How to Create a Plan Using Power Apps Plan Designer

If you use Power Apps and want an easier way to build complete business solutions, then the Plan Designer is a great tool to try.

With the help of Copilot (AI), the Plan Designer understands what you want to build. It then creates: User roles, Data tables, Apps, Flows, websites, AI agents, and reports.

In the Plan Designer tutorial, I will provide a real-world example of an Employee Onboarding System, allowing you to see how to use Plan Designer from start to finish.

In this step-by-step tutorial, I will cover:

• What is Plan Designer in Power Apps
• Prerequisites to use Plan Designer
• Understanding Plan Agents
• Create a Plan using Power Apps Plan Designer
• Generating User Requirements
• Building a Data Model
• Getting a Technology Proposal
• Saving Your Tables and Solution
• Creating Apps, Flows, Sites, and Agents
• Exporting the Plan to PDF
• Copresence Support

Plan Designer in Power Apps

The Plan Designer is a Copilot-first AI tool in Power Apps that helps you build comprehensive business solutions in minutes, simply by describing your business needs in natural language (and optionally adding images, such as diagrams or screenshots).

It then automatically outlines user roles, data models, apps, flows, websites, BI reports, and AI agents based on your description.

Prerequisites to Use Plan Designer in Power Apps

Before you can start using the Plan Designer, make sure you meet the following requirements:

• You need a Power Platform environment with Dataverse: Plan Designer only works in environments that have Microsoft Dataverse enabled. When creating a new environment, select one that includes a Dataverse database.
• To use Plan Designer, your user account must have permission to create and manage solutions. You must have a System Administrator, a System Customizer, or a custom security role that has solution privileges.

Check out Model Driven Apps in Power Apps

Plan Agents in the Plan Designer

When you describe your business scenario (like “Onboarding new employees”), three AI agents spring into action:

• Requirements Agent: Reads your description and lists out user roles and their needs (e.g., HR staff, Managers, Employees).
• Data Agent: Designs the data schema, suggesting tables, fields, and relationships in Dataverse.
• Solution Agent: Recommends the full technology solution, apps, flows, Copilot agents, BI reports, etc., mapped to the roles and data.

Create a Plan Using Power Apps Plan Designer

Here, I will show how to build a solution plan using the Plan Designer. In this example, we’ll continue using the scenario of an Employee Onboarding Management System.

This is a real-world scenario where HR needs to manage onboarding tasks, managers need to stay updated, and new employees need access to helpful resources.

Follow the Steps Below:

1. Go to the Power Apps site -> From the left navigation menu, click on Plans. Click + New plan to start building plans.

2. In the textbox that appears, enter your business needs using natural language. Then click Generate.

HR staff should be able to enter new employee details, assign onboarding tasks (like setting up a laptop or scheduling training), and track progress. Managers should be notified when tasks are completed. Employees should have access to a welcome site with resources.

Note:

If you want to make your plan even smarter, you can Upload process flow diagrams (like Visio or draw.io), Add data models (ERDs or database schema screenshots), Include screenshots of existing/legacy apps.

Once you’ve entered the prompt (and optionally added context), you’re ready to let the Plan Designer work its magic using AI agents, starting with generating user roles and requirements.

Generate User Requirements in Plan Designer

After submitting the prompt, the Plan Designer (Requirements Agent) analyzed the scenario and created a clear list of user roles and their specific needs.

In this Employee Onboarding scenario, three user roles are generated: the HR Staff, Manager, and Employee. Each user role includes a description and the user’s needs. The user roles and needs are listed in a bullet point format, and on the right side is a visual representation.

At the bottom, the Requirements Agent confirms that this section has been generated. You’ll now see two buttons:

• Looks good – click this to accept and move forward.
• Edit – if you want to make changes to any role or task.

If you’re satisfied with the requirements as they are, click ‘Looks good’. To customize any aspect, click Edit.

Inline Editing Options in Plan Designer

When you click Edit after reviewing the user requirements, inline editing tools appear next to each role and requirement. These let you customize the plan directly within the Plan Designer interface.

Here’s what each label in the screenshot means:

Label	Action
1	Describe what you’d like to add or change (Copilot input bar)
2	Select and modify a user role (e.g., “HR staff”)
3	Add a new user role or delete the selected user role
4	Add a new user requirement (inline under the selected role)
5	Insert, reorder, or delete individual user needs
6	Add a completely new user role at the bottom of the list

Note:

If you prefer, you can let Copilot make changes for you. Just describe what you want to add or change in natural language using the text input at the top (Label 1).

After you’re done editing:

• Click Keep to save your updated user requirements
• Or click Discard to cancel the changes and return to the previous view

Then, when you’re done, select Looks good to proceed to the next step and generate data tables.

Generate Data Model in Plan Designer

In this step, the Plan Designer automatically generates a set of Dataverse tables (previsually called entities) that support the roles and actions described earlier.

These suggested tables appear in the Data model section of the plan.

Click Edit to change table names, fields, or relationships. You can also use Copilot to describe what you want to add or remove.

Click Show details to open the data workspace. If you make changes, click Back to return to the main plan view.

When everything looks good, click Looks good to continue.

Generate Technology Proposal

Now, the Solution Agent suggests a set of technologies for our solution, like apps, flows, agents, and websites.

In this scenario, a canvas app, a model-driven app, a site, an agent, and a Power Automate flow are created.

To learn more about each proposed technology, hover over the information icon next to it.

When you hover, a small info card pops up showing:

• Data tables that the technology uses
• User roles that the app or flow supports

Select Looks good to accept the proposed technologies, or select Edit to use Copilot and describe what you want to change.

Once you click, it appears correctly, and you will see the ‘Save Tables’ option.

1. Click the Save tables button. Then, enter a solution name.
2. Select a publisher or choose an existing solution to contain the items generated from the plan, and then click Save.

It will take some time to save all the tables in a solution.

Create a Model-driven app in Plan Designer

After saving your plan, you’ll see the Objects view in Plan Designer. This is where all the technologies (apps, flows, websites, etc.) from your plan are listed.

You can also add new components manually by clicking “+ Add Technology.”

In my case, the Plan Designer suggested creating a Model-driven app called Onboarding Task Manager for HR staff to manage onboarding tasks and employee progress.

Creating it was super easy; I just clicked the + icon next to the app suggestion, and Plan Designer automatically created the app for me.

Just as I created the Onboarding Task Manager (Model-driven app) by clicking the + icon, you can do the same for other technologies, all within the same environment and solution.

Export your plan to a PDF

Once your plan is ready, you can export it to a PDF. This is useful for sharing the plan with others, getting feedback, or keeping a record of what was created.

To do this, select Export this plan as a PDF in the top right corner.

After saving the PDF, it will appear as shown in the screenshot below.

Then, you can edit the plan and delete it from the Plans navigation.

Co-presence in the Plan Designer

Plan Designer supports multiple authors working on the same plan simultaneously. This is called copresence.

The first person to open the plan gains editing rights. Anyone else who joins can still view the plan, but it will be in read-only mode.

Up to 100 users can view the plan at once. Only one person can edit at a time. Multi-author editing (like co-authoring in Word or Excel) is not supported.

Tip:

Some features in Plan Designer are only available in preview. To use them, select the “Include preview features” checkbox when entering your business scenario.

Once enabled, your entire plan will be generated using the latest preview experience, which may include multiple experimental features that are still being tested.

Conclusion

The Plan Designer in Power Apps makes it easier to turn your business ideas into real, working solutions, without requiring deep technical skills. By simply describing your needs in natural language, you can let Copilot handle the heavy work of creating roles, data tables, apps, flows, and more.

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