The Retirement of the PL-100 exam
The PL-100 exam is the second of Microsoft’s certifications regarding the Power Platform. So the first one is the PL-900, which looks at the fundamentals, what is able to be done. The PL-100 actually allows you to do them.
The PL-100 is for you if you want to create business solutions to simplify and automate tasks and processes for you and your team. It requires you to know design and managed business solutions, analyse and visualise data, and create business solutions.
On 24 January 2024 Microsoft announced that the PL-100 will be retired on 30 June 2024.
What can I do instead of the PL-100?
The PL-100 exam is being retired in favor of the three new Microsoft Applied Skills assessments:
- Create and Manage Automated Processes by using Power Automate,
- Create and Manage Canvas Apps with Power Apps, and
- Create and Manage Model-Driven Apps with Power Apps and Dataverse.
In my view, the Microsoft Applied Skills Assessment go through the level of difficulty that is expected of the PL-100 exam. However, it doesn’t go into the broad level that the PL-100 requires.
The three Microsoft Applied Skills assessments together do not require all of the topics in the PL-100 exam. For example, it is missing:
- Creating approvals in Power Automate,
- Monitoring the approval process by using Power Automate and Microsoft Teams.
- Run a Microsoft Power Automate Cloud Flow from a Canvas App
- Modern controls and themes,
- Implementing collections and variables.
- Sharing dashboards, or charts.
- Describing AI Builder models
- Consuming Microsoft Power BI dashboards.
- Configure Dataverse business rules.
- Describe how Dataverse users RBAC, role-based access control, and
- Importing and exporting data by using Microsoft Excel.
What does the retirement of the PL-100 exam mean for you?
If you intend to do the PL-100 certification, then you have until 30 June 2024 to do this. Your credential will be valid for one year, following which it will go into the retired section.
If you already have the PL-100, then you’ll be given the opportunity to renew it, presumably at least until June the 30th. If you renew it, that extension will be valid for the end of the year.
What is the learning path for Power Platform?
If you are starting to learn about the Power Platform, you should start with Microsoft’s PL-900 Fundamentals exam.
Following that, if it is before 30 June 2024, you may then wish to do the PL-100 exam.
Alternatively (or in addition), you should look at the three Microsoft Applied Skills assessments mentioned above.
Afterwards, you might want to look into either the PL-200 exam, which builds on all of the knowledge you have gained in the PL-100.
So, it goes deeper into Power Apps and Power Automate, and Power Flows, as well as introducing Power Pages.
Or, you might want to go into the PL-400 exam which is all about programming. It will expand your Power Platform solution, using languages such as JavaScript, TypeScript, C#, also using JSON and HTML.
Thank you for reading this, and keep learning.