Installation

This guide walks you through installing Cartographer into your Dataverse environment. Most users will be done in under five minutes.

Prerequisites

Before installing, make sure you have the following:

  • A Microsoft Dataverse environment (Power Apps, Dynamics 365, or standalone Dataverse)
  • System Administrator security role in the target environment
  • Permission to install solutions (some organizations restrict this via tenant settings)
  • A modern browser — Edge, Chrome, Firefox, or Safari
Cartographer installs as a managed solution. It does not modify any existing tables, forms, or views in your environment. Uninstalling removes all Cartographer components cleanly.

What Gets Installed

Cartographer consists of two managed solutions that install into your environment:

VerseBlocks Core

Required

Shared foundation used by all VerseBlocks products. Contains the configuration table and activation. Must be installed first.

VBCore — v1.1.2.0

Cartographer

Main App

The full Cartographer product: Component Dashboard, Summaries, Automation Map, Compass, User Guides, and Best Practice Analysis.

Cartographer — v1.1.2.0
VerseBlocks Core must be installed before Cartographer. Cartographer depends on components in VBCore. Attempting to install Cartographer first will fail with a missing dependency error.

Installation Steps

Most customers install from Microsoft AppSource — search for Cartographer in the AppSource marketplace and follow Microsoft's install wizard, which resolves the VerseBlocks Core dependency automatically. The steps below cover manual installation instead, for environments where AppSource access is restricted.

  1. 1

    Download the solution files

    For manual installation, visit the VerseBlocks downloads page and download both managed solutions — VerseBlocks Core (install first) and Cartographer, currently version 1.1.2.0.

    Go to Downloads
  2. 2

    Import VerseBlocks Core first

    Go to make.powerapps.com, select your environment, and navigate to Solutions.

    1. Click Import solution in the command bar
    2. Click Browse and select the VerseBlocks Core managed solution file
    3. Click Next
    4. Click Import
    5. Wait for the import to complete — you will see a success notification
    Solution import dialog in Power Apps
  3. 3

    Import Cartographer

    After VBCore completes successfully, repeat the import process:

    1. Click Import solution
    2. Browse and select the Cartographer managed solution file
    3. Click Next, then Import
    4. Wait for completion
    Do NOT import Cartographer before VerseBlocks Core. The import will fail with a missing dependency error. Always install VBCore first, verify it completed successfully, and then import Cartographer.
  4. 4

    Publish all customizations

    After both solutions are imported, click Publish all customizations in the Solutions area. This ensures all components are active and visible in the environment.

  5. 5

    Open the Cartographer app

    Navigate to Apps in the left navigation. Find the Cartographer model-driven app and click to open it. You'll see a sidebar with all pages: Solution Manager, Component Dashboard, Automation Map, Compass, Best Practices, and Activation.

Enable Scheduled Crawling

Cartographer ships two cloud flows and the connection reference they use, so crawl configurations can run automatically on their configured schedule. For every solution that uses a connection, Microsoft requires it to ship switched off with the connection unbound — only you can supply the credentials. That means one manual step stands between a fresh install and working schedules.

This step is easy to miss and the failure is silent. If you skip it, crawl configurations will accept a schedule and simply never run it — no error, no notification. If a solution never crawls on the schedule you set, this is the first thing to check.
  1. In Solutions, open the Cartographer solution and find its connection references.
  2. Open Cartographer Dataverse Connection and bind it to a Dataverse connection (create a new one if you don't already have one).
  3. Still inside the Cartographer solution, find its cloud flows and turn on both Cartographer - Scheduled Crawl Processor and Cartographer - On-Demand Crawl.
The scheduled flow polls every 30 minutes and checks each crawl configuration's own frequency and last-completed time — 30 minutes is how often it checks, not how often a given solution actually crawls. See crawl configuration frequency for the available schedules.

Post-Install Setup

With both solutions imported and published, finish setup inside the app.

  1. 1

    Activate

    Open the Activation page in the sidebar.

    • Enter your name, company name and email address
    • Click Activate
    That is the entire flow. There is no license key to enter and no plan to choose — Cartographer is free and every feature is unlimited. Activating registers a free licence record with VerseBlocks for telemetry; the licence key itself is never shown to you and you never need it. See the Activation guide for more detail.
  2. 2

    Add your first crawl configuration

    Navigate to Solution Manager in the sidebar and click Add Solution. Select the Dataverse solution you want to document, and choose a crawl frequency. Then click Crawl Now to start discovering components immediately — you don't need to wait for the schedule.

  3. 3

    Explore your documentation

    After the crawl completes, navigate to the Component Dashboard to see every discovered component, each already carrying a plain-English summary generated automatically at crawl time. Click any component to view its details.

Upgrading Cartographer

When a new version of Cartographer is released, you can upgrade without losing any data.

Download the latest managed solution files from our downloads page and import them into your environment using the same process as the initial installation. Power Platform will detect the existing solution and perform an upgrade automatically.

Data is always preserved. Upgrading imports a newer version of the managed solution over the existing one. All your crawl data, summaries, user guides, and configuration settings are retained.

Uninstalling

To remove Cartographer from your environment:

  1. Go to Solutions in Power Apps
  2. Select Cartographer and click Delete
  3. After Cartographer is removed, select VerseBlocks Core and click Delete
Uninstalling Cartographer permanently deletes all crawl data, summaries, user guides, and configuration. Export any data you need before uninstalling. Uninstall Cartographer before VerseBlocks Core — Core cannot be removed while Cartographer depends on it.

Troubleshooting Installation

"Missing dependency" error during import

This means VerseBlocks Core was not installed, or the installation failed silently. Go to Solutions, verify that VBCore appears in the list with a "Managed" status, then try importing Cartographer again.

Cartographer does not appear in the Apps list

Make sure you have a security role that grants access to the Cartographer app. System Administrator and System Customizer have access by default. You may need to assign the Cartographer Admin or Cartographer Reader security role to other users who need access — see Security Roles.

"You are not authorized" error when opening the app

This indicates a missing security role. Ask your System Administrator to assign the Cartographer Reader or Cartographer Admin security role to your user account.

A crawl configuration's schedule never runs

A crawl schedule needs the two Cartographer cloud flows turned on and its connection reference bound — a one-time step every fresh install needs, and one it is easy to miss because nothing else signals it is missing. See Enable Scheduled Crawling above.

Next Steps

Cartographer is installed and ready. Review your crawl configurations and security roles, or head straight to crawling.

Configuration GuideCrawling Solutions