PL-400 Study Guide

Exam Quick Facts

Study Resources

Skills at a Glance

Who is this exam for?

This Power Platform certification covers Microsoft’s low-code/no-code platform. It tests your ability to build business applications, automate processes, and create solutions using Power Apps, Power Automate, and related services. This is an associate-level exam that expects hands-on experience. You should have practical knowledge of the technologies covered.

Skills Measured

Create a technical design (10–15%)

This domain covers the skills needed to work with the topics described below. Study each objective carefully and use the linked resources to deepen your understanding.

Design technical architecture

• Analyze the technical architecture to identify solution components and their implementation approach
• Design the authentication and authorization strategy for solution components
• Determine whether requirements can be met with out-of-the-box functionality
• Determine where to implement business logic including cloud computing, client-side processing, business rules, plug-ins, and Power Automate
• Determine when to use standard tables, virtual tables, elastic tables, or connectors
• Assess the impact of Microsoft Power Platform security features on solution components including data loss prevention (DLP) policies, security roles, teams, business units, and row sharing

Design solution components

• Design Power Apps reusable components including canvas components, code components (Power Apps component framework), and client scripting
• Design custom connectors
• Design Dataverse code components including Power Fx functions, plug-ins, and custom APIs
• Design automations including Power Automate cloud flows
• Design inbound and outbound integrations using Dataverse and Azure

Build Power Platform Solutions (10–15%)

This domain covers CI/CD pipelines. You need to understand how to design, build, and manage automated build and release processes.

Configure and troubleshoot Microsoft Power Platform

• Troubleshoot operational security issues
• Configure Dataverse security roles to support code components including the principle of least privilege
• Manage Microsoft Power Platform environments for development

Implement application lifecycle management (ALM)

• Manage solution dependencies
• Create and use environment variables
• Manage solution layers
• Implement and extend Power Platform Pipelines
• Create Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) automations using Power Platform Build Tools

Implement Power Apps improvements (10–15%)

This domain covers the skills needed to work with the topics described below. Study each objective carefully and use the linked resources to deepen your understanding.

Implement advanced canvas apps features

• Implement complex Power Fx formulas and functions
• Build reusable component libraries
• Utilize Power Automate cloud flows to implement business logic from a canvas app

Optimize and troubleshoot apps

• Troubleshoot canvas and model-driven app issues by using Monitor and other browser-based debugging tools
• Optimize canvas app performance including pre-loading data and query delegation
• Optimize model-driven app performance including forms and views

Extend the user experience (10–15%)

This domain covers the skills needed to work with the topics described below. Study each objective carefully and use the linked resources to deepen your understanding.

Apply business logic in model-driven apps using client scripting

• Build JavaScript code that targets the Client API object model
• Determine event handler registration approach
• Create client scripting that targets the Dataverse Web API
• Configure commands and buttons using Power Fx and JavaScript
• Implement navigation to custom pages using the Client API

Create a Power Apps component framework (PCF) code component

• Demonstrate the use of the different lifecycle events
• Configure a code component manifest
• Implement component interfaces
• Package, deploy, and consume a component
• Configure and use Device, Utility, and Web API features in component logic

Extend the platform (30–35%)

This domain covers the skills needed to work with the topics described below. Study each objective carefully and use the linked resources to deepen your understanding.

Create a Dataverse plug-in

• Demonstrate the use of the different event execution pipeline stages
• Develop a plug-in that uses the execution context
• Develop a plug-in that implements business logic
• Implement Pre Images and Post Images to support plug-in logic
• Perform operations in plug-ins by using the Organization service
• Optimize plug-in performance
• Configure a Dataverse custom API message
• Register plug-in components by using the Plug-in Registration Tool
• Develop a plug-in that implements a custom API
• Configure Dataverse business events

Create custom connectors

• Create an Open API definition for an existing REST API
• Implement authentication for custom connectors
• Configure policy templates to modify connector behavior at runtime
• Import definitions from existing APIs including Open API definitions, Azure services, and GitHub
• Create a custom connector for an Azure service
• Develop an Azure Function to be used in a custom connector
• Extend the Open API definition for a custom connector
• Develop code for a custom connector to transform data

Use platform APIs

• Perform operations with the Dataverse Web API
• Perform operations with the Organization service
• Implement API limit retry policies
• Optimize for performance, concurrency, transactions, and bulk operations
• Perform authentication by using OAuth

Process workloads by using Azure Functions

• Process long-running operations by using Azure Functions for Microsoft Power Platform solutions
• Implement scheduled and event-driven triggers in Azure Functions for Microsoft Power Platform solutions
• Authenticate to Microsoft Power Platform by using managed identities

Configure Power Automate cloud flows

• Configure Dataverse connector actions and triggers
• Implement complex expressions in flow steps
• Manage sensitive input and output parameters
• Utilize Azure Key Vault
• Implement flow control actions including error handling
• Configure trigger filter and retry policies
• Develop reuseable logic by using child flows
• Implement Microsoft Entra ID service principles

Develop integrations (10–15%)

This domain covers the skills needed to work with the topics described below. Study each objective carefully and use the linked resources to deepen your understanding.

Publish and consume Dataverse events

• Publish a Dataverse event by using the IServiceEndpointNotificationService
• Publish a Dataverse event by using the Plug-in Registration Tool
• Register service endpoints including webhooks, Azure Service Bus, and Azure Event Hub
• Recommend options for listening to Dataverse events

Implement data synchronization with Dataverse

• Perform data synchronization by using change tracking
• Develop code that utilizes alternate keys
• Utilize the UpsertRequest message to synchronize data

What to Study Next

Based on this exam, here are related certifications to consider:

• PL-200: Microsoft Power Platform Functional Consultant — Associate
• PL-600: Microsoft Power Platform Solution Architect — Expert ⚠️ Retiring
• PL-900: Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals — Fundamentals

Quick Links

• Official Exam Page
• Microsoft Study Guide
• Practice Assessment