In our journey to streamline our development and deployment processes, we embraced the principles of low-code development. Our goal was to align our CI/CD processes with these principles, and we found the perfect solution in Microsoft Power Platform Pipelines, enhanced by the new Git integration feature. This approach provided us with business value, offering an easily maintainable ALM solution that ensured compliance, security, and privacy protection.
Setting Up Our Environment
To begin, we created a dedicated production environment for hosting our pipeline app. This step was crucial in segregating our production workloads from development and testing activities, ensuring a stable and secure environment for our live applications.
Next, we installed the installed the Power Platform Pipelines Model-Driven App and started configuring our pipeline:
Once the pipeline was fully configured, we verified our solution by checking its connection to the pipeline. This verification step was essential to ensure that our setup was correct and that we could initiate the first deployment to our TEST environment without any issues.
Leveraging Source Control
One of the standout features of our implementation was the integration with Git. By utilizing the source control menu, we could easily view the change log and track modifications made to our solutions. This transparency was invaluable for facilitating change validation and code reviews among our developers.
In Azure DevOps, we created a new project with branches related to the respective environments.
Establishing Naming Conventions
To maintain clarity, we used prefixes on our canvas app screens and for other components within the solution. This practice helped ensure that each component was easily identifiable and organized, facilitating better management and reducing confusion.
For example, as illustrated in the below image we aimed to standardize naming convetion for screens, containers and other controls in general. The purpose of this was to make it easier when referencing these components later using Power FX. We applied this practice to our canvas app as it is a common best pratice to use elsewhere when working with Dynamics 365 modules and related components (etc, forms, security roles).
Adhering to Best Practices
Throughout this process, we adhered to several best practices for ALM in Power Platform:
- Environment Strategy: We used separate environments for development and production, ensuring that changes were tested in DEV before deployment.
- Solutions: We utilized managed solutions for production environments and unmanaged solutions for development, aligning with industry guidelines.
- Source Control: Our integration with Git and the implementation of a branching strategy ensured effective version control and collaboration.
- Automation: By configuring Power Platform Pipelines, we automated our deployment processes, reducing manual errors and ensuring consistency.
- Governance and Security: We implemented role-based access control and ensured compliance with security protocols, protecting our data and applications.