Table of Contents
What is Power Pages?
Microsoft’s official definition of Power Pages is:
Microsoft Power Pages is a secure, enterprise-grade, low-code software as a service (SaaS) platform for creating, hosting, and administering modern external-facing business websites. With Power Pages, you can build sites by using the same shared business data stored in Microsoft Dataverse that you use for building apps, workflows, intelligent virtual agents, reports, and analytics with other Microsoft Power Platform components in your organization.
The main points to highlight from above definition are:
- External-facing websites: Power Pages allows you to build websites meant to be used by external users such as customers, partners, or suppliers. If someone outside the organization needs to interact with your business, Power Pages is the perfect tool for this purpose.
It’s important to note that even though the main use of Power Pages lies on external facing websites, a Power Pages website can be used for internal use for employees such as a Human Resources hub.
- Low-code service: Power Pages provides a design studio with prebuilt features that allows creating a website by adding components and sections. Even though Microsoft emphasizes the low-code part, it’s important to mention that Power Pages allow for high customizations using programming languages such as Liquid, JavaScript, CSS.
- Creating, hosting and administering websites: The website is created and hosted inside your tenant and managed the same way as many of the other products from the Microsoft 365 subscription, this means that when a website is deployed, it’s hosted and administered by Microsoft, which helps with maintaining enterprise-grade security.
Data stores in Microsoft Dataverse: Power Pages uses Microsoft Dataverse as its underlying data platform. Power Pages leverages many of the Dataverse configurations for Forms and Views when adding components such as lists and forms in the website. For example, if you create a form in Dataverse with 8 fields, if you want to add this very same form in your website, Power Pages will recognize this form, its data types and controls and with the magic of a click a new form will be added to the website.
Key features of Power Pages
Drag-and-drop Design Studio
When working with Power Pages, developers have a design studio available where the website can be visually built and customized by arranging components without needing to write code. There are many out-of-the-box components that can be easily added to a website page such as:
- Text
- Image
- Video
- Button
- Dataverse table view (list)
- Dataverse table form
- Multistep forms (based on Dataverse forms)
Power Pages Management App
Many configurations and actions can be performed from the design studio, but advanced settings and configurations for Power Pages portals can be managed from the Management app that can be accessed from the studio
Contact
invitations, language settings, forms customization with JavaScript code and many other advanced setups can be performed from here:
Responsive, mobile-friendly templates
Any page and section that is added from the Power Pages studio is responsive and mobile-friendly. In below screenshot, we have created a website from a template that has this view on desktop devices:
This same
website automatically adjusts when viewed from a mobile device:
Secure data access via Microsoft Dataverse
As stated above, Power Pages uses Dataverse as the underlying data platform. Most of the configurations done to Dataverse tables will automatically cascade into the portal where the table is being used. When a table is added to a Power Pages website, all forms and views can be managed from the design studio:
An important consideration is that permissions need to be defined to each table when used from a Power Pages portal, to allow or restrict the records to which the external users will get to see (more on this below).
Integration with Microsoft services (Power Automate, Power BI, SharePoint, etc.)
As all the Power Platform and the whole Microsoft ecosystem itself, all tools are better when used together. Some examples of Power Pages integration with other Microsoft services are:
- Power Pages supports uploading and displaying documents to and from SharePoint
- Power Automate workflows can be connected to be called directly from a Power Pages portal and perform actions on demand, for example, when clicking on a button or when opening a webpage.
Power BI dashboards can be embedded in Power Pages websites.
Easier authentication methods implementation
Power Pages makes it easy to configure and integrate identity providers for user authentication, enabling secure sign-in experiences for external users, such as the traditional User and Password (local sign in) of any other platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn or Google:
Role-based access control
By default, there are three roles for Power Pages portals:
- Anonymous users: Users that open the Power Pages portal without signing in.
- Authenticated users: Users that have signed in into the portal using any of the identity providers set up (see point above), if authentication is enabled.
Administrators: Users who perform admin tasks in the portal from both the Power Pages design studio or the Portal Management app.
Additional roles can be added to the portal if needed
Permissions to each page can be assigned depending on the role each user is added to, for example, only users with “Administrator” role can see page A or B, or only authenticated users can see the “Submit request” page
Data access management
Through a combination of web roles and table permissions, we can define exactly how authenticated and anonymous users – or any other web role – interact with our site’s data.
For example:
- If we have a list of options in a form that come from a lookup table in Dataverse, we may need just everyone to be able to see the whole list – this is known as Global access.
- When it comes to each user submitting a service request to our sales team, we may need the user to be able to see only their own records – this is known as Contact access.
- If we would like all users from the same customer to be able to see the records from everyone else in the same customer, then we need to give them access to the records that belong to all the users assigned to the same customer – this is known as Account access.
We can also define which kind of actions each type of user can perform in each table. For example, just read the data, add new requests but not be able to edit or delete them.
