In the last post, I shared 10 things to consider before installing the CoE starter kit.
If you do not consider those things, you will have a lot of issues managing the starter kit.
Also, people make common mistakes while maintaining the starter kit.
I have made some of these mistakes and seen others make similar mistakes.
Hopefully, after reading these, you can learn from our mistakes and not repeat them.
But you need to ask why they are happening.
Why are mistakes happening when upgrading the CoE starter kit?
The starter kit is not a simple tool to manage.
Here is why.
We are trying to automate the environment request process.
I was struggling to automate adding environments to DLP.
I am trying the Power Platform admin V2 connector action.
But my teammate said we have it already as part of the tool.
I was like what? How did I miss it?
Then we used the child flow to complete the automation.
You might have faced similar kinds of challenges.
To put this in context, how large was the starter kit?
At a high level, there are three main components
1) core components
2) Audit or Governance components
3) Nurture components
I am ignoring the other one for now (Innovation backlog). This component didn’t get much attention.
As of April 2024 release
Core components got
- 423 Total Objects
- 49 Tables
- 15 Power Apps
- 110 Cloud Flows
- 63 Pages
Audit components
- 42 components
- 1 Table
- 3 Power Apps
- 12 Cloud Flows
- 8 Pages
Nurture components
- 74 components
- 15 Tables
- 3 Power Apps
- 8 Cloud Flows
- 7 Pages
Note: I will try to update this metric once a quarter. Let me know if you read this article in the future and it hasn’t been updated for over three months.
Starter is a great tool that adds value to managed environments.
But it needs effort from the Power Platform team to manage it.
It is easy to make mistakes if you do not know what you are customizing.
If you do not know how to use the kit efficiently,
Now you know why. Let us get into the list of these mistakes.
The list below is not in any particular order.
Immediate CoE starter kit upgrade Post-Release
The starter kit team releases the updates once a month.
If you upgrade to a new release without waiting for initial bugs to be identified and fixed. It can cause issues if there are any critical problems present.
Give yourself a few days to a week to check that the kit updates are not significantly flawed.
Not doing Testing
Not testing newly released components in the development environment before production use can introduce unexpected issues.
This happens mainly because of the lack of a dedicated development environment.
You need to have a development environment to test the released updates.
If you use any email functionality, enable an admin account email and start testing with a few users. Make sure the emails are working as expected. You do not want to email everyone in the organization even by mistake.
Overlooking Starter Kit’s Full Functionality
Failing to invest time in understanding all solutions and components in the starter kit can lead to building custom solutions that are not required.
Make sure you give yourself time to understand all the components. If not, you will build something not required.
Not updating the starter kit frequently
You must update the CoE starter kit at least once every three months.
Otherwise, managing the starter kit may experience many unexpected issues.
It’s even better to upgrade the starter kit at least once every two months.
Document everything, and this makes it easier to do future upgrades.
Too many customizations and not having conversations with the Starter kit team
People customizing the starter kit functionality is common.
While customization, it’s always better to be in touch with a starter kit to understand the roadmap rather than building a custom component.
The component you are building might already be planned in a few months, and then you can always wait and focus on other areas.
Go to the starter kit Project in GitHub and check the plans for the next few months.
You can also request a feature in GiHub and see what the starter kit team says. They can guide you on whether to build it or not.
Final Thoughts
Installing a starter kit alone is not enough.
Maintaining the starter kit is essential.
The starter kit is the primary tool for understanding the current state of the power platform.
Make sure you do not make these mistakes while maintaining the starter kit.
Often reflect on what went well and what didn’t.
Keep a list of all the issues that happened so you can track their progress and the lessons learned.
Hopefully, you will make fewer mistakes as you learn and reflect often.
Let me know in the comments some of the common mistakes you have seen.