CI/CD for PowerPlatform: Developing Feature2

 

Almost a month has passed since the previous post on the DevOps topic, so, the imaginary “Debbie” developer has left the project, and, it seems, I have to finish development of that second feature myself… Oh, well. Let’s do it then!

(Tip: if you have no idea what I am talking about above, have a look at the previous post first)

1. Run Prepare Dev to prepare the dev environment

2. Review the environment to make sure unmanaged solution is there

3. Add new field to the Tag entity form

4. Run Export and Unpack pipeline on the Feature2 branch

This is to get those changes above pushed to the Feature2 branch

5. Make sure I am on Feature2 branch in the local repository

git checkout Feature2

Since I got some conflicts, I’ve deleted my out-of-sync Feature2 first:

git checkout master
git branch -D Feature2
git checkout Feature2
git pull origin Feature2

6. Update the script

At the moment of writing, it seems PowerApps Build Tools do not support solution packager map files, so, for the JS files and plugins (which can be built separately and need to be mapped), it’s done a little differently. There is a powershell script that actually copies those files from their original location to where they should be in the unpacked solution.

In case with the script I need to modify, the script itself is in the Code folder:

The way that script gets added to the solution as a webresource is through the other script that runs in the build pipelines:

So, if I had to add another web resource, I would do this:

• Open solution in PowerApps
• Add a web resource
• Run Export and Unpack pipeline on the branch
• Pull changes to the local repo
• Figure out where the source of my new web resource would be (could be added to the same Code subfolder above)
• Update replacefiles.ps1 script to have one more “Copy-Item” line for this new web resource

 

Since I am not adding a script now, but, instead, I need to update the script that’s there already, I’ll just update existing tagform.js:

7. Commit and push the change to Feature2

git add .
git commit –m “Updated tagform script”
git push origin Feature2

8. Run Prepare Dev build pipeline on Feature2 branch to deploy updated script

This is similar to step #1

Note: the previous two steps could be done differently. I could even go to the solution in PowerApps and update the script there if I did not need/want to maintain the mappings, for example.

9. Now that the script is there, I can attach the event handler

10. Publish and test

11. Run Export and Unpack pipeline on the Feature2 branch to get updated solution files in the repository

12. Pull changes to the local Feature2 branch

git checkout Feature2
git pull origin Feature2

13. Merge changes from Master

git checkout Master
git pull origin Master
git checkout Feature2
git merge –X theirs master
git push origin Feature2

14. Retest everything

First, run Prepare Dev pipeline on the Feature2 branch and review Feature 2 dev manually

At this point, you should actually see New Entity from Feature1 in the Feature 2 dev environment:

Then, run Build and Test pipeline on the Feature2 branch and ensure all existing tests have passed.

15. Finally, merge into Master and push the changes

git checkout master
git merge –X theirs Feature2
git push origin master

16. Build and Test pipeline will be triggered automatically on the master branch – review the results

Ensure automated tests have passed

Go to the TestMaster environment and do whatever manual testing is needed

 

Contents:

• DevOps project sample: https://dev.azure.com/itaintboring/_git/CDSDemo
• Part 1: https://www.itaintboring.com/dynamics-crm/cicd-for-powerplatform-round-3/
• Part 2: https://www.itaintboring.com/dynamics-crm/cicd-for-powerplatform-making-changes-and-merging/
• Part 3: https://www.itaintboring.com/dynamics-crm/cicd-for-powerplatform-developing-feature2/