Microsoft Power Platform Build Tools for Azure DevOps

Power Platform tools have proved excellent in transforming legacy cloud applications. The Microsoft Power Platform Build Tools for Azure DevOps can be tasked to compose your build and release pipelines. Setting up Azure Pipeline with this also becomes easy as it can set up basic build and deployment in just a few minutes.

According to the Total Economic Impact of Power Apps report by Forrester, the surveyed companies saw an increase of 4.3% in revenue because of faster development efforts. Building tools with Azure DevOps does precisely this. This blog will explore how businesses can use Microsoft Power Platform Build Tools for Azure DevOps to automate the build and deployment of custom business solutions.

Table of Contents

1) What are Power Platform Build Tools?

2) How businesses can use Power Platform for Azure DevOps

    a) How to connect Azure to the Power Platform Build Tools

    b) Microsoft Power Platform Build Tool tasks

3) Conclusion

What are Power Platform Build Tools?

It is a collection of Power Platform-specific Azure DevOps build tasks that do not require manually downloading the scripts and custom toolings to manage the application lifecycle of applications built on Power Platform.

Microsoft Power Platform Build Tools are primarily used to automate build and deployment tasks in the apps built on Microsoft Power Platform. These tasks can be used alongside other Azure DevOps tasks to compose, develop, and release pipelines. Understanding the Benefits of Microsoft Power Platform can help maximise efficiency in automation and integration. To enhance your interview preparation, explore Microsoft Power Platform Interview Questions for key insights. These tasks include the following:

a) Synchronisation of solution metadata

b) Generating build artefacts

c) Deploying to downstream environments

d) Static analysis check against solutions with the use of Power Apps checker service

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Installing the Power Platform Build Tools into Azure DevOps

You can get the Microsoft Power Platform Build Tools from the Azure Marketplace and install them into your Azure DevOps organisation. After getting the Build Tools, you need to select the organisation in which you want to install it.

How businesses can use Power Platform for Azure DevOps

A business's most significant advantage from using Power Platform build tools is that it saves time and resources. Using the build tools for Azure DevOps can help you automate builds and deployment tasks when developing apps on the Power Platform.

How to connect Azure to the Power Platform Build Tools

A connection should be established to use the Build tools in an environment that enables various build tasks to perform the necessary actions. There are primarily two types of connections:

a) Username and password (Generic): The generic service connection uses a username and password to configure the connection. It does not support multi-factor authorisation.

b) Service principle and client secret: This type of connection supports multi-factor authentication and uses service principle-based authentication to establish a connection. This type of connection is recommended for most connections.

Using a generic service connection

To establish a connection with the generic service connection, follow the steps given below:

a) Navigate to the New service connection panel and search for “generic”. Check the “Generic” option and click on Next.

b) On the next panel, you need to enter the Server URL, Authentication, Password, and service connection name and check “Grant access permission to all the pipelines” if you are using multiple pipelines.

c) After populating all the details, click on save.

d) Now your connection is ready to use.

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Service principle connection (Application ID and Client Secret)

The second method of connection is by using the service principle authentication. This connection method is recommended and supports Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).

To use this connection, follow the steps given below:

a) Navigate to the New service connection panel and search for "Power platform". Check the "Power Platform" option and click on Next. Be careful not to choose the deprecated connection.

b) Next, you will be redirected to the next panel where you need to enter details like Server URL, Tenant ID, Application ID, client secret of Application ID, and service connection name and check "Grant access permission to all the pipelines" if you are using multiple pipelines.

c) After filling in all the details, click on save.

Connections used by Build Tools tasks

The table given below describes all the tasks and the connections they support. The connection can be "generic", "power platform", or both

                                                                                                                                                        Source: Microsoft

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Microsoft Power Platform Build Tool tasks

Microsoft Power Platform Solutions Build Tool tasks are used alongside the Azure DevOps tasks to build, compose, and release pipelines. Developers typically implement this pipeline to initiate, export from Dev, build, and release.

The build tasks can be used in the pipeline or used individually to perform a task. In the pipeline, it is used to execute a scenario. The build tasks provided by Azure DevOps are broadly classified into four types:

a) Helper: This task must be added before you add any other Build Tools tasks in the build and release pipelines. This task installs a set of tools the agent requires to run the build tasks. This type of task does not require any additional configuration, but it contains parameters for the specific versions of the tool installed. It is essential to update the tool versions and ensure that the parameters corresponding to the versions of the tools run properly.

b) Quality Check: This task essentially checks for the quality of a solution. Power Platform Checker is a type of Quality inspection that runs a static analysis check on solutions against a benchmark or set of best practices. Doing this helps identify problematic patterns you can unknowingly introduce in your solution.

c) Solution: Such tasks are a set of tasks that are used to automate solution actions. The environment tasks that create, deploy or restore can overwrite the service connections with newly created environments which lets the solutions tasks be used against environment tasks made in demand.

d) Environment management: These tasks automate the environment lifecycle management tasks.

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Conclusion

When Microsoft Power Platform Build Tools are used with Azure DevOps, the development is easier by automating the build and deploying custom solutions. With the help of build tools, deploying solutions into any environment and increasing the release frequency is easier. Build tools with Azure DevOps can help businesses automate the build for efficiency and quick release.

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