Power Platform Dev Weekly #285
Welcome to the Power Platform Developers Weekly!
XrmToolBox has now got a successor! The stalwart of a developers’ toolkit, XrmToolBox is the go-to set of tools to make your life easier. Please do check it out if you don’t know about it.
What has just been announced is a modern successor! With support from Tanguy and other XrmToolBox developers, your very own Danish N. (and others including LinkeD365) have just launched PowerPlatformToolBox.
PPTB promises dataverse helpers across Windows, Mac and Linux, with some of the biggest toolmakers on XTB lending their support to re-imagine their own tools in a modern, secure, open-source environment.
Give it a try and let the team know what you think!
Microsoft feature releases and announcements
We need to follow more content creators. If you know anyone who writes blogs or creates videos, please fill out the form on their behalf provided on this website so we can start tracking them.
We hope you enjoy the content of this week.
— PP Dev Weekly Team
🥇 Cover Story
Creating Dynamic Cascading Dropdowns with Related Entities in a Custom Page
by Megan V. Walker
Writing JavaScript to implement a cascading dropdown was probably one of the first customizations I ever did in Dynamics CRM, and here Megan brings it up to date for Custom Pages with clean, efficient Power FX.
💎 Model Driven Apps & Dataverse
Generative Pages: Link Them to Your Model-Driven App Forms
by Ben den Blanken
Ben took Generative Pages for a spin, but wanted to link it into standard model-driven app forms. Here he shows how you can join the two together to get the best of both worlds in a single app you can navigate around naturally.
Finishing (Deactivating) and Reopening a Business Process Flow Using C#
by Nishant Rana
Nishant shows how to deactivate/finish a BPF in C#
🤖 Copilot
Vibe coding an XrmToolBox Tool part 2
by Matt Collins-Jones
Following on from last week’s cover story, MCJ adds part 2 (and part 3) to his journey building his Flow Finder tool for the awesome XrmToolBox.
How to Use Copilot Recommended Email Templates in Dynamics 365 Customer Service
by Sam Kumar
Sam dives into Customer Service email templates with the help of Copilot
🏋️♂️ Canvas Apps
Power Apps- Moving Away From Inline Code
by David Wyatt
David sets out his stall on why we should move much more logic in our Power Apps out of individual formulas and into User Defined Functions.
😎 Power Automate
Segments in Customer Insights - Journeys: Bulk delete with Power Automate
by Amey Holden
Faced with having to tidy up segments in Customer Insights - Journeys and the standard tools only allowing you to do it one record at a time, Amey has shared a Power Automate flow to do it automatically and even check the results as well.
Why We Wrote C# Code to Create Power Automate Flows (And You Should Too)
by Pranjal Tiwari
I love blending pro-code with low-code, so something about this approach really resonated with me. Being able to programatically generate flows could be a game-changer for me!
👍 Everything else in Power Platform
Building a cost‑transparent agent strategy: Chargeback models for agents
by Carsten Groth
AI isn’t free, but how can you fairly and accurately allocate the costs to the areas of the business that are benefiting from your amazing new agent? Carsten digs into the different licensing models and the available data to provide detailed cost management.
Other Interesting Articles
15 Years of SharePains - Pieter Veenstra
📢 Call for Speakers
A look at CFS closing soon
D365PPUG Manchester UK All Day Event - Closes 2026-02-04
🎧Podcasts
🎥 Videos
✨ Thanks for reading
If you’re enjoying this newsletter, it would mean a lot to share it with your friends & colleagues and ask them to subscribe to it.
This is a significant development for the Power Platform community! XrmToolBox has been invaluable for years, and seeing PowerPlatformToolBox emerge with cross-platform support and modern architecture is exactly what the ecosystem needs. The fact that it maintains the plugin-based approach while embracing Windows, Mac, and Linux support shows great forward thinking. Looking forward to seeing how the tool marketplace evolves!