Documenting Power Apps & Automates under 3 seconds

Many organizations that utilize Power Platform solutions face challenges in documenting them and often struggle to establish a clear starting point. The individuals responsible for documentation find it difficult to create a consistent format and adopt a structured approach, as these documents differ from conventional ones.

To address this issue, 微软 introduced PowerDocu, a unique plug-and-play application as part of the low-code revolution. Being a self-contained solution, it has no external dependencies, is simple to install, and operates seamlessly, offering an efficient and effective solution.

I recommend checking out the official video on Microsoft Learn for clear and visual guidance.

Problem Statement: When working with a Microsoft Power App or Microsoft Power Automate Flow and looking to create technical documentation or get a head start, PowerDocu provides an excellent solution.

Installation and Setup

1. Visit the GitHub repository where the application’s zip file is stored. As of the date this blog was written, Microsoft has released 22 versions, with the latest being v2.1.0. Download the PowerDocu-v.2.1.0-selfcontained.zip by clicking the hyperlink.

2. Extract the downloaded file and open the extracted folder. Run the .exe file as an administrator, as shown in the image below.

3. In the application window, navigate to the "Settings" tab and click the "Update Connectors" button. This will download all Power Automate connectors, which will be used as icons in the documentation. If you already have a preferred format, you can select the "Template" option and upload a Word document. When documenting a flow, you can also choose the order in which the connectors will be listed, either alphabetically or based on their order of appearance. After having the desired configuration setup click "Save" button.

Create a document

1. Go to the "Create Documentation" tab, click on the zip file icon, and upload a Power App or Power Automate flow.

2. After uploading the files, click on the hourglass icon to start generating the documentation. You can monitor the logs to track the progress and understand what’s happening behind the scenes. In this case, it took less than 3 seconds to create the documents.

3. The documents will be generated in the same directory and file path where you extracted the zip file in step 2 of Installation and Setup.

Note:

You can view the documents that were generated as part of this blog in my GitHub repo