PL-900 Syllabus 2026: The July Rewrite That Removed Power BI
Microsoft rewrote this exam on 24 July 2026. Power BI and Power Pages lost their sections, Copilot Studio gained one worth up to a quarter of the paper.
- 40-60Questions
- 45 minTime
- 5Sections
- YesWeights published
- 700/1000Pass mark
- $99Fee
Table of Contents
The whole paper in one bar
The skills measured list dated 24 July 2026 is the exam guide Microsoft publishes for Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals (PL-900), restated so you can see the shape of the paper before you read a word of the detail. The bar below is the entire syllabus: 5 sections, in the order the certifying body lists them.
- §1 Describe the business value of Microsoft Power Platform — 5-10%
- §2 Manage the Microsoft Power Platform environment — 20-25%
- §3 Demonstrate the capabilities of Power Apps — 20-25%
- §4 Demonstrate the capabilities of Power Automate — 20-25%
- §5 Describe features and capabilities of agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio — 20-25%
Those percentages are Microsoft’s own, not an estimate. That matters more than it sounds: most pages ranking for this query quote weightings the vendor never published.
The syllabus, section by section
Each block below is one section of the official outline. The bullets are the sub-objectives Microsoft publishes underneath it — the actual scope statement, not a summary of it.
Describe the business value of Microsoft Power Platform
- Value of Power Apps to build applications
- Value of Power Automate to automate processes
- Value of Dataverse to organise business data
- Value of connectors to integrate services and data
- Value of Power Pages to build websites
- Value of generative AI features in Power Platform
- Value of Copilot Studio to create agents
Manage the Microsoft Power Platform environment
- Differences between traditional databases and Dataverse
- Tables, columns and relationships
- Table forms and views
- Business logic options in Dataverse, including Power Fx
- Environments
- The Power Platform security model
- Monitoring and analytics capabilities
- Application lifecycle management with Power Platform pipelines
Demonstrate the capabilities of Power Apps
- Use cases and capabilities of canvas apps
- Use cases and capabilities of model-driven apps
- Use cases and capabilities of Plan designer
- Use cases and capabilities of code apps
- Using AI to create a canvas app
- Using AI to create a model-driven app
- Creating AI-powered apps with the vibe experience
Demonstrate the capabilities of Power Automate
- Use cases for cloud and desktop flows
- Approvals, Teams, Outlook, SharePoint and Forms scenarios
- Document automation scenarios
- Connector triggers and actions for cloud flows
- Using AI to create and modify cloud flows
- Using AI to create and modify desktop flows
Describe features and capabilities of agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio
- Use cases for agents
- Building agent conversation paths using topics
- Using knowledge sources in agents
- Tools in agents, including MCP servers and agent flows
- Publishing agents using channels
- Use cases and capabilities for Microsoft Agent 365
- Monitoring agent usage and adoption
- Agent evaluations
Power BI and Power Pages no longer have sections of their own. Power Pages survives as a single bullet under business value; Power BI is not named in the current objectives at all. Any course or question bank still teaching a Power BI domain is running the pre-July outline.
What the weightings really mean
A percentage in an exam guide is a promise about how many questions get drawn from a section, not about how hard those questions are. On a paper of roughly 50 items, Manage the Microsoft Power Platform environment at 20-25% is worth about 11 questions and Describe the business value of Microsoft Power Platform at 5-10% is worth about 4. Missing the whole of the smallest section still leaves you a pass on paper; missing the largest one does not.
The trap is treating that arithmetic as permission to skip. Weightings are the floor of what a section costs you, because the low-weight sections on almost every blueprint are the ones that supply context for questions filed under a different heading. You lose those marks in the heavy section and never find out why.
