Read First: Customization Notes

  • This article is for BrightWork 365 Release February 2023 (v1.6) and newer.
  • Beginning with release September 2023 (v1.8) BrightWork 365 also includes the Form Configurator for a much preferred and relatively easy method for hiding and showing Project Template Form Tabs, Sections, and Columns.

Introduction to Solution Customization

Solution customization primarily refers to any change to a solution object that can be moved within a custom solution to another Power Platform environment. These changes are typically done in the Make area of Power Apps.

While there are many customization options available within a Microsoft 365 Power Platform environment, there are guidelines that are recommended when working with a managed solution such as BrightWork 365, mainly to prevent issues when upgrading. Our guidelines will help you understand the recommended approach to take if you decide to make changes to objects in the out of the box solution. You also have the option to reach out to  your assigned Customer Success Partner or support365@brightwork.com with upgrade concerns you might have.

  • We strongly recommend working alongside a BrightWork Customer Success Partner to customize objects within BrightWork 365. See the Deployment section for more information.
  • BrightWork consulting assistance for remediating issues caused by customer made customizations will be billable.

Managed and Unmanaged Solutions

The Microsoft Power Platform uses solutions to implement an application lifecycle management process. There are two types of solutions: unmanaged and managed.

Unmanaged solutions are primarily used in development environments when changes are still being made to an application. With unmanaged solutions you can:

  • Add and remove components.
  • Export the solution.

Managed solutions such as BrightWork 365 are fully developed and are intended to be distributed, installed and used for production purposes. The following are attributes of managed solutions:

  • Components cannot be added or removed.
  • Managed solutions cannot be exported.

Although you can make certain configuration changes in a managed solution as noted in the Configuration Knowledge Base category, component customization must be done in an unmanaged solution.

Customizations should only be made in an unmanaged solution, not in a managed solution. For additional information contact your Customer Success Partner. 

For more information from Microsoft see Solution Concepts


BrightWork 365 Solution Objects

The solution editor screen displays a list of available solution objects.


Recommended Process for Object Customization



  • You will need to be at least a Power Platform System Administrator to be able to perform object customization.
  • Content data is not copied into environments when importing solutions.
  • We advise that you follow Microsoft's recommendation to have separate Dev and Test Power Platform environments, in addition to your Production environment. See Microsoft article Create Environment.
  • If your solution has a customized object (e.g., form) and a BrightWork 365 upgrade contains changes to the original out of the box version of that object, the new changes will need to be manually applied to your custom object.
  • It is important to be aware of the implications of hiding or deleting key fields and the effects this can have on other areas of the app, for example the effects of hiding the Issue Status column on various views, charts and Power BI. Contact your Customer Success Partner for more information.
  • We recommend not making any changes to the "Default" solution in your BrightWork 365 environment as this will likely cause technical issues.

First Time Setup Process for Object Customization

  1. Install the same version of BrightWork 365 that is installed in your Power Platform Production environment as a managed solution in your Dev and Test environments.
  2. In the Dev environment, create a clean unmanaged second solution. See Microsoft article Create Solution. This unmanaged solution is necessary because objects should not be modified in a managed solution. It is also not recommended to create an unmanaged solution in a Production environment. See Microsoft article Understand How Managed Solutions are Merged.

Ongoing Process for Object Customization

In your Dev environment, in the clean unmanaged solution previously created:

  1. Add new objects (i.e., a Form) and any specific existing BrightWork 365 objects requiring modification - do not choose All Components when adding components and add only those specific elements needed for your customization in order to keep the unmanaged solution as clean as possible.
  2. Modify the added components as necessary - see the various Customization Knowledge Base articles.
  3. Export your modified solution as a managed solution. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/data-platform/export-solutions.

Import into your Test environment:

  1. Back up the current BrightWork 365 solution.
  2. Import the managed solution that contains your modifications using the same account that was used to install BrightWork 365; this new imported managed solution will be layered with the original installed BrightWork 365 managed solution.
    Note: Only users with a Power Apps Premium/Power Apps per user license should perform a solution import.
  3. Import any new custom Forms and Templates. See section "Import Forms and Templates" in the BrightWork 365 Install Guide.pdf
  4. Test the functionality of the BrightWork 365 app with the modified objects before proceeding to your Production environment.

Import into your Production environment:

  1. Back up the current BrightWork 365 solution.
  2. Import the managed solution that contains your modifications using the same account that was used to install BrightWork 365. This new imported managed solution will be layered with the original installed BrightWork 365 managed solution.
    Note: Only users with a Power Apps Premium/Power Apps per user license should perform a solution import.
  3. Import any new custom forms and templates. See section "Import Forms and Templates" in the BrightWork 365 Install Guide.pdf