Keith Atherton

Want to learn about Microsoft Power Platform Certifications but don’t know where to start? Here are some tips! Note: All information and screenshots are correct at time of writing but may be different in future as Microsoft certifications are subject to change (and often do!). Which Power Platform-related certifications are available? Power Platform-related certification can be found here on Microsoft Learn: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/certifications/browse/?products=power-platform&resource_type=certification&expanded=power-platform You’ll see several certifications with exams prefixed with PL- which cover various Power Platform services such as Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI. [Read More]

My Microsoft MVP Award I’m honoured to have received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for Business Applications in recognition of my “exceptional technical community leadership”! Microsoft state: MVPs are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community. Huge thank you to everyone who has supported me and helped with opportunities along the way - and that includes YOU for being an awesome supporter who reads my blog! [Read More]

What is #100DaysOfSelfCare? During Mental Health Awareness Week in May 2023, the wonderful Azure McFarlane and I started a movement on Twitter with the hashtag #100DaysOfSelfCare. Here is the first tweet: https://twitter.com/MrKeithAtherton/status/1658537794732523521 What is self-care? Self-care is anything you do to take care of yourself so you can stay physically, mentally, and emotionally well. It can be as simple as going for a gentle walk or having lunch away from your desk, to learning something new or trying a new experience. [Read More]

Get Licensing Ready website Microsoft products such as Azure and Power Platform have a variety of licencing options. The Get Licensing Ready website provides material to learn about these licences and to take exams to earn certifications for free! 🎉 Courses available The website contains the following categories: Getting started Microsoft products Microsoft programs New tracks Prior GLR tracks Each category contains one or more courses. For example, the Microsoft products category contains the following courses: [Read More]

The Power Apps Host object The new Host object in Power Apps provides information about the current host running the app. The Host object does not have any properties that accept formulas but you can call functions against it to retrieve the following information: BrowserUserAgent: The complete user agent string that the browser uses to identify itself when running the app OSType: The name of the operating system where the app is running [Read More]

The Microsoft Build 2023 - Microsoft Learn Cloud Skills Challenge is now available! 🎉 Take one of the following 8 challenges to earn a free Microsoft Certification exam: AI-900: Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals Aligning Challenge: Microsoft Build: Azure AI Challenge AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator Aligning Challenge: Not applicable / take any challenge AZ-204: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure Aligning Challenge: Not applicable / take any challenge AZ-305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions [Read More]

Recently, I came across a Power App gallery control / ForAll gotcha which I managed to handle so I’m sharing this here in case anyone else experiences the same issue. OK, let’s set the scene: It’s a sunny Thursday afternoon in May in central Scotland. The hero is working on a Power App, and binds the following collection (colItems) to a gallery control: ClearCollect(colItems, { ID:1, Name:"Dog" }, { ID:2, Name:"Cat" }, { ID:3, Name:"Rabbit" } ); Great, the gallery is showing the data collection as expected! [Read More]

If you have an idea for Power Apps - for example, a new feature - then you can post it to Power Apps Ideas website: https://ideas.powerapps.com/ When submitting a new idea, you complete the following form. It’s worth adding plenty of detail: Submissions on the site can then be up-voted by the community to highlight which ideas have the most demand, and you can also add comments. Ideas can be assigned status values such as Under Review, Planned, Completed, and Declined. [Read More]

Copilot in Microsoft Power Apps OK, I hope you’re sitting down. An announcement was made recently which blew my mind: Copilot in Microsoft Power Apps (preview)! This feature is made possible by use of next-generation AI technology and means you can write a sentence such as: Build an app to manage music playlists for my favourite artists such as Metallica (Well, that’s one example but the choice is yours 😄) [Read More]