Reading the verbs in the objectives
The verb at the front of each sub-objective is the part candidates skim and examiners take literally. It sets the depth you are tested at, and it is the difference between recognising a service name and being asked to choose between two that both look right.
| Verb | What a question at that depth looks like |
|---|---|
| Describe | Recognise what a service is for and when you would reach for it. No configuration steps, no screens to identify - a scenario and four plausible services, one of which fits. |
| Demonstrate | Still knowledge-level on a fundamentals paper, but one layer deeper: which component inside the product does this job, and what the difference is between two that sound alike. |
| Manage | Governance framing. Environments, security roles and pipelines get asked as "who should be able to do what, and where does that get set" rather than as click paths. |
Every objective on PL-900 starts with Describe or Demonstrate. Nothing says Configure, Build or Troubleshoot, which is the whole reason this is a 45-minute fundamentals exam rather than a PL-200. If you find yourself memorising click paths, you have drifted past the syllabus.
Study it in this order, not the syllabus order
Exam guides are written to describe a job role, not to teach one. The published order is almost never the order that builds knowledge fastest. This is the sequence that front-loads the material everything else depends on.
| Order | Why here |
|---|---|
| 1. Dataverse and environments | Everything else sits on top of it. Tables, relationships and the security model turn up inside Power Apps and Power Automate questions, so learning them first makes two later sections cheaper. |
| 2. Power Apps | Canvas versus model-driven is the single most-tested distinction on the paper, and it frames the Plan designer and code apps bullets that were added this year. |
| 3. Power Automate | Cloud versus desktop flows mirrors the canvas versus model-driven split. Learn it straight after Power Apps while the pattern is fresh. |
| 4. Copilot Studio agents | New, worth up to a quarter of the paper, and the section where old study material will leave you blank. Topics, knowledge sources, tools, channels, Agent 365. |
| 5. Business value | Last, and deliberately. It is 5-10% and it is largely a summary of everything above, so it costs almost nothing once the other four are done. |
This inverts the published order, which opens with business value. That section reads as an easy warm-up but it is the smallest slice of the paper and the hardest to revise in isolation, because its answers only make sense once you know what the products actually do.
What changed, and how to spot the next change
The 24 July 2026 revision was substantial, not cosmetic. The Power Pages section was removed outright, the two build-a-thing objectives under Power Apps ("Build a canvas app", "Build a model-driven app") were dropped and replaced with AI-assisted creation objectives, business value dropped in weight, and an entire new section on Copilot Studio agents appeared carrying 20-25% - including MCP servers and Microsoft Agent 365, which did not exist on any previous version of this exam.
Two habits keep you from studying a retired outline. First, open the official exam guide and look for its revision date before you buy anything — courses and question banks lag a syllabus change by months, and the cheapest ones never catch up. Second, re-check it the week you book. A revision announced after you started studying is still a revision you sit.
Turn the syllabus into questions
Reading an outline tells you the shape of the paper. Answering questions tells you which sections you would actually lose marks on. Start free, then $5.99 unlocks the full PL-900 bank.
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What is on the PL-900 exam in 2026?
Five sections: business value of Power Platform (5-10%), managing the Power Platform environment (20-25%), Power Apps (20-25%), Power Automate (20-25%) and agents in Copilot Studio (20-25%). The list dated 24 July 2026 is the current one.
Is Power BI still on PL-900?
No. The July 2026 revision removed the Power BI section, and Power BI is not named in the current objectives. Power Pages was also removed as a section and survives only as one bullet under business value. If you want Power BI, PL-300 is the exam that covers it.
How many questions are on PL-900 and what is the pass mark?
Between 40 and 60 questions in 45 minutes of exam time, scored on a scale to 1000 with 700 required to pass. Microsoft does not publish how raw answers convert to that scaled score.
How long does it take to prepare for PL-900?
It is a fundamentals exam with no prerequisites and no hands-on tasks, so most candidates with some Microsoft 365 exposure need two to four weeks of evenings. Budget the extra time for Copilot Studio, which is new and where older courses will leave you short.
Sources
Every section title, sub-objective and number on this page comes from the certifying body:
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/resources/study-guides/pl-900
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/exams/pl-900/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/exam-scoring-reports
Checked September 2, 2026. Exam guides are revised without notice — confirm against Microsoft before you build a study plan around this page.