[CoE Starter Kit - QUESTION] QUESTION - Extend Starter Kit Core table with new custom forms

[miroslav-harlas]

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Hello, first of all thank you very much for all the updates to this article earlier this year: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/guidance/coe/modify-components It is super helpful, great job! 😁👍

We are following the recommended approach - creating our own solution with our own model-driven app. We are adding CoE Starter Kit tables using "Add existing table " + not include objects + not include metadata (Step 6. here ). Then we are adding new custom fields, etc.. So far so good.

We are planning to add our own custom views and forms. We do not want to overwrite existing ones, we want to create just a new custom ones, which will be living in parallel with Starter Kit ones. Users should see both and be able to switch. We plan for naming convention to differentiate between original an dour own custom forms. We have started this approach with "Environment" table. Unfortunately, after adding our own custom Main Form to Environment table in our customs solution, we can see only this new customs main form from both model-driven apps, from our own as well as from PP Admin View. Original main form named "Main Environment form" is not accessible we cannot switch to that from when using any model-driven app. If I open our own model-driven app, I can see in the modern designer that all forms are active and allowed. We can see this behavior independent on if our solution is deployed as unmanaged or managed. We tried also to assign various security roles to user, including System Admin and all CoE Starter Kit roles, and still cannot see original form in any model-driven app.

I tried to simulate scenario with our own two dev environments and our own two solutions, and I have no problem to create Solution B on top of tables from solution A and having Main forms from both solutions visible in parallel and be able to switch between those.

Please, could you share any advice what could be preventing us from being able to use original "Main Environment Form" on Environment table, after we add our own custom form with different name to the same Environment table using our own customs solution? It seems there is some setting somewhere which we have overlooked.

Thank you very much in advance.

What solution are you experiencing the issue with?

Core

What solution version are you using?

December 2022

What app or flow are you having the issue with?

Extending "Environment" table

What method are you using to get inventory and telemetry?

Cloud flows

[miroslav-harlas]

Hello @Jenefer-Monroe, I think I have found a root cause of my issue. In CoE Starter Kit >> in Environment table >> Forms >> Forms settings >> there are following settings:

• security of the Main Form is customized to not be visible for everybody, but only for specific Security roles AND at the same time NO security role is assigned with access to the Form.
• Due to some strange reason, even if no security role was allowed to see the Main form, we were still able to see it until there was no other form. After we added other custom form to the same table trough our Unmanaged solution, then issues started.
• I temporarily fixed the issue by adding a Main Environment form from CoE Starter Kit to my unmanaged solution and to assign secuirty roles to allow access to that main form. After this workaround was applied, I'm able to see both Main forms - from CoE starter Kit as well as the one from our own unmanaged solution - and I'm able to switch between those forms without issues.

My additional questions are as follows:

1. Is the same setup of Main forms (no sec. roles are defined to access the form) on various tables present even in the latest version of the Starter Kit Core components? (we are on December 2022 still, but planning to upgrade)
2. I cannot determine myself if this setup is a bug or wanted feature, if this setup is on purpose. Please could you provide some statement about this?

Adding some screenshot for better understanding

Thank you very much in advance for any comment.

Miroslav Harlas

[manuelap-msft]

Hi @miroslav-harlas,

I'm so sorry for how long it took to get back to you, this fell through the cracks and we just found your question again as we went through our backlog! Apologies!

Thanks for the detailed explanation, and debugging! I've just done some digging and this is not expected behaviour, we've never changed the form settings / security roles so it looks like that's just how the main form gets created by default. Those tables have been around in the solution since the beginning (3+ years), so it could also be an issue perhaps with how the security roles were introduced to form settings and older tables/forms not being updated correctly in the background. I'm not quite sure. In any case, it's not the desired setup - it does look like it's not causing any issues for "regular" use, but it clearly causing issues when trying to extend the tables.

We'll fix this up to assign the Power Platform Admin SR to all main forms. Unfortunately we won't be able to fit this in for the August release anymore, as we're already code-complete for that one but we'll do it for September.

Sorry for the long wait and thanks for the feedback, Manuela

[manuelap-msft]

It looks like some of our newer tables, e.g. AI Builder Model table have this setting by default

Documenting here which tables needed changing. For these tables, I've made the changes ready for the September release:

• Environment
• Flow
• Power Platform User
• PowerApps App
• PVA Bot

This ones the form was fine (security role set to Everyone):

• AI Builder Model
• Audit Log
• Business Process Flows
• Desktop Flow
• Environment Security Role
• Maker
• Power Pages Site
• Power Platform Solution

I have only checked our inventory tables so far, are there other tables you're wanting to extend that I should check as well?

[miroslav-harlas]

Hello @manuelap-msft , thank you for looking into my issue and thank you for confirming it is not expected behavior.

I have achieved to prepare and release a mini solution internally to fix this for particular use case on our side - Environment table. But as far as we plan to extend our tool built on top of starter kit, it would be great to have this fixed in other inventory tables.

I can confirm that we are using just inventory part of Starter Kit at this moment (Core solution only).

Miroslav Harlas

[miroslav-harlas]

I can confirm that not all tables are impacted. We are also using/extending tables like "Environment Addons" and "Environment Capacity" and Main forms in both these tables are set to "Everyone". I didn't have to apply fix on these two tables when deploying our own solution on top of starter kit.

[manuelap-msft]

Thanks for confirming! We'll double check all the tables before we ship in September to make sure they're all set to "Everyone". I'm not sure why some of them are not, it seems a little random.

[CoEStarterKitBot]

@miroslav-harlas This has been fixed in the latest release. Please install the latest version of the toolkit following the instructions for installing updates. Note that if you do not remove the unmanaged layers as described there you will not receive updates from us.