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ReportMicrosoft has a very specific set of releases for PowerPlatform & Dynamics 365 Apps, where basically there are 2 major release events, typically in April (Wave1) and October (Wave2), weekly updates that typically contain hotfixes & security updates and finally, urgent unplanned deployments whenever there’s a serious issue detected. This is all documented on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/policies-communications
However waves can include features that are deployed as part of a special release executed later: Wave2 can have most of the features deployed in October, but additional features might be deployed as well in late November, for example. It is important then to deeply analyze the wave deployment schedule and release dates.
So, how do you keep your customizations (Forms, fields) fully tested with this pace of modifications, and how do you prepare for the upcoming features?
Well, there are a few interesting approaches that you can take:
Please note that Preview features are NOT meant to be used in Production and are NOT supported for Production, and that they might be only enabled in certain geographical locations. Also, is important to note that each one of these features would need to be enabled individually. You can read more on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/what-are-preview-features-how-do-i-enable-them .
IN order to achieve this, the first step would be to provision an environment into one of those desired regions. It would be important to confirm you’re allowed to perform this (Provision in regions than your default). If this is not possible, you can reach to Microsoft Support to Enable Multi-Region provisioning.
The second step would be to provision a new environment on your current region with a full copy of the desired environment (Production or UAT). Finally, you should engage Microsoft Support requesting a Geo Migration to that region you wish to deploy. Please note that not all features are allowed migration as Marketing and Omnichannel might not be fully supported or require additional steps.
However waves can include features that are deployed as part of a special release executed later: Wave2 can have most of the features deployed in October, but additional features might be deployed as well in late November, for example. It is important then to deeply analyze the wave deployment schedule and release dates.
So, how do you keep your customizations (Forms, fields) fully tested with this pace of modifications, and how do you prepare for the upcoming features?
Well, there are a few interesting approaches that you can take:
Preview Features
A preview feature is a functionality that is launched as a test but might not be complete or rejected later on. The idea of these preview features is that Microsoft’s customers can take a look on what is Microsoft working and collect feedback whether this features might be interesting or relevant.Please note that Preview features are NOT meant to be used in Production and are NOT supported for Production, and that they might be only enabled in certain geographical locations. Also, is important to note that each one of these features would need to be enabled individually. You can read more on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/what-are-preview-features-how-do-i-enable-them .
Early Access.
Whenever a wave is announced (typically, by the end of January and end of July), it’s also announced the Early Access. This means that after the indicated date, Administrators should be able to deploy the wave for this environment, by simply navigating to PowerPlatform Admin Center, selecting the desired environment and checking in the bottom for the “Updates” section:Station Releases
Microsoft releases their updates in a phased approach, where different regions are patched in different dates. If we analyze Customer Service app for example, we can see on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/released-versions/dynamics-365cs that there’s a First Release handled internally by Microsoft to deploy and test their patches. But we can see that South America (CRM2), Canada (CRM3), France(CRM12), South Africa (CRM14), Germany (CRM16); Switzerland (CRM17), Norway (CRM19), Korea (CRM21) regions will receive the update one-two weeks after this is deployed into first release. So if you’re in any other region (US, EMEA, UK, Japan), you can take advantage of this station approached by placing an environment with a copy of your production data (or UAT data) into one of those early regions. By doing this, you should be able to test any hotfix/patch/Wave with 2-4 weeks in advance.IN order to achieve this, the first step would be to provision an environment into one of those desired regions. It would be important to confirm you’re allowed to perform this (Provision in regions than your default). If this is not possible, you can reach to Microsoft Support to Enable Multi-Region provisioning.
The second step would be to provision a new environment on your current region with a full copy of the desired environment (Production or UAT). Finally, you should engage Microsoft Support requesting a Geo Migration to that region you wish to deploy. Please note that not all features are allowed migration as Marketing and Omnichannel might not be fully supported or require additional steps.
Monthly Channel releases
Another interesting approach is to use the Monthly Channel release, as announced on https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-monthly-channel-for-model-driven-apps/ and documented on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/released-versions/common-data-service/unified-interface-monthly-releases. Basically, this approach allows us to tag an environment so instead of receiving User-impacting features twice a year (with the waves, now called Semi-annual), you can receive them as soon as they’re published (monthly). Instead of waiting until General Availability on April or October, you might receive the features as soon as they’re published (May, July, September, for example).
IN order to enable this, you can go to Power Platform Admin Center, select the environment of your choice and under “Settings > Behavior” you’ll have the option to select either the Monthly Channel or the Semi-Annual Channel:
Finally, you can take advantage of any of these approaches, or combining them in order to get every feature in advance as early as possible. What would be important is that this is performed in an environment that has a copy of your Production or User Acceptance Test Environments so you can test how the data is going to behave now, as well as your customizations and/or the way data is going to be presented in the future.
IN order to enable this, you can go to Power Platform Admin Center, select the environment of your choice and under “Settings > Behavior” you’ll have the option to select either the Monthly Channel or the Semi-Annual Channel:
Finally, you can take advantage of any of these approaches, or combining them in order to get every feature in advance as early as possible. What would be important is that this is performed in an environment that has a copy of your Production or User Acceptance Test Environments so you can test how the data is going to behave now, as well as your customizations and/or the way data is going to be presented in the future.
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