ENGINEERED CODE BLOG

Power Pages: Pro Code Techniques in the Templates – Custom Interface for Service Selection

Posted on November 3, 2023 by Nicholas Hayduk

This month we continue our look at some of the pro code techniques that appear in the templates available for Power Pages. This time we’re going to look at the “Schedule and Manage Meetings” template, which provides a multistep form for booking a meeting. This form has lots of pro code goodies in it, so this won’t be the only post, but for now, we’re going to look at the first step in the form where the user chooses what type of meeting they want to have.

The Journey to the Launch of ecLearn, an LMS for Dataverse

Posted on October 18, 2023 by Nicholas Hayduk

If you follow us on social media, hopefully you’ve seen that we at Engineered Code shared some exciting news this week. We announced ecLearn, a learning management system (LMS) built on top of Microsoft Dataverse. In this blog post I’m going to give you a bit of a glimpse into the ecLearn journey.

Power Pages: A Platform for ISVs?

Posted on September 20, 2023 by Nicholas Hayduk

Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) have been an important part of the Microsoft Business Applications space for a long time. ISVs create solutions that build on top of the platforms and products that Microsoft provides off-the-shelf. As the Power Platform has continued to grow and evolve, more opportunities have presented themselves for ISVs. In this post, I’ll look at what ISVs might want to consider when looking at incorporating Power Pages as part of their offering.

Power Pages: Pro Code Techniques in the Templates – Custom Search Interface Using JavaScript Redirects

Posted on August 4, 2023 by Nicholas Hayduk

This month I’m continuing my series on looking at how functionality is built into the new templates available for Power Pages. In this post I looking at the Program Registration template, which allows users to browse and sign up for classes, and is useful in scenarios such as an after school program. Specifically, I’m going to look at the functionality that allows users to search through the available classes.

Power Pages: Dataverse at its Core

Posted on July 4, 2023 by Nicholas Hayduk

Microsoft’s Power Platform is constantly growing and evolving. As much as everyone (especially Microsoft) wishes that all parts of the Power Platform worked seamlessly together, the reality is that many parts of the Power Platform existed long before Microsoft started using the word Power to group these technologies together. However, I believe that advancements in virtual tables, specifically for Power Pages, emphasizes the fact that Dataverse should be at the core of any Power Platform implementation.

Power Pages: Are They Really Worth $2 per User per Month?

Posted on June 8, 2023 by Nicholas Hayduk

The price point for Power Pages has long been a tricky discussion point. The pricing model has changed a few times of the years, and organizations can feel frustrated if they are on the wrong end of who ends up paying less and more when the model changes. In this blog post, I’ll review the history of the pricing for the product, and provide my opinion on whether I think the cost is justified by the value.

Power Pages: Pro Code Techniques in the Templates – Custom Saving on Forms with JavaScript and Web API

Posted on May 11, 2023 by Nicholas Hayduk

Today we’re starting a new series of blog posts where I look at some of the more advanced developer techniques that appear within the new templates available for Power Pages. Some of the techniques I may like, other I may have alternatives for, but I’m hoping that if you read this series it will show you the possibilities of what can be done with Power Pages if you’re willing to get your hands dirty with a bit of code. In our first post, I’m going to look at the technique of using the Form functionality in Power Pages to layout the form itself, but then using custom JavaScript and the Web API to perform a custom save operation.

Power Pages: What Kind of JavaScript Should I Write?

Posted on April 11, 2023 by Nicholas Hayduk

While there is a lot you can do with the out-of-the-box capabilities of list and forms with Power Pages, pretty often on projects you do run into cases where you need more than what you can do with just configuration. In these cases, Liquid and JavaScript are often used to help you meet requirements. While there aren’t too many choice to make when using Liquid, the same can’t be said for JavaScript. In this blog post, I’ll look at some different options for writing client-side code with Power Pages.

Power Pages: When to Use (and When Not To)

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Nicholas Hayduk

The growth of Power Pages has been an amazing story. Since being acquired by Microsoft in 2015, the product has gone from a niche add-on for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement to a full-fledged product in the Power Platform. The visibility that comes with getting equal billing to other Power Platform products like Power BI, Power Apps, and Power Automate means that new people are discovering Power Pages all of the time. However, as with any software product, Power Pages isn’t always a fit, even if your project fall under the category of low code web application development platforms. In this post, I will share what I look for when trying to determine if Power Pages is a fit for a given project.

Power Apps Portals: Using Bootstrap Input Groups with Your Basic or Advanced Forms

Posted on May 13, 2021 by Nicholas Hayduk

The fact that Power Apps Portals uses Bootstrap as its CSS framework means we have a lot of tools as our disposal (yes, I know we’d all love it if we could use a newer version of Bootstrap, or even pick whatever framework we wanted, but that is a topic for another day). Unfortunately, some of the Bootstrap components require specific markup that we can’t achieve with configuration alone. In this post I’ll cover how we can use JavaScript to change the markup on either Basic Forms or Advanced Forms so that we can leverage the Input Group functionality (in case you missed the memo, Basic Forms is the new name for Entity Forms, and Advanced Forms is the new name for Web Forms).