Power Platform Environments: Testing and Release

Introduction

Managing testing and release environments in the Microsoft Power Platform is one of the most critical phases to ensure stability, security, and quality of business solutions. In enterprise contexts, the complexity of integrations and the multiplicity of development teams require structured strategies, based on dedicated environments and controlled release processes.

This guide explores the three main testing environments — SIT (System Integration Testing), UAT (User Acceptance Testing), and OAT (Operational Acceptance Testing) — and describes how to implement a multi‑release strategy that supports continuous development and product updates.

The Testing Chain: SIT, UAT, and OAT

System Integration Testing (SIT)

The SIT environment is used for technical testing of the entire solution, including all possible scenarios of integration with other corporate IT systems. Here, data consistency between Dataverse, Azure, and external systems such as Dynamics 365 or SharePoint is verified. Typical activities include testing connectors, APIs, automations, and backend processes.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

The UAT environment is dedicated to end‑to‑end functional testing conducted by real users or corporate testers. The goal is to validate that the solution meets functional and user experience requirements. This is the phase where UAT test scripts are finalized and feedback is collected for any corrections before release.

Operational Acceptance Testing (OAT)

The OAT environment aims to verify the operational readiness of the solution. Support processes, backups, disaster recovery plans, and monitoring capabilities are checked. Only after successfully passing OAT can the solution be promoted to production.

Multi‑Release Strategy

Organizations developing complex solutions need to manage multiple versions simultaneously. The multi‑release strategy introduces two development streams:

• Main Development Stream: dedicated to developing the next major release (version N+1).
• Support Development Stream: dedicated to maintenance and bug fixing of the current release (version N).

This model ensures operational continuity and organized release management, allowing new features to be developed without disrupting maintenance of the production system.

To ensure consistency between the two streams, a bug tracking system must be in place to transfer fixes from the support branch to the main branch, preventing reintroduction of issues in future versions.

Testing for Product Updates

In long‑term projects, Microsoft may release new Power Platform versions. In such cases, it is recommended to create a dedicated environment with the preview feature enabled to test solution compatibility with the upcoming product release.

This approach, known as product upgrades testing, allows teams to:

• Identify regressions or incompatibilities early.
• Verify the behavior of plug‑ins, APIs, and PCF components against new features.
• Ensure a coordinated update plan between development and administration teams.

Test results are documented and managed through Azure DevOps, using pipelines and repositories to automate the solution lifecycle.

Best Practices and Recommendations

• Use Azure DevOps as the version control and solution deployment system.
• Implement pipelines to automate export, import, and validation of solutions between environments.
• Clearly document versions and dependencies among Dataverse components.
• Always separate sandbox environments from production to avoid interference.
• Continuously monitor infrastructure through the Power Platform Admin Center.