How to Provision a Portal for Common Data Service (Step by step guide)

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In this article we will walk through the detailed steps on how to provision a portal for Common Data Service (CDS). You can create a portal either in your new environment or in an existing environment.

Create portal in new Environment

• To create portal in new environment, you need to login to PowerApps Maker Portal.
• Click on Home link and choose – “Portal from Blank”

• If the environment is without a database, you will get an option to create a new environment

• Enter the details for the environment

• Once the environment is created, the next step is to create a database to access Common Data Instance (CDS)

• You need to select the language and then create the environment.
• Once the database is created in your environment in the maker portal, you will see the Portal Management app. This app is not the portal but a model driven app to manage your portal configurations. Only one model driven app – Portal management app is created since this is an environment dedicated to portals only.
• Once the portal management app is created, you can choose the option to create “Portal” from New App section, for this environment.

Create portal in an existing environment

We explore on how to create a portal in new environment. You can also create a portal for an existing CDS environment. The process is basically the same as creating a new environment.

• Login to PowerApps Maker portal
• From the apps section, select “New app” and then select “Portal” from the Dropdown list.

• Enter the details for the portal and also select a language for the portal. I have chosen English as my language. To create a portal in a specified language, you need to make sure the corresponding language is enabled for the CDS environment. If not, the language won’t be able available in the drop-down to select.

• If you have entered the details correct, the Create button will be enabled. On click of the Create button, the portal provisioning will start. You should be able to see the portal app in the the Apps list, but till the provisioning complete, the portal app would be grayed out.
• Once the portal is provisioned, the portal will be available for use. You can now manage your portal configurations.

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Hope this helps!

Debajit Dutta
(Business Solutions MVP)