Power Platform Updates: Wave 2 PowerApps; CLI; Component framework; Flow Action Center

As Microsoft wrapped up August and launched into September, it put out plenty of announcements about changes for the Power Platform services, including PowerApps, Flow and Power BI. Although August is often a quiet month for announcements, that didn't stop PowerApps developers from shipping 19 new features during the month, as the team shared details on the October 2019 wave 2 release. Examples of wave 2-related updates include the generally available model-driven form designer with a WYSIWYG, searching, filtering, drag and drop and a tree view or the custom connector, grouping connectors with flows, canvas apps and CDS customizations in a single package.

The PowerApps CLI grants new flexibility to component framework developers, including a push capability that bypasses older versioning requirements or "watch mode" to track an app in its test harness. The team shared the selective entity caching approach for Portals, which involves Clear Config and a variety of configuration entities. The new SetFocus function for Canvas apps takes users directly to a problematic app, positioning a cursor in place to return to a particular spot even after it scrolls off screen. However, users will need to keep in mind that SetFocus doesn't work with components, Edit form or Gallery controls and only works with TextInput, Button, Icon, Image and Label controls. Customers can try out the new PowerApps header through a sneak peek for the wave 2 release.