Book Image

Learn Microsoft PowerApps

By : Matthew Weston
Book Image

Learn Microsoft PowerApps

By: Matthew Weston

Overview of this book

Microsoft PowerApps provides a modern approach to building business applications for mobile, tablet, and browser. Learn Microsoft PowerApps will guide you in creating powerful and productive apps that will add value to your organization by helping you transform old and inefficient processes and workflows. Starting with an introduction to PowerApps, this book will help you set up and configure your first application. You’ll explore a variety of built-in templates and understand the key difference between types of applications such as canvas and model-driven apps, which are used to create apps for specific business scenarios. In addition to this, you’ll learn how to generate and integrate apps directly with SharePoint, and gain an understanding of PowerApps key components such as connectors and formulas. As you advance, you’ll be able to use various controls and data sources, including technologies such as GPS, and combine them to create an iterative app. Finally, the book will help you understand how PowerApps can use several Microsoft Power Automate and Azure functionalities to improve your applications. By the end of this PowerApps book, you’ll be ready to confidently develop lightweight business applications with minimal code.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Getting Started with PowerApps
6
Section 2: Developing Your PowerApp
11
Section 3: Extending the Capabilities of Your PowerApp
18
Section 4: Working with Model-Driven Apps
21
Section 5: Governing PowerApps

Understanding the types of apps

When creating a PowerApp, there are two distinct types of app, both of which have very different applications. Before you start creating apps, you should have a clear understanding of what these two types are and what benefits they bring. This will allow you to make the right selection and therefore create a great app that will add value to your organization. Both types of app are designed to be codeless and therefore within the realm of the ability of IT professionals and power users; however, developers can add a lot of value by developing code and calling it in various ways.

The two types of app are as follows:

  • Canvas apps
  • Model-driven apps

Both apps allow you to easily build apps and share access to the CDS:

Figure 1.6: Logical hierarchy for the types of app

Understanding what the different types of app are will help you to make the correct decision when you are developing. Let's start by looking at canvas apps.

Canvas apps

Canvas apps are the...