy will be committed to the repository.

Then the file, at this point its a Excel file (Power Query), will be copied out to the a Locked Down (i.e. Accounting Role) Shared Folder. From there the users will pull the file down locally to their machine by the Save As menu item.

With this approach we will at least be able to version Control the file (different copies). Protect the original from the user base.

While its simplistic it does the basic needs necessary, I was curious if there are other options?

Thanks,

Chris