Customization with pro-dev tools
Microsoft states Power Pages is a low-code platform, but it can be customized and coded just like any other website built from scratch by a team of pro developers. Power Pages allows the use of web technologies like JavaScript, Liquid, and CSS. Combined with access to pro-dev tools such as Visual Studio Code integration and GitHub support, this enables the creation of dynamic, fully branded, and functionally rich websites that go far beyond what’s possible with drag-and-drop alone.
When should you use Power Pages?
As stated in the first point of this blog, the main use of Power Pages portals is to build tools that external users can interact with, and it’s best suited for scenarios where users outside your organization need to view or interact with structured data stored in Microsoft Dataverse – but this doesn’t mean organizations cannot use it for internal use.
Use cases for Power Pages
Customer self-service portals
A Power Pages website can be built to enable customers to submit service requests, view order history, download invoices and update their profiles—without needing to contact support.
Supplier self-service portals
Power Pages websites can enable suppliers to manage purchase orders, invoices, and delivery schedules without back-and-forth emails or spreadsheets. This reduces manual communication and improves operational efficiency, with all interactions tracked securely in Dataverse and integrated with SharePoint.
Supplier Onboarding portals
When starting business with a new supplier, we need to collect tax data, address, contact information, bank documentation and much more, depending on the industry. This means there are usually forms, spreadsheets and emails back-and-forth with the procurement and account teams. With a Power Pages portal, all this process can be managed from a centralized platform. learn more in our blog on this topic.
Internal Knowledge Hubs
A centralized portal where employees can find training resources, company policies, HR documents, and onboarding materials. Role-based access ensures content is tailored by department, region, or role.
IT Help Desk Portals
Employees can submit and track IT support tickets, reset passwords, access self-help resources, and receive system outage notifications. Integrated with Power Automate for automatic ticket routing and status updates.
Internal vs. external user considerations
Internal users (licensed within your Microsoft 365 tenant) can access solutions like Power Apps and SharePoint directly with native authentication and full integration into the organization’s tenant. When creating solutions, usually Power Apps can be a really good solution if the sole purpose of a solution is to be used by internal members only.
External users, such as customers or vendors, often need a secure, user-friendly way to interact with data without requiring full Microsoft 365 accounts. So Power Pages might be the perfect fit.
Choosing between Power Apps, SharePoint, and Power Pages
The use of each tool depends on the audience and functionality requirements and each business need can lead to different decisions. Some general thoughts to consider are:
- Use Power Apps for internal apps where licensed users need custom forms or platforms built on Dataverse, SQL or Microsoft Lists (SharePoint lists).
- Choose SharePoint when document collaboration is needed or if an intranet page is required.
Go with Power Pages when you need to create public or partner-facing websites that securely expose Dataverse data to authenticated or anonymous users.
Basics for getting started with Power Pages
1. Set up your Power Pages environment
Power Pages portals cannot be created in the default Power Platform environment, so an environment needs to be created before starting the Portal.
2. Choose a template or start from scratch
Once the environment is ready, go to make.powerpages.com, select the right environment and create a new site:
If you’re brand new to Power Pages, it might be a good idea to pick a template to get an idea of how the whole platform works, and how set ups need to be configured.
3. Design your pages using Design Studio
Start adding pages or components and sections in an existing page.
4. Connect to your data
You can start by adding a simple form from the design studio:
Then you can select between different forms already added to the site, or just start a new one.
When adding a brand new form, there will be a setup wizard pop-up that will guide
you through the process of selecting a Dataverse table and the related form. Additional options can be defined in each section:
5. Set up security and permissions
- Web roles and table permissions> start by asking some questions about the website and its purpose:
- Who will use my website? Do I need users to sign in or all data will be public?
- If I need users to sign in, which data do they need to see? Their own records, their company records or everything?
Depending on above, define web roles, table permissions and allowed actions for each role:
- If users have to sign in, decide which kind of authentication methods the website will require, some options available are:
- Regular user and password
- Microsoft Entra ID
6. Publish and test your site
Once components and pages are added and security is set up, testing can start. Use the preview option for this
If the website needs to be used by external users, make sure to enable it as public:
Power Pages licensing
Power Pages licensing is based mainly on the decision of “Will my users need to sign in to use the portal?”
- If users need to sign in: the monthly price is 200 USD / month per 100 signed in users. This price is paid yearly
- If users do not need to sign in: the monthly price is 75 USD / month per 500 users that visit the site. This price is paid yearly
A free trial can be started and the platform can be explored for 30 days.
Power GI turns Power Pages into real business solutions
Make sure to check out our blog on using Power Pages to build an automated solution for a Supplier Onboarding portal. Our team brings deep expertise in Dataverse, process automation, and security, ensuring your Power Pages implementation is scalable, compliant, and fully integrated with the Microsoft ecosystem.
Whether you’re just getting started or looking to enhance an existing portal, contact us to start a conversation and see how we can help!
