Restore The Data Source Button in Power Apps

Problem

• The “Data Source” button has gone missing in a canvas Power App that you are working on. This seems to happen when you start with a canvas app template from make.powerapps.com. Blank canvas apps do not seem to be effected.
• You would like the “Data Source” button to be visible so that you do not have to use the workaround of using the “Add Data” menu from the menu bar everytime you want to see or edit your data sources

Solution

• Open Settings in your canvas app
• Navigate to “Upcoming Features,” then “Retired,” then enable “Relational data, option sets, and other new features for Microsoft Dataverse”
  • This option will inexplicably disappear from the menu you enable it 😾
• Next, navigate back to “Upcoming Features,” then “Preview,” then enable “Use column display names”
  • This option will also inexplicably disappear from the menu you enable it 🤔
• Finally, navigate to “General” then enable “Improve data source experience and Microsoft Dataverse views”
  • This option will ALSO disappear after you enable it! 🤌 What is happening here Microsoft?!?!
  • But this the option you wanted. The “Data Source” button should have returned to the left menu bar

More Details

I should point out that if you start with a blank canvas app this problem does not appear, as in the “Data Source” button will be there. But I ran into the issue while developing a couple of Power Apps using the provided Microsoft templates. If you Google the error, you will find a mish-mash of info about how to fix it. I decided it was worth my time to document the FULL solution for my own sanity, so I am sharing it with y’all. I hope this helps someone!