Manage updates

  • 5 minutes

Microsoft delivers two major releases each year (April and October) that offer new capabilities and functionality for Microsoft Power Platform and customer engagement apps.

Since these major releases include features that affect user experience, you have the option to opt in to get early access. Opting for early access allows you to test and validate the new features before they become standard.

Early access availability

For each major release, Microsoft enables early access updates approximately two months before they're automatically enabled in your region.

For the Wave 1 major release, scheduled to be enabled in April's first week, early access opt-in starts in early February. Likewise, for the Wave 2 release, set to be enabled in October's first week, early access opt-in begins in early August.

Note

When a release wave is generally available, Microsoft will set the update status in your environments to On so that you automatically receive all planned features and updates throughout the release.

Available environments for early access updates

You can install Early access updates for all types of environments, including trial, sandbox, and production. However, the best practice is to enable the updates in trial or sandbox environments before production environments.

Important

Consider creating a sandbox environment to test new features before enabling early access updates in the production environment. Once the updates are enabled in production, they cannot be reverted. Testing in the sandbox helps you assess the impact on your organization's users.

Enable early access updates

If you want to enable early access updates, here are the steps to do that:

  1. Sign in to the Power Platform admin center.

  2. Choose the environment to update.

  3. Under Updates, the new release wave will show as available. Select Manage.

    Screenshot of the Environments page in the admin center, with the update pane highlighted.

  4. In the Updates pane appearing on the right side of your screen, you'll see a link to see what's included. Also, note the warnings that you can't undo the updates, it could affect performance, and it could take a few hours.

  5. Once you've activated the update, your Updates pane will read Activating... After the update is complete, the pane will report On. all release (or early access) features are enabled for the model-driven apps in your environment.