Rajeev Pentyala – Microsoft Power Platform

As we know, Power Apps Plan Trial gives you the Power Apps per user plan for 30 days. This duration is meant for trying out production Power Apps applications. Once your trial expires, you can purchase a plan.

In this article lets explore the new Power Apps Developer Plan.

What is Power Apps Developer Plan:

• Power Apps Developer Plan gives you access to the same Power Apps functionality available in paid plans (aligned with Trials), including Dataverse and Power Automate.
• What we get is a developer environment meant for development and test use only.
• A paid plan is required to deploy or run solutions in a production environment for production use.

Lets me explain the options to sign up for Power Apps Developer Plan.

[Option 1] Get the Developer Plan with Visual Studio Dev Essentials:

• If you’re a Visual Studio Dev Essentials user, the Power Apps Developer Plan is included in your benefits.
• Visit My benefits and select the Power Apps tile to sign up for the Power Apps Developer Plan.

[Option 2] Sign up for Power Apps Developer Plan:

Follow these steps to sign up for Developer Plan if you’re not a Visual Studio Dev Essentials user.

• Connect to Developer Plan portal.
• Click on ‘Get started free’.

• On the next screen, you’ll need to enter either a work or school email address to proceed. Which means, you can’t sign up using your personal email account like gmail.com, live.com, yahoo.com, etc.

• If you don’t have work of school email address already, we have an option to create one for free by using the Microsoft 365 Developer Program.
• Join the Microsoft 365 Developer Program by clicking here.

• Click on ‘Join now’ and sign in using your personal Microsoft account.
• Once signed-in you will be redirected to the Dashboard as below.

• Provide information and click ‘Next’.
• In the last screen, provide the areas you are interested in and click on ‘Save’.

• Now complete the subscription by clicking on ‘Set up E5 subscription’.

• On the popup, choose one of the options. I’ve chosen ‘Instant sandbox’.

• In the next screen provide, Admin account details and click ‘Continue’.
  • Save the ‘Admin username‘, you will need in next steps.

• Complete the Phone Number verification and you should see following screen up on successful subscription.
  • Save the ‘Domain name‘ which you will need in next steps.

• Now, go back to Developer Plan portal and click on ‘Existing user? Add a dev environment ‘ button.

• Sign in using the admin account, which you’ve used to join the Microsoft 365 Developer Program. Which will be {Admin username}@{Domain name}.

• Upon successful ‘Sign In’, You will be redirected to post sign-in. Choose country and click ‘Accept’.

• That’s it. You will be redirected to Maker portal.

• You can connect to Admin Center to manage Environments.

Important points about Power Apps Developer Plan:

• Power Apps Developer Plan gives you access to the same Power Apps functionality available in paid plans (aligned with Trials), including Dataverse and Power Automate.
• A paid plan is required to deploy or run solutions in a production environment for production use.
• You should be able to export the resources from this environment to other environments using Solutions.
• There’s a limited capacity provided because this environment is meant for development and test purposes, not for production use. The capacity limits are:

• You can’t Create and use dataflows.
• Dynamics 365 apps can’t be installed in a developer environment
• Power Apps Developer plan does not include Power Automate RPA.
• You can continue using your Power Apps Developer Plan for free as long as there’s active usage. Environments that are inactive for the last 90 days will be deleted.
• To prevent users from creating developer environments, go to Control environment creation.

🙂