Getting Started
Cartographer is an AI-powered documentation and operations tool for Microsoft Power Platform. It crawls your Dataverse solutions, discovers every component, and generates human-readable documentation so your team always knows what is in the environment and why.
What is Cartographer?
Power Platform environments grow fast. Tables, flows, plugins, business rules, web resources, and custom controls accumulate across solutions and often lack any documentation. New team members spend weeks figuring out what already exists. Cartographer solves this.
Cartographer is a managed Dataverse solution that installs directly into your environment. It includes two model-driven apps:
- CCartographer — Documentation and understanding. Crawl solutions, view the component dashboard, generate AI summaries, create automation maps, and produce user guides.
- KCompass — Monitoring and control. Manage cloud flows, plugin steps, environment variables, and business rules from a single dashboard without navigating between multiple admin portals.
How It Works
Cartographer follows a four-step process to turn raw customizations into clear documentation.
Crawl
Select which solutions to crawl. Cartographer queries the Dataverse metadata APIs to discover every component in each solution.
Discover
Components are categorized by type — tables, columns, forms, views, plugins, flows, web resources, and 26 more types — and stored for analysis.
AI Summarize
Each component's metadata is sent to an AI model (your own key or our hosted service) which generates a plain-English description of what it does.
Document
Browse the component dashboard, generate automation maps, create user guides, and export to CSV or PDF. Documentation that stays in sync with your environment.
Quick Start
You can go from zero to a fully documented solution in about five minutes.
- 1
Install Cartographer
Install from Microsoft AppSource or import the managed solution files manually. AppSource is the recommended path — it handles dependencies automatically.
- 2
Activate your license
Open the Cartographer app, navigate to License & Billing, enter your license key, and click Activate. The Free plan does not require a license key.
- 3
Add a solution to crawl
Go to Solution Manager, click Add Solution, and select which Dataverse solution you want to document. You can add multiple solutions on paid plans.
- 4
Run a crawl
Click Crawl Now on your solution. Cartographer discovers all components and stores them in the component database. This typically takes 30 seconds to a few minutes depending on solution size.
- 5
View your dashboard
Open the Component Dashboard to see every component organized by type. Click any component to view its details and generate an AI summary.
Key Features at a Glance
| Feature | Description | Availability |
|---|---|---|
| Component Dashboard | Browse all discovered components by type with search and filters | All plans |
| AI Summaries | Generate plain-English descriptions using BYOK or Hosted AI | All plans |
| Automation Map | Visualize automations per table as interactive diagrams | Professional+ |
| Compass | Operations dashboard for flows, plugins, env vars, and business rules | Professional+ |
| User Guides | AI-generated documentation for model-driven apps | Professional+ |
| Best Practice Analysis | Analyze solutions against 12 best-practice rules | Enterprise |
| CSV / PDF Export | Export component data for sharing and reporting | CSV: All / PDF: Enterprise |
Requirements
- A Microsoft Dataverse environment (Power Apps, Dynamics 365, or standalone Dataverse)
- System Administrator or System Customizer security role for the installing user
- For AI Summaries (BYOK): An OpenAI or Azure OpenAI API key with access to GPT-4o or GPT-4o-mini
- For AI Summaries (Hosted): A Professional or Enterprise plan with the Hosted AI add-on
Next Steps
Ready to install? Head to the installation guide for detailed step-by-step instructions.