Power Apps Comments: Collaborate & Give Feedback

Imported reference from Matthew Devaney's blog for learning purposes. Original: https://www.matthewdevaney.com/power-apps-comments-collaborate-give-feedback/. Author: Matthew Devaney.

Power Apps Comments: Collaborate & Give Feedback Posted by - Matthew Devaney on - October 23, 2022 19 Comments

I recently discovered the new Power Apps comments feature. I love them. Comments are used to collaborate with other developers and give feedback on an app. They are also an excellent code review tool. Developers can discuss an issue in a conversation thread and close the thread once it’s resolved. In this article I will show you how to use the new Power Apps comments feature. Table of Contents When Should I Use Comments? Create A New Comment Reply To A Comment Resolve A Comment Thread View The Comments Table In Dataverse When Should I Use Comments?

Do use comments as a code review tool . Write notes to other developers about what needs to be fixed

Do use comments as a to-do list. Leave notes for yourself about development work that needs to get done

Do not use comments to explain how a section of code works . Comments are stored in Dataverse and do not come along with an app when transported to another environment. Create A New Comment

In this example, we will learn how to use the Power Apps comments feature. Open Power Apps Studio and create a new phone app from a template. Choose the Asset Checkout app template then go to the DeviceCheckoutScreen once the app loads.

Click the comments icon in the top right-corner 💬 to open the comments menu.

Comments must be applied to a screen or a control. We will make a comment on the red checkout button. Select the checkout button then click 💬 New.

The color red indicates a destructive action. We want the button to be green instead because pressing the checkout button is a positive action.

Write a note explaining what changes need to be made. Use the @ symbol to tag another canvas app developer who should act on the message.

If the person mentioned using the @ symbol does not have access to the app, Power Apps will prompt to Share and notify them of the comment.

Upon clicking Share and notify the mentioned person will received a notification about the comment in their email. Reply To A Comment

The mentioned person opens the Asset Checkout app and makes the requested change. When finished, they leave a reply to the original comment to show their task is done.

Comments use conversation threads to keep discussions organized. There can be multiple replies to the same thread. Resolve A Comment Thread

Now that the issue is fixed we can go back into the app and close the thread. Open the comments menu, click the three dots on the comment and select Resolve Thread .

Once resolved, the comment turns grey and a checkmark appears at the top. View The Comments Table In Dataverse

Comments are stored in a Dataverse table named Comment . They are not stored in the canvas app file. When an app is exported to another environment, its comments do not come with it. This is why comments should be used to conduct code reviews and not to comment your code .

To view all of the comments in a Power Platform environment open make.powerapps.com, go to the Dataverse Tables menu and open the Comment table.

The data in the Comments table looks like this.

I have determined how most of the comments table fields work and written a description in the table below. But I was not able to figure out what the AnchorID is for. If you know please, leave a comment on my blog and let me know so I can update my blog. Field Description AnchorID

A GUID value. I do not know its purpose. ArtifactID A unique identifier for the Canvas App Body

Contains a single message from the thread in JSON format Kind

Container for the Canvas Apps holding the comment Thread for the comment thread State Open for active comment threads Resolved for closed comment threads Did You Enjoy This Article? 😺

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