PDAC - Power DevBox Admin Center

Settings by function not by environment. PDAC is a small local admin app for working across Power Platform and Dataverse environments with a functional hierarchy instead of environment. It helps with authentication, users and teams, connections, security roles, solution inspection, solution export/import, solution component settings, and admin telemetry for AI Flow, Flow Runs, and Agent Sessions.

Run

Run directly from npm:

npx powerdevbox-admin

Or install/link it locally and run the powerdevbox-admin or pdac command:

npm link
powerdevbox-admin

For development from this checkout:

npm start

Open:

http://localhost:4280

Optional startup values:

$env:SECURITY_ROLES_PORT = "4280"
$env:PP_REGION = "prod"
$env:PP_ENVIRONMENT_ID = "Default-00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
$env:PP_ORG_URL = "https://org.crm.dynamics.com"
$env:POWERAPPS_CLI_ENABLE_BROWSER_CONNECTION = "true"
powerdevbox-admin

POWERAPPS_CLI_ENABLE_BROWSER_CONNECTION=true enables the interactive local browser callback flow for connectors that cannot be created silently.

Functions

• Home: quick guide for each admin function.
• Environment and Auth: sign in, switch accounts, load environments, choose the active environment, and copy the selected environment details.
• Users and Teams: list environment users and teams, force-sync an Entra user into Dataverse, create Dataverse teams, add loaded users to a selected team, and assign security roles to users or teams.
• Connections: list environment connections with connector, owner, and health, filter by text or broken state, show only the selected account's connections, open broken owned connections for repair, and delete connections.
• Roles: create roles, download editable permission workbooks or CSVs, upload edited permissions, and rename editable root roles.
• Solutions: list and filter solutions, filter publishers, open the solution in Power Automate, list components, export as managed or unmanaged, and stage a deployment.
• AI Flow: inspect AI usage events, sort by owner or consumption details, and view totals by flow or model with Copilot Studio and AI Builder cost breakdowns.
• Flow Runs: list cloud flow runs, filter by status or trigger, and view per-flow totals for run count, success count, fail count, and total run time.
• Agent Sessions: browse Dataverse conversation transcripts and load a sanitized transcript view for any session.
• Tables: list Dataverse custom or all tables, inspect custom or all columns, generate Mermaid relationship diagrams, and export table-design workbooks.
• Solution component actions: manage supported components from the solution component list.
• Import: analyze a solution ZIP, map connection references, set environment variable values, download/import settings JSON, and import the solution.

Users and Teams

1. Sign in and select an environment.
2. Open Users and Teams.
3. Click Load users and teams.
4. Use Add user with the user's Microsoft Entra object ID to request Dataverse user sync.
5. Use Create team to create an owner, access, security group, or Office group team.
6. Select a team, then add loaded enabled users as members.
7. Select Assign role from a loaded user or team row, then search for and choose the security role in the popup.

Adding a user uses the supported Power Platform admin force-sync pattern. The user must already exist in Microsoft Entra ID and must meet the environment requirements such as license, sign-in status, and environment security group membership.

Role assignment uses the Dataverse user-role and team-role associations. When you choose a root role, PDAC assigns the matching inherited role copy for the selected user's or team's business unit.

Connections

1. Sign in and select an environment.
2. Open Connections.
3. Click Load connections.
4. Use the search box to filter by connection name, connector, owner, ID, or status.
5. Use My connections only or Broken only to narrow the list.
6. For a broken connection owned by the selected account, use Broken - Click to Fix to open the connection in Power Apps and re-authenticate it.
7. Use Delete to remove a connection after confirming. Apps and flows using that connection may stop working.

Roles

1. Sign in and select an environment.
2. Open Roles and click Load roles.
3. Select or create a role.
4. Download the table permissions file or misc privileges file.
5. Edit the permission columns in Excel.
6. Upload the edited file to apply the changes.

Valid scope values:

• none
• user
• business
• parent
• org
• recordfilter

Rows with none are not assigned to the role. Rows with any other scope are sent to Dataverse using ReplacePrivilegesRole.

Solutions

1. Open Solutions.
2. Click Load solutions.
3. Filter by name, unmanaged only, or publisher.
4. Select a solution.
5. Click List components to inspect solution components.
6. Click Export solution to download a ZIP, or Deploy to stage the ZIP for the Import tab.

The export action calls the Dataverse ExportSolution unbound action.

Tables

1. Open Tables.
2. Choose Custom or All, then click Load tables.
3. Select a table to load columns.
4. Choose Custom columns or All columns.
5. Click Create diagram to open a full-screen Mermaid ER diagram for the selected table and directly related tables through lookup relationships.
6. Use the diagram toolbar to zoom, download SVG or PNG, copy Mermaid, or close the popup.
7. Click Create table to open a table-design document, then export it to Excel.

Diagrams and table-design documents show custom columns plus the primary name/name column, createdby, and createdon. The createdby relationship to systemuser or team is intentionally not drawn.

From the Solutions tab, load components for a solution. If the solution contains table components, PDAC shows Create diagram and Create table actions for the solution. The solution diagram includes all solution tables plus directly related lookup-table dependencies outside the solution, with external dependencies highlighted. The solution table document adds the table display name as the first column.

Component Actions

Supported actions from the solution component list:

• Environment variable: read the related environment variable value, update it, and create the value row if only a default exists.
• Connection reference: switch to an existing matching connection or create a connection using the same Microsoft Power Apps action package used by the Power Apps CLI.
• Flow: turn on or off by updating the Dataverse workflows row with the paired statecode and statuscode.
• Flow sharing: share the workflow row as user or co-owner through Dataverse record sharing.
• Canvas app sharing: share as user or co-owner.
• Code app sharing: share as user or co-owner.
• Agent/bot sharing: share bot records with users or teams as user, co-owner, or analytics viewer. Analytics viewer grants Dataverse read access to the bot row; Copilot Studio analytics may still need product permissions outside record sharing.

Flow run-only users and manual-trigger connection mode are not updated by PDAC because those settings are exposed through the Power Automate Management connector rather than the supported Dataverse workflow row API.

Connection creation is silent for SSO-only connectors where Microsoft supports it. Other connectors need the browser connection flow, so start PDAC with:

$env:POWERAPPS_CLI_ENABLE_BROWSER_CONNECTION = "true"
npm start

Import

1. Upload a solution ZIP or use Deploy from the Solutions tab.
2. Select a target environment.
3. Click Prepare mappings.
4. Map connection references to target connections.
5. Review and edit target environment variable values.
6. Import the solution.

Settings files use this shape:

{
  "EnvironmentVariables": [
    {
      "SchemaName": "cr123_MyVariable",
      "Value": "Prod value"
    }
  ],
  "ConnectionReferences": [
    {
      "LogicalName": "cr123_sharedcommondataserviceforapps_abc12",
      "ConnectionId": "00000000000000000000000000000000",
      "ConnectorId": "/providers/Microsoft.PowerApps/apis/shared_commondataserviceforapps"
    }
  ]
}