Introduction

In this self-paced module, you learn how to create pipelines in Microsoft Power Platform to support an application lifecycle management (ALM) strategy.

Overview

Pipelines in Microsoft Power Platform simplify application lifecycle management (ALM) for Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Dynamics 365 users. You can use pipelines to integrate ALM automation and take advantage of continuous integration capabilities in a user-friendly way.

ALM standardizes the process of deploying developments and configurations from a development environment to other environments, such as test and production.

Pipelines reduce the effort and knowledge needed to implement automated ALM processes, which helps teams and organizations improve efficiency.

Users can benefit from the use of pipelines in the following ways:

• Admins - Set up automated deployment pipelines in minutes.
• Makers - Use an intuitive interface for straightforward solution deployment.
• Professional developers - Extend and manage pipelines by using the Microsoft Power Platform CLI.

You can create pipelines for personal use by using the platform host. This option is available for all makers who go to the pipeline area. For organization-level pipelines, Microsoft Power Platform administrators can create pipelines by using a custom pipeline host.

This module focuses on the maker's perspective by using personal pipelines.

Limitations

Pipelines can help deploy solutions that contain various Microsoft Power Platform components, excluding Microsoft Power BI dashboards and datasets.

Another important consideration to remember is that you must make target environments available as Managed Environments. The target environment must have a Microsoft Dataverse database, and it can't be the default or a Microsoft Teams environment.

Next steps

You now have an overview of the benefits and limitations of pipelines in Microsoft Power Platform. Next, you learn the required steps for creating the pipelines.