Power Apps Viking

How do I find the right answers to my problem? What keywords do I use to find the right solution?

This guide is largely inspired by this LinkedIn post by Jukka Niiranen, an industry veteran and Microsoft MVP. In the post, Jukka talks about how some parts of the Power Platform still go by the 20-year-old naming convention, CRM, in some registries.

One problem – Many search terms

This reminded me of a problem that me and my colleagues often face when trying to solve an issue on the Power Platform. When searching for an answer, what do we type to find the best solution? The first thing I tell colleagues is that they should try to write “CRM” after the query to help filter their results as efficiently as possible. Veterans don’t have to think about doing this, because for them, it is colloquially still called CRM (Update: As Jukka noted in a comment, many industry veterans also use the famous XRM Toolbox, so this is not even an isolated topic related to only CRM). But which other areas should new users be aware of when trying to find answers on Google/Bing?

Let’s say you want to change the label for one of the choices in a choice column in a table. When googling “change label choice column power platform” you will find a lot of results. Unfortunately, most of them are irrelevant to your question.

However, if you search for “change label option-set field CRM” you will find several answers that all help you achieve your goal.

Confused? Me too. Let’s do something about it!

Overview of past and current names of objects/items on the Power Platform

Below, I have created an overview of the naming conventions used for the most common objects/items on the Power Platform. This can be a helpful guide when trying to google a problem. Please add comments below for any items I might have missed so they can be added to the list and we can use this going forward as a point of reference.

I will update this guide with new names if any changes happen after creating this post. The names in bold are the current names being used, the options written below are alternatives that can be used when trying to google a problem.

Power Platform
Alternatives are “CRM” “Dynamics CRM” or “CRM 365”. Be aware that when searching for CRM and Dynamics CRM you might find results that relate to either on-prem versions or other Business Applications within Dynamics (F&O, Service, Field Service, etc.)

Objects
Alternatives are “Components”

Dataverse
Alternatives are “CDS” “Common Data Service” or “Dataflex”.

Tables
Alternatives are “Entities”

Columns
Alternatives are “Fields”

Choice/Choices
Alternatives are “Option set” (single or multi-select option set). Also previously option sets could be local or global. This option is not currently available on the power platform.

Automation
Technically all processes are still under the “Processes”. However, the overarching category for any process, be it a workflow, business process flow, an action, or a flow(cloud & desktop)

Power Automate
The service used to be called simply “Flow” or “Microsoft Flow”

Cloud Flows(Automated/Instant/Scheduled) & Desktop Flows
Previously all these types of flows were simply called “Flows”

Power Apps
Previously “PowerApps”

Power Pages (Also currently called “Power Apps Websites” in some cases)
Alternatives are “Power Apps Portals” and “PowerApps Portals”

Also important to note. Some terms have remained unchanged.

Solutions & Solution Publishers
Layers (managed/unmanaged)
Save & Publish changes

Forms
Views
Relationships
Charts
Business Rules
Dashboards

As mentioned above, this list will be updated based on comments from you and also changes made by Microsoft, so please feel free to reach out to me with additions/changes to the list.