2021 Release Wave 2 | Part 1: Generic Updates

It’s August can that means the Microsoft Holidays are here because we now have the ability to install the early release features of 2021 Release Wave 2 in a sandbox environment for testing! I call this time of year ‘the Microsoft Holidays’ because I always feel like a little kid that gets to unwrap her presents during the holidays! For the folks who are not familiar with Microsoft’s release cadence, Microsoft Power Platform and Customer Engagement apps (Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Field Service, Dynamics 365 Marketing, Dynamics 365 Project Operations, etc.) deliver two major releases per year which occur in April and October. These releases offer new capabilities and added functionality. We have the ability to opt in for early access to try out and test some of these features. I will be writing a series of articles on the new features in 2021 Release Wave 2, as I do for each major release. In this article I will discuss the generic updates in the (Power) App experience that are in early access.

Views and Grids Updates

The thing that immediately catches your eye the first time you log into any of the Dynamics 365 CE Apps, is that the grids/views (including subgrids) have been refreshed. You’ll notice that each record in the grid now has a circle on the left side of it, so that you can easily select one or multiple records from the grid. I also noticed on the contacts view the first column (almost hidden) is showing with a link to an image, vs the actual image of the contact itself. I am assuming this is something that needs to be cleaned up before go-live in October. I also noticed when I changed the size of the browser that this column is now fully expanded, and still showing the link and not the actual image.

The other thing you’ll notice on the right hand side (next to to view filter icon) is that there is now an additional column editor icon that allows users to modify the view/grid they have selected. By clicking on the icon an ‘edit columns’ pane opens on the right side of the screen and users can remove columns from the view or add columns by clicking the ‘Add columns’ button on the top. From here they can choose columns from the table or related tables. Keep in mind you can only add columns from related tables that have a 1:N relationship with the table which view you’re modifying. So for example if you are modifying a contact view, you can’t add fields from related cases, because the relationship between cases and contact are N:1. You can add columns from the account table, as there is a 1:N relationship between contacts and accounts. Besides adding or removing columns, the order of the columns can also be changed. Once the changed are made to the view, you’ll notice an asterisk next to the name of the view (as shown below in the image).

Keep in mind that any changes made here are not permanent. This functionality allows users to modify the view temporality, just like they can by using the filter function. I wish there would be a ‘save as’ button here that would allow users to save their changes as a new grid, but unfortunately I haven’t seen it. One more thing I noticed is that the pin icon has been removed. This was used to set a default view in an app. In this release, if you want to set a view as default, you’ll need to click on the ‘Set as default view’ option on the bottom of the view chooser.

Dataverse Search (formally known as Relevance Search) for all!

Microsoft has renamed Relevance Search to Dataverse search and in 2021 Release Wave 1 this will be the only global search option for all model-driven apps in a production environment. This means that the ‘old’ Categorized Search option is no longer available in production environments. If you want to learn more about Relevance Search take a look at this article I wrote. The relevance search will be switched on by default. Prior to this release users had the ability to turn off Relevance Search which allowed them to use Categorized Search, but this option will no longer be available in this release. An added feature to Dataverse search is the fact that will be able to search through the ‘file’ data type in dataverse, which means that it can search text in files like Word documents and PDF’s! This update is not part of the early access release but this is a very important feature that I didn’t want to leave out! This feature is scheduled for GA in October 2021.

Advanced lookup capabilities for all in Model-Driven Apps

This is another feature that was already available to us, but going forward this feature will be enabled by default for users. I also wrote an article on this topic last month, where I explained what advanced lookups are, how you can turn this functionality on or off and how it works. If you haven’t read the article yet and want to learn more about advanced lookups you can do that here.

Updated Mass Edit Experience

This is another update I’ve been waiting for! Currently when you select multipe records from a view and you click on the ‘Edit’ button on the command bar, the legacy form opens in a new window and edits need to be made from that form. The new mass edit experience will open the Unified Interface form instead of the legacy form, which makes this a more unified experience for the end-users. Unlike the old experience, users also have access to the form chooser, which means if they need to switch to a different form they have the ability to do so.

Side Panes in Model Driven Apps

This is a feature I am super excited about! This will allow us to access (multiple) side panes directly from within the application. If you’re familiar with Omnichannel for Customer Service then you’ve seen the productivity pane on the right side of the screen and you’ll know exactly what I am talking about. Even though this functionality is listed as part of the early release, at the time that I am writing this article this functionality is not yet available. I do have a screenshot of the functionality so at least you can get an idea of what I am referring to. When I find out more about this feature I will update this article accordingly.

Refreshed Share Records Experience

Another experience that has been updated is the sharing of records with other users or teams. The legacy window that would pop open when a user clicks the ‘Share’ button on the command bar has been replaced with a more consistent unified interface experience. When the “Share Records’ pane opens on the right hand side of the screen the user can search for records or use the Advanced Lookup functionality to find the correct record. Once one or multiple records have been selected, the user will need to click on the user/team they want to share records with to set the sharing permissions. I really like how more and more of the legacy forms are being replaced by an experience that is more in line with the unified interface experience.

Improved Sitemap in Model-Driven Apps

You can now edit your model driven apps in the Modern App Designer. To access the Modern App Designer you’ll need to navigate to make.powerapps.com and right click on the model driven app. You’ll need to click on the ‘edit’ button and then select ‘edit in preview’ which will launch the new experience. When you click on ‘Sitemap’ you should be able to make some changes to the sitemap like the ability to collapse the sections on the sitemap. Unfortunately this was also not working on my instance, but I do have a screenshot of what the collapsed sections on the sitemap looks like!

Removal of the web client Dynamics 365-Custom App

I am glad to see that Microsoft will remove the Dynamics 365-Custom web client app from the app chooser in Dynamics 365 which is the first app in the app chooser. This is actually also part of the early release in August, but unfortunately the app was still present in the app chooser after installing the early access features of 2021 Release wave 2 in my sandbox. Hopefully this thing will be gone when we go live!

Unified Interface browser support changes

As you may or may not know, support for Internet Explorer is ending on August 17th of 2021. Any users who are still running Internet Explorer to access the application will be seeing a notification on the top of their screen. This message will notify the users that support for Internet Explorer has ended and will it will recommend using a different browser. Users can dismiss the warning, but the message will be shown again each time a new session starts.
Admins of organizations who have users that access the application through Internet Explorer will also see a notification, stating the support for Internet Explorer has ended and that users should switch to another browser. When there are no more users that access the application through Internet Explorer, the message will no longer show. Another thing to note here is that per 2022 Release Wave 1 Internet Explorer and the classic Edge browsers will be blocked from access Unified Interface apps, so make sure your browsers are up to date!

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