Earlier, we published a blog that is explaining how Microsoft business applications team is publishing the release plans using a Power Platform. Based on various customers' requests, we have templatized the release planner app that can be used for your organizational application rollouts.
| Component | Filename | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CSS | UploadImageTool.css | CSS file for the Upload Image Tool. |
| Plugin Project | ReleasePlannerPlugins.zip | Visual Studio Project files to create Release plan History records. |
| Solutions/Managed | ReleasePlanner_1_0_0_0_managed.zip | A managed solution file that contains all release plan components such as client extensions, custom control, entity, flows help page, option set, process, security role, and web resource (JS files, entity icons). |
| Solutions/Un Managed | ReleasePlanner_1_0_0_0.zip | An Unmanaged solution file that contains all release plan components such as client extensions, custom control, entity, flows help page, option set, process, security role, and web resource (JS files, entity icons). |
| Template | HTML.htm | Template file used for creating release plan Word document. |
| Index | index.ts | Used in the Custom Image upload control solution. |
The following apps must be available :
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Dynamics 365 apps such as Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Marketing, Dynamics 365 Field Service, and Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation.
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A service account that has admin access in Dynamics 365 and SharePoint applications.
This article is intended for the users with System administrator privileges to the following apps
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Dynamics 365 apps such as Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Marketing, Dynamics 365 Field Service, and Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation.
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Power Apps
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Power Automate
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SharePoint Contributor privilege to create/read documents.
Directly download all assets.
Follow the deployment instructions to install the solution and configure the Flows.
The following are the list of entities available in the solution. The detailed documentation for each entity's attributes is available as a Guided help within the solution. Follow the instructions in the link to enable guided help in your environment to see the detail documentation
The solution contains 5 flows.
This flow sends email alerts to the Reviewer to review the release plans that are created/updated by the author. The release plans that are set as “Reviewed?” to No will be included for review. The flow includes the following checks:
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Pending Application Overview reviews (Reviewed ? is No)
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Pending Application Area reviews (Reviewed? is No)
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Pending Release plan reviews (Reviewed? is No)
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Images that are added in the last 24 hours
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Release Plans that are in shipped status with no documentation link
This flow is useful to generate a Word document that includes all the release plans for a specific wave and a specific product. The Word document will help the leadership team to review all the plans offline.
The "Generate Document" menu triggers this flow on the Release Wave entity form. The flow produces a .doc file with information about the selected applications and saves the file to a SharePoint folder. Once the file has been saved, the flow sends an email with a link to the file.
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Open the update form for the Release Wave you are interested in.
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Select the “Generate Document” tab.
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In “Release Plan Applications” sub-grid select the applications, details of which must be included in the .doc file.
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Select “Generate Document” and then select one of the two options:
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“All Features”: the generated .doc file will include details about all features associated with the selected applications. If no application is selected, the document will include all the active applications in the system.
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“Features Ready to Disclose”: the generated .doc file will include details only about features which have “Include in Release Plan” field set to “Yes”.
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Once the .doc file has been generated and saved to a SharePoint folder, you will receive an email with a link to the file.
This flow is called by the “Generate Release Plans Word document” flow to retrieve criteria, with which Release Plans will be filtered.
“Get filter criteria to fetch specific Release Plan records” flow allows you to apply custom filter criteria when needed.
Updates Application Overview name if the application name gets changed. Sets the overview name in the format "Overview of <app name>". Triggers when Application field of Application Overview entity is created, updated, or deleted.
Updates Application Overview name if another application is selected for the overview. Triggers when the application record is created, updated or deleted.
If Public Preview Release Status is N/A, the Public Preview Date field must be locked.
If GA Release Status is N/A, the GA Date field must be locked.
Additional field validations are performed for status/date fields on Release Plan form to match the expected behavior:
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Dates must be not less than today with Planned status
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Dates must be not greater than today with the Shipped status
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N/A status locks GA – Release date field
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At least one of specified dates must be within the related Release Wave timeline (otherwise Include in Release Plan also gets locked)
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Public preview date must be less than GA date
These rules are processed by msft_releaseplan.js script. The script is available under the "Web Resources" tab in the solution window. All triggered functions are associated with corresponding events which can be changed in form editor (Solution > Entities > Release Plan > Forms > Reviewer/Contributor form > Form Properties):
The image upload control will help the user to upload the image from the local device to the app. The image is stored in the "release planner attachment" entity's note entity.
Apart from default PCF files, it contains “index.ts” for processing the data and UploadImageTool.css for component styling. ControlManifest.Input.xml contains PCF name, version, and other info plus all parameters visible after selecting it in the form editor. These can be used to adjust the size of the control components.
The form containing custom control:
Each Release Plan may contain multiple attachments that contain the data about the image uploaded via the Image Upload tool (filename, description, etc.). In turn, each Release Plan Attachment is related to one of the Annotations (Notes) entities provided out of the box, where the image in base64 format is stored. All uploaded files can also be found by navigating to Related > Release Plan Attachments on Release Plan form.
The following security roles are available in the solution:
| Role Name | Role Description |
|---|---|
| Release Plan – Admin | This is the administrative role. Users with this role have access to all forms and can make any changes. |
| Release Plan – Contributor | This role is designed for content authors. Users with this role have access to Contributor forms of Release Plan, Application Area, and Application Overview entities. On Contributor forms of these entities, “Reviewed?” field is always read-only. |
| Release Plan – Reviewer | This role is designed for content reviewers. Users with this role have access to Reviewer forms of Release Plan, Application Area, and Application Overview entities. On Reviewer forms of these entities, the “Include in Release Plan” field is always read-only. |
Release Plan Audit Plug-in is used to automatically create a Release Plan History record whenever an operation, which meets certain conditions, is performed on a Release Plan. The following table lists those operations with their corresponding conditions:
| Operation type | Conditions | Release Plan History “Action” field value |
|---|---|---|
| A new Release Plan is created. | The creation date is equal to or later than the “Release Plan Cut-off Date” of the Release Wave, to which the new Release Plan belongs. | “Created” |
| An existing Release Plan is updated | - “Include in Release Plan” value has been changed - The date of change is equal to or later than the “Release Plan Cut-off Date” of the Release Wave, to which the Release Plan belongs. | “Added” or “Removed” |
| An existing Release Plan is updated | - “Public Preview – Release Date” and/or “GA – Release Date” value has been changed - The new date(s) is (are) between “Release Start Date” and “Release End Date” of the Release Wave, to which the Release Plan belongs - The date of change is equal to or later than “Release Plan Cut-off Date” of the Release Wave, to which the Release Plan belongs. | “Updated” |
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Open Update form for the Release Plan you are interested in.
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Select the “Related” tab and then “Release Plan History”.
This app is a sample and may be used with Microsoft Power Apps for dissemination of reference information only.