Simulating user roles in test environments

When developing and testing PowerApps Portals (now known as Power Pages), simulating different user roles is critical. Power Pages often serve a diverse audience—anonymous users, authenticated users, administrators, or users with specific web roles. Validating user permissions, visibility, and access control requires replicating how these roles function within a secure and accurate test environment.

This guide explains how to simulate user roles step by step, ensuring your portal behaves as expected for each type of user.

---

1. What Are Web Roles in PowerApps Portals?

Web roles in Power Pages define what a user can see or do. They map portal users (contacts) to access levels within the portal, such as:

• Authenticated Users (logged in)
• Administrators
• Case Managers
• Vendors or Partners
• Custom roles with specific permissions

Each web role can be associated with:

• Page permissions
• Entity permissions
• Web file access
• Web forms and entity lists

---

2. Why Simulate User Roles in Testing?

Testing with different roles ensures:

• Security: Unintended data isn’t exposed to unauthorized users
• User experience: Each user sees the correct interface
• Functionality: Actions like submitting forms or accessing entity lists are role-restricted
• Compliance: You meet organizational or legal data access requirements

---

3. Test Environment Setup

Prerequisites:

• A Dataverse environment with a configured Power Pages site
• A copy of production data (scrubbed for PII) or seeded test data
• A minimum of three test users, each with unique roles:
  • Admin
  • Authenticated User
  • Custom Role (e.g., Vendor)

---

4. Step-by-Step: Simulating User Roles

---

Step 1: Create or Identify Test Users

Create test contact records in Dataverse (if not already present) and associate them with Azure AD B2C, local authentication, or external identities.

Example contacts:

• Admin Tester
• Vendor Tester
• Anonymous User (for public access)

---

Step 2: Create/Assign Web Roles

Go to Portal Management App → Web Roles:

• Create new roles if needed:
  • Vendor
  • Case Manager
  • Portal Admin
• Enable the “Authenticated Users Only” checkbox if it’s a secured role
• Assign appropriate entity permissions and page access

Associate users by adding them to the Contact > Web Roles subgrid.

---

Step 3: Configure Entity Permissions (Optional but Recommended)

To restrict access to data:

1. Go to Entity Permissions in Portal Management
2. Select entity (e.g., Case, Work Order)
3. Define Access Type:
   • Global
   • Contact (own records)
   • Account (linked to contact’s account)
4. Add CRUD permissions
5. Link this permission to a web role

This ensures only users with the proper web role can see, create, or update records.

---

Step 4: Prepare Test Scenarios

Document expected behaviors for each role:

Role	Should See	Should Do
Anonymous	Homepage, Public pages	Cannot access profile or forms
Vendor	Vendor dashboard, own records	Submit requests
Admin	All pages, all records	Manage users, edit settings

---

Step 5: Sign In As Each User

You can simulate sign-ins in multiple ways:

• Manual Login: Use credentials for each test user to manually sign in via the portal UI
• Playwright/Test Framework: Automate login flows in UI testing tools
• Portal Preview Mode (Maker Studio): Preview as anonymous or signed-in user (limited simulation)
• Browser Profiles: Use Chrome/Edge profiles to stay logged in as different users

---

Step 6: Validate Role-Based Access

Test the following per user:

• Page access
• Visibility of buttons/forms
• Data access in entity lists or views
• Restricted actions (e.g., update/delete)

Use F12 DevTools and Network tab to inspect calls and check if the user is restricted at both UI and data levels.

---

Step 7: Automate Role-Based Tests (Optional)

Using tools like Playwright, you can simulate different logins:

test('Vendor user should not access Admin dashboard', async ({ page }) => {
  await loginAsVendor(page); // use a helper function
  await page.goto('https://yourportal.com/admin-dashboard');
  await expect(page.locator('.access-denied')).toBeVisible();
});

---

8. Best Practices

• Avoid using real user credentials in tests
• Isolate test environments from production
• Regularly sync role settings between environments
• Use test data for forms and entity submissions
• Log audit info when debugging access issues (e.g., user ID and role on load)

---

9. Common Pitfalls and Solutions

Issue	Fix
User sees “Access Denied”	Check page/web role permissions
Role doesn’t apply	Confirm Contact > Web Role mapping
Authenticated user sees no data	Check entity permission record access
User bypasses restrictions	Secure both UI and entity permissions