Over and over again, I see the same question on social media that everybody is tired of answering, and people are not getting a proper helpful response.
“Can anyone recommend learning materials/training/courses, or where do I start with learning Power Platform/Power Apps/Dynamics 365?”
A person would get lucky if somebody would send them to Microsoft Learn, but usually, it would be “read previous posts” or “YouTube” or “google it”.
Communities, of course, are tired of answering the same question repeatedly, same for me; I’ve done it over a hundred times and tired of writing meaningful responses thought need to do a one-pager and refer people there.
- Microsoft Learn. That is the best and official website with Microsoft’s most recent learning materials for most areas, exams, and certifications. You cannot skip it; seriously, you need to create an account to log your progress and do your learning paths there.
- A blog post, “Microsoft Power Platform: Learning Resources” by Microsoft, with many links on materials to get started. Must see. It is a great place to navigate your first steps.
- Microsoft Documentation and community blog posts. These would pop up in your web search results. But you have to know what to search for – for this, I recommend reading about certifications, which will guide you to understanding what you need to know. This is a long journey, fun and rewarding; you just need some patience and help getting started.
- Certifications. I recommend reading this Quora answer I’ve posted there a few years back to understand why it matters for your journey.
- Exams. You have to pass exams to get certifications. Here is an oversimplistic start guide. Each exam leads to an appropriate page, and there are links to the Microsoft Learn path for the exam or instructor-led training.
PL-200 for those who do not want to code much and want to work closely with end-users, business analysts, subject matter experts, and stakeholders.
PL-400 for those who know how to code either in C# or JS/TS and want to deep dive into development with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. Nothing to do there if you cannot code already.
PL-900 and MB-910 to get an introduction to Power Platform and CRM. It would not make you a professional nor land you a job. Still, it is an excellent start to understand the scope and overview of Power Platform and Dynamics 365 CRM capabilities. There are a lot of free training and boot camps for these exams.
MB-210, MB-220, MB-230, MB-240 for those who want to excel with specific business applications capabilities. Knowing at least one is very helpful and is an excellent start to understand business applications build on top of Power Platform and Microsoft Dataverse.
- Labs. There are a lot of free labs which is an amazing source of practice for your skills. Here is a link for Labs overview and GitHub.
- Training. There is a lot of paid (usually paid by an employer) and free training from community members. I’m doing free training for Power Platform and Dynamics. You can submit your application here.
If you are still unsure if it is worth learning Power Platform check this video from Microsoft’s CEO – Satya Nadella.