Solved: Re: "Microsoft 365 developer subscription" vs the ...

dlprentice · ‎10-21-2021

Hello all,

If I want to practice, and develop Power Apps with Dataverse is there a functional difference in the "Microsoft 365 developer subscription" against the "Power Apps Developer Plan"?

I asked the question in another area but I'm not able to delete those posts. Was advised to post here instead for a faster or better response

poweractivate · ‎10-21-2021

@dlprentice Exactly - it won't let you create any new environments at all under the M365 / O365 Developer Subscription. For those, Power Apps Developer is the closest best instead as you can have a full Developer environment and full Dataverse there - even if it just scoped to that user and you can't really have multiple users inside of any Developer environment's Dataverse, you can have pretty much more than enough for the purposes of many initial testing scenarios.

Sounds to me like for you, if you will just use SharePoint, the Default environment is probably fine.

Once you start using Dataverse, it is very tempting to use the Default environment, but it has some specific nuances that cause it to be a bit different from a true production environment. It may be fine to use it for production anyway, but I've run into issues where it was much better off for a Dataverse based setup to have used a separate production environment. For example you cannot back up the Dataverse in Default, you are limited to a certain amount of space forever, I think the Security Roles and some other features are not actually the full gamut as in a separate true production environment with Dataverse on it, and so forth.

For just staying on SharePoint and stuff like that, the Default environment should be fine though.

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poweractivate · ‎10-21-2021

@dlprentice Yes there is. M365 Developer or Office 365 E5 Developer is for SharePoint, etc. It is also geared for things like custom dev like SharePoint Add-In etc. Power Apps Developer plan is for Power Apps. Usually I think M365 Dev or Office 365 E5 Developer plan mirror the Power Apps limited use rights for M365 and O365 plans, so that means no Dataverse access* in the Power Apps use rights of this plan, whereas PowerApps Developer Plan or PowerApps Community Plan mirrors the PowerApps Per User Plan which does have the Dataverse access.

Check if above helps. If you want you can test it as well yourself to make sure.

*Sometimes, some plans M365 or O365 have limited "Dataverse for Teams" use rights - but to my knowledge, the core Dataverse, there are no use rights in these plans.

dlprentice · ‎10-21-2021

After looking at this Microsoft doc would you say this is still the case?

Use your developer subscription to build Microsoft 365 solutions | Microsoft Docs

Scroll down to the Power Apps part and you'll see why I asked this question, and oddly enough I was able to make a Dataverse database using the default environment that comes with the E5 dev subscription... and a custom table, and populate this custom table with an entry. The doc I linked hints that this should be possible. Either that or I'm in violation.

poweractivate · ‎10-21-2021

@dlprentice Even if you are right that you can build Dataverse in there, you would not be in violation - however, it is a special privilege and it is not normally included in Office 365 or M365 plans. Everything you build in here (and that's with or without Dataverse) cannot be used for actual production workload, only for development purposes.

Are you sure it was the core Dataverse or was it the one for Teams? There is a difference.

Pstork1 · ‎10-21-2021

To the best of my knowledge the M365 developer subscription does not give you access to Premium connectors, like the full Dataverse connector. You would still be limited to the standard connectors the way you are with a purchased M365 license. It would let you build Dataverse apps inside Teams using Dataverse for Teams. But the Power Apps Developer plan will give you access to all the premium connectors, including the regular Dataverse connector. They overlap, but are not the same.

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poweractivate · ‎10-21-2021

@Pstork1

@Pstork1 wrote:
But the Power Apps Developer plan will give you access to all the premium connectors, including the regular Dataverse connector. They overlap, but are not the same.

You know this is exactly what I thought too like I said first, I really don't think you can access Dataverse fully without PowerApps Developer.

@dlprentice Do you think you might have made a Dataverse for Teams? Because as I said some O365 and M365 plans may have rights to that - but not the full Dataverse itself.

Pstork1 · ‎10-21-2021

I don't think he has tried both plans. He says that "The doc I linked hints that this should be possible." I suspect he is going off the documentation, which is marketing speech, rather than experience.

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dlprentice · ‎10-21-2021

Oh no, I've setup both at this point, and I've been able to make a full blown dataverse database on both environments. I just didn't think this was possible, but seems like it is. Though I didn't look to see if the O365 dev subscription had access to same set of premium connectors that the Power Apps Dev plan does.

Do you know what connectors I can test?

poweractivate · ‎10-21-2021

@dlprentice What about if you make a Canvas App and try to use the Table in there as Data Source. Then save the Canvas App and Publish it. Will it let you do that too?

poweractivate · ‎10-21-2021

@dlprentice wrote:
I've setup both at this point,

If you have both Subscriptions on the User Account on this Tenant at same time i.e. Both the M365 / O365 Developer and the Power Apps Community Plan, you will no longer be able to test how it is like with just M365 / O365 Dev subscription by the way. So the only way to test it is to have only the M365 / O365 Dev subscription on the tenant. To do this you may have to create one or more Users and only assign the M365 /O365 Dev and not start the Power Apps Community Plan from that individual user.

Now the Default environment you can create a Table there, but the question is in M365 O365 dev can you make a Canvas App and use Table as data source? The answer is I would say not technically - now even if you were able to do that for some reason anyway, once you shared that with another user with O365 / M365 dev they should be prompted to start a trial of Power Apps Per User because it uses Premium Features.

Now it's possible for some reason what I am saying is wrong and that it's just going to let you do all of this anyway even share it with the other user, even without PA Community Plan. If so, it might just be some special exception for the M365 / O365 Developer plan or something.