Microsoft Dynamics 365: PowerApps Component Framework: Part-1 (Intro)

Microsoft recently released PCF for GA(general availability). This will enable developers to create field level or Grid/List level custom controls which can be used on CRM forms.

Most of the development is done using basic web dev tools – HTML / CSS / Typescript(TS). However, you are free to use other custom Nodejs modules as well.

The main benefit, in my opinion, of making PCF components is reusability as they get bundled up as a solution file(zip) which can be imported on any other instance easily and reused seamlessly.

This blog series provides an intro to the entire PCF lifecycle – from identifying important parts in PCF to publishing it to your CRM instance.

So let’s begin.

You will need the following things set up on your system before starting on the development:

1. Install NodeJs - Version - 10.15.3 or higher. (you will get NPM along with it)

2. Install .NET Framework 4.6.2 Developer Pack.

3. Install .NET Core 2.2 SDK and then install Visual Studio Code. (Our IDE of preference is VS Code - #msftadvocate)

4. Install Microsoft Power Apps CLI.

*Note: Please upgrade PowerApps CLI to the latest version using this command in Command Prompt :

pac install latest

With all the above pre-requisites installed on your machine, we are good to go to the next part and create a new PCF solution.

Here is the Microsoft Docs link for more explanation.