Powerful Devs 2023

The Powerful Devs conference, a Microsoft virtual conference geared toward code-first developers, was a couple of weeks ago. This was a bit earlier in the year than previous iterations and featured fewer sessions than normal.

Powerful Devs Conference - Events | Microsoft Learn

Check out my recap below or jump down to my highlighted sessions from previous Powerful Devs events.

Recap of the content

So you've been told to low code, now what? This was a nice update to the broad overview...and the format serves well.

OpenAI with Power Platform I appreciated the use of APIM, Custom Connectors, and Power Apps. Also, it was great to see a short OpenAI session that focused on a DALL-E example. Power Apps was a great way to showcase the generated images.

How to do ALM with Power Platform Good to have a current update since a lot has changed here over the last few releases. Much more robust, and also includes details of how ALM is included for business users.

Use your Pro Dev skills to power up your Power Apps front ends This ****advanced session included a lot of model-driven app custom control specifics. Good content if it’s what you’re looking for, but assumes a good understanding of Dataverse and model driven apps which is a narrow slice of code-first developers.

Enable millions of low code devs with Custom connectors if you're not already familiar with the categories of connectors (Certified, Independent, and Custom) this has a nice overview along with a demo. If you are familiar, check out the “Code in custom connectors…” session from 2021 that I linked below.

Favorite sessions from previous Powerful Devs conferences

Some of the previous years have super intriguing sessions. These are a few of my favorites, which are worth checking out if you haven’t seen them before.

Real-time Power Apps with SignalR - DEV Community 2020 Still my favorite Powerful Devs session. Custom control, SignalR, realtime multiple user experience. Includes “homework” links.

Code in Power Platform Custom Connectors with Geetha Sivasailam - Events | Microsoft Learn 2021 Back in 2021 this was in preview, but it’s prime-time today. Transformation scenarios without having to host your C# code (it’s hosted in the connector). Add additional data to the response. Fetch additional data.

Power-up Power Platform with Serverless Custom Connector - DEV Community 2020 Love this being so end-to-end and light on slides. Azure Function app front-ended by Power Platform. Includes deploying a Function app, creating a custom connector, then uses Power Automate and Power Apps as interfaces.

Connect your Java App with Power Apps - DEV Community 2020 Java (Spring App) + Power Apps. I’m not a Java developer, however I’ve used this as a primer/concept to share with friends who are.