Release channels for your model-driven app
Microsoft provides new (and updated) features for your model-driven apps, on a regular basis. You can control how often the users in your organization get these new features by specifying the release channel. The concept of multiple release channels originated from Microsoft 365 channels and provides Power Platform admins with a choice of how often end user impacting features are released.
The existing cadence of twice-yearly release waves is called the Semi-annual channel and is currently the default for all existing apps and environments. The new monthly channel option enables GA-ready features to be turned on each month with a four week preview notification period to allow customer validation with existing customizations.
The following table provides a comparison of monthly channel and semi-annual channel.
| Category | Monthly channel | Semi-annual channel |
|---|---|---|
| Recommended use | Provide your users with new end user impacting features only once a month and on a predictable schedule. | For users in your organization where more training and extensive testing are needed before rollout out of new end user impacting features. |
| Release frequency | Once a month, on the first release for the month and following the gradual weekly rollout. | Twice a year, starting early April and early October and following the gradual weekly rollout. |
Security and non-end user impacting changes continue to be delivered with the weekly releases and changes outlined in Microsoft Unified Interface versions.
The key idea is that GA-ready end user impacting features release monthly instead of waiting for the twice-yearly release cadence. The same number of features are delivered in 12 smaller releases instead of two larger releases.
Microsoft 365 products have seen a consistently higher user satisfaction for monthly channel compared to the semi-annual channel. Currently, we observe a user satisfaction drop with the twice-yearly releases, and we're looking to improve this experience by following the Microsoft 365 channel approach.
Configuring release channel
Release channel can be configured on the environment, app, or user level. The release channel is primarily managed on the environment or app. The user level is an override, which can be used for gradual rollout or to revert specific users.
Environment admins use the Power Platform admin center to select the channel for the environment. Makers use app designer or the solutions area to select the channel for one or more apps.
To allow gradually switching the default from semi-annual channel to monthly channel, the default value will be renamed to Auto and there will be explicit choices for semi-annual and monthly. The Auto value starts as semi-annual, but switches to monthly with a future release wave. Admins and makers can explicitly select semi-annual if they have a need for the slower cadence.
New apps will soon start defaulting to the explicit monthly value and will be followed with new environment default. More information: Changing release channels
Monthly release schedule
Model-driven apps release updates every week, which is gradually rolled out to groups of regions over several weeks. Below are the region groups with each group happening in successive weekend updates.
- First release environment (FRE)
- Canada, South America, India, France, South Africa, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Korea, Singapore
- United Arab Emirates, Japan, Asia Pacific, Great Britain, Australia
- Europe
- United States
The monthly release is the first weekly release of each month. The release typically matches YYMM.1 where YY is the release year and MM is the release month. The monthly release notes are published to Released versions for Power Apps four weeks before the release reaches the region group 2. Region group 2 is used because it's the first region group for production customer environments and region group 1 is used for customer early validation.
| Monthly release | Doc published | Feature release | Group 1 | Group 2 | Group 3 | Group 4 | Group 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2024 | Dec 22 | 2401.2 | Jan 12 | Jan 19 | Jan 26 | Feb 2 | Feb 9 |
| Feb 2024 | Jan 19 | 2402.1 | Feb 9 | Feb 16 | Feb 23 | Mar 1 | Mar 8 |
| Mar 2024 | Feb 16 | 2403.1 | Mar 8 | Mar 15 | Mar 22 | Mar 29 | Apr 5 |
| Apr 2024 | Mar 22 | 2404.1 | Apr 5 | Apr 12 | Apr 19 | Apr 26 | May 3 |
| May 2024 | Apr 19 | 2405.1 | May 10 | May 17 | May 24 | May 31 | Jun 7 |
See also
Changing release channels
User about dialog - channel
Power Platform admin center - Environment behavior settings
Power Platform admin center - User settings
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