Power Apps Copilot Adds 4 New Features

By my count that brings us to 10 different Copilot features in Power Apps. 🤯 The existing 6 are:

1. Create a Table and App from Words

2. Create a Table and App from Excel file

3. Copilot Sidebar for helping Makers

4. Copilot for Users to chat over their data

5. Copilot Answers for precanned queries on data

6. Draft with Copilot on multi-line inputs

Wowsers, that is a bunch but good news we get more. Let's break them down below but if you like to see more than read then check out my latest video 4 New Power Apps Copilot Features.

Copilot Explain it for Power Apps

Now to the left of your formula bar you have a Copilot icon. If you click that icon you have the option for Explain it. This will analyze the code in your formula bar and tell you what it does. For Example here is my sample code:

Set(varShowLoading, true);

ClearCollect(colFiles, ShowColumns(AddColumns(Gallery1.AllItems, base64, With({varDemoFromAttachmentControl: JSON( Image3.Image,JSONFormat.IncludeBinaryData)},Mid(varDemoFromAttachmentControl, Find(",", varDemoFromAttachmentControl)+1, Len(varDemoFromAttachmentControl) - Find(",", varDemoFromAttachmentControl) -1 ))), base64, Name) );

Reset(AttachmentControl);
Set(varShowLoading, false);

And if I click Explain it, I get:

That is super helpful, especially when you are updating an existing app or trying to understand some code you borrowed from a blog or a video. 😁 Good news, there is nothing to learn or configure here. Just click it and enjoy the power of AI.

Copilot writing PowerFX for your Power Apps

This is my favorite new thing. Have you ever had an idea in your head for a formula you wanted to write but weren't sure how. No problem. Now you can type // and then your request and boom you have a formula suggestion. For example:

In this app, I have added 2 Date Picker controls and 1 Label. In the Label I am going to type //subtract datepicker1 from datepicker2

When I stop typing for a moment you will see Generating

It will then show me a suggested formula and if I press Tab I have my formula.

That is so cool. Think about it, I gave it some solid hints but, it figured it out. I didn't tell it to use Days, it just defaulted to that because that is the most common.

Now what if I challenge it more. So now I am going to rename my DatePicker2 to dpForBuddy and I am going to ask for hours. Can it do it? Of course.

That one melts my brain. Look at how vague I was and it worked out a solution.

Things to keep in mind with this new feature

• It is slowly rolling out, you may not have it yet but hopefully soon. It is also available for English so far.

• If you have an older app, then you will need to enable the feature Power FX formula bar

• It only works on certain PowerFX functions today. Common functions it doesn't work with yet include Set, Collect, and Patch. It does work for Filter and Search. By my observation functions you would put on a button don't seem to work yet, everything else I have tried does. Look at that nested request

• It does seem to understand inside of Galleries concepts like ThisItem. Look it even knew to add a space in the name.

Do you want to learn more about Copilot?

Then be sure to check out my upcoming Live Copilot Training Class. A day full of all things Copilot including Bing Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and all of the fun you can have with Power Platform and AI Builder Copilot. So cool. Hope to see you there.

Copilot Ideas for Power Apps

Power Apps has had Ideas as a feature for a while. Where you could click on a Gallery for example and it would offer you some formula suggestions. Well now the team has taken that concept to another level with Copilot Ideas. Now when I click on a Gallery I see a Copilot button.

By clicking the button you get some suggestions, like we used to with Ideas.

The big difference is at the top. Now I can use my own words to get suggestions more in line with what I want, instead of only their suggestions. Here is what I put in for my Prompt

I want to filter where Department equals "Executive" and then I want to sort by last name and then first name column

Look at the well written formula with real column names added. Now I click Apply and boom my gallery is using this new formula. Using words to get better ideas, that is a great concept.

Bing Search power for Copilot for Power Apps Makers

Have you ever asked Copilot over there on the right to help with something with your app for it to say Sorry, I don't know about that. Well, now you can enhance what it knows with power of Bing Search. By default it is disabled but you can turn it on for the whole session with the gear at the bottom.

Or if you ask a question it doesn't know it will offer.

If I click Yes, until I close this chat it will use the power of Bing to get me the answer I need.

This is a nice addition. I am also hopeful this paves the way to Power Apps Copilot one day knowing everything in my tenant so I could potentially build apps around documented business processes or requirements. Fingers crossed.

Conclusion

Power Apps is awesome. Copilot is awesome. And they both keep working together to be more awesome. Technical enough? 🤣 The real key here is you should be embracing these Copilots and you should be on the look out for change. It seems almost every week something new sneaks out. So stay on your toes and keep embracing AI and you will do well.

If we can do anything to help you with Power Platform or Copilot hit us up on the contact form below. We have mentoring, training, project services, planning and design, and any other help you might be looking for.