Comprehensive Glossary

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

(Not yet working to click on, working on it!)

A

Alm (Application Lifecycle Management)
The ability to move from Dev, Test and Prod (or other defined) environments maintaining edits in a safe manner without (hopefully) breaking production. Official ALM documentation.

B

Blog
Website containing information in different posts, often defined by categories.

Business Process Flows
Defined action steps and stages to determine a business Process or follow up flows, data needed to proceed or ability to visually display process steps.

C

Canvas app
A powerapp able to have full design privileges, integrate with Power Automate or be embedded in a Model driven app.

Cards
Micro apps, holding information you can get through Power Automate or your app. Can be posted in teams as Teams adaptive card or regular card through the Card designer. Can also be made through AdaptiveCard.IO

Community
Global gatherings of likeminded people, whether that's through videos, blogs, forums, conferences and many more.

Creator toolkit
Created by the Microsoft CAT team, with custom controls you can leverage in your apps.

Custom Pages
Canvas pages that can be integrated within a Model Driven app.

CSS
Cascade Style Sheets. With CSS, you can add custom fonts, colors, backgrounds, borders, and other visual effects to your Power Platform applications. Read how that works with Power Apps Portal Studio here.

D

Datasource
Data backend which can be used to connect in your app or portal, or just to store information.

Dataverse
Tables with a (custom) defined column structure, holding data which can be leveraged throughout the Power Platform. Requires security groups to be accessed.

Dax Code
Programming language used by PowerBI

Dynamics365
Same logic as Model Driven apps, it offers integration using Dataverse tables with all other D365 products, and offers the full range from Sales, to Marketing, Finance, Field Service, Supply Chain, Business Central and Customer Service. Former CRM.

E

Environment
Area within Office365 tenant which holds all flows, solutions and apps.

F

Forms
Page used for displaying or inputting information, different forms can be created for different audiences

Flow
Workflow created by Power Automate, formerly named as such.

G

H

I

J

K

L

Low Code (No Code)
Build apps and automations without any prior coding knowledge. The Power Platform offers an intuitive way to directly tell a button or form (or gallery, or image etc etc) what to do without needing to dive into a programming language such as C#, HTML, CSS. It uses PowerFX.

M

M Language
Coding language used by the Power Query editor. Used for Excel, Powerbi, PowerApps, Power Automate, SQL, Azure Data factory, and Dynamics365 CE. Official documentation.

Managed solution
An export of your solution locked so it cannot be edited. Required for ALM (moving from one environment to the other)

Memes
Not mandatory, but often found in slides, tweets or even on this website.

Microsoft exams

Certificates you can achieve that display your level of skill for that subject.

Microsoft Learn
Microsoft Learn offers challenges, learn paths and other resources to help you upskill or get Microsoft Exam certificates.

Model driven app
Data driven Powerapp, possibility to include Business Process Flows, custom pages and forms and views. Only Dataverse can be used as a DataSource (or Virtual Tables)

MVP (Microsoft award) Most Valuable Professional.
Non-Microsoft employee, awarded for their work in the community. MVP Award.
Official explanation: The MVP Award is a global program of recognized technology experts and community leaders who actively support technical communities through unique, innovative, and consistent knowledge sharing.

N

O

Office365
Office365 is a subscription-based online suite of software and services offered by Microsoft that allows users to access popular office tools such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook on the cloud. It also provides tools for online communication, collaboration, file storage, and sharing.

P

Pipelines
Power Platform Pipelines provide low-code access to ALM processes without the need for Azure Dev Ops. Move solutions, environment variables, connections or connection references. (Data within Dataverse tables not included)

Plugins
Extensions of code, changing the behavior of an app

Power Automate.
Create workflows that use triggers and actions to follow a pre-defined path. (I.e. email me when an item gets added, or post to teams)

PowerBI
Reporting tool using DAX code, able to read from many connectors and data sources to create reports, dashboards and datasets.

PowerFX
Programming language used by the Power Platform. It's a general-purpose, strong-typed, declarative, and functional programming language. Official post here.

Power Pages (formerly Portal)
Create an external webpage, similar to SharePoint, but can be viewed by external clients. Official documentation,

Power Platform Admin Portal
Full management portal for your entire Office/Power Platform infrastructure. Click here for more information.

Power Query
It's a tool with which you're able to transform data before using it in Powerbi, Excel or in a Dataset/DataFlow. It uses M Language. Official documentation.

Q

R

Ribbon Workbench
Add-on you can install to customize the ribbon in Dynamics365 or a Model Driven app. Official: The Ribbon Workbench was written to originally to avoid the time consuming task of editing RibbonDiff Xml. Since Dynamics CRM 2011 it has been used by tens of thousands of users to save time and effort on their Dynamics 365/CRM projects. Site.

RPA
Robotic Process Automation, usually created through Power Automate Desktop (or internal RPA processes) Workflows that can mimic human actions, such as opening a local application and performing actions.

S

Security Groups
A security group can be created to determine access to a table (dataverse), business process flow, ability to add attachments and many more. In the Power Platform Admin portal, an Azure AD group can also be added to have access to the security group.

Solution
A type of folder in an environment, holding your apps, flows, plugins or anything else pertaining to your design.

T

Twitter
Online social platform, using Hashtags to define subjects and make it easier to search.

For the Power Platform search for example for the following:

#Mvpbuzz - Used by MVPs to chat on MVP events, chatter or announcements amongst MVP's.
#communityluv and #communityrocks - Used by the Power Platform Community to share information
#PowerPlatformConnects - Be seen by Hugo Bernier and David Warner to feature your content on their Power Platform Connections show.
#Sharingiscaring - Used to share information

U

Unmanaged layer
A portion within a managed solution which holds edits, can prevent your app from fully working or edits becoming visible. Needs to be removed in a managed solution.

Unmanaged solution
An export from a solution able to be fully edited, only used from one dev environment to another, or import to leverage.

V

Virtual Agents
Chatbots that can be programmed to provide specified FAQ information.

Views
Overview of data consisting of short summary's, making the item clickable to it opens a form to display the full information (or how else defined)

Virtual Tables
A virtual Entity or connector, possible to map Dataverse to an existing SQL, Excel or SharePoint list without the need for data migration. (And so, leverage them in a Model Driven App)

W

X

XRM toolkit
External created toolkit (by Tanguy Touzard) in which you can leverage the variety of tools and plugins in a model driven app, Dataverse or Dynamics365 environment. Official site

Y

Z