The Microsoft Power Apps low-code development environment offers endless possibilities for users and businesses that want to develop customized applications to improve their digital infrastructures. In this article, we'll dive deeper into what Power Apps is and how to use its features with practical implementation examples. We will also see 8 examples of applications that can be developed with Power Apps for your customers and for all the people in the company.
Microsoft Power Apps is one of the main products of Power Platform, the suite created by Microsoft to assist and simplify the development of internal business telematics processes. The suite includes Power Automate for creating automation systems, Power BI for data analysis and creating dynamic reports, and Power Apps for developing customized applications.
It is an app development solution based on cloud technology that allows you to create tailor-made applications without having to start from scratch and without the need for any programming knowledge, thanks to a versatile and intuitive system. You can design the appearance and operation of the app, connect it to different types of data, such as Excel sheets or databases, and have it run on computers, tablet or telephones.
Microsoft Power Apps helps to transform your ideas into digital realities in a simple and intuitive way, providing users and companies with a complete and functional development environment and saving on programming and distribution costs.
Let's see together what are the main advantages of using it for the development of your own business apps:
There are three main types of apps that can be developed with Microsoft Power Apps:
While being an essential component of the Power Apps ecosystem, we will exclude here automated workflows that can be achieved with the help of Power Automate as they are not technically applications.
Canvas apps are apps built from scratch by the user. This type guarantees the company the possibility to give top priority to personalization of his app, allowing him to work on a metaphorical 'blank canvas' in total freedom at the cost of longer development times.
Much more flexible than template apps, canvas apps are perfect for all those companies that need customized solutions to meet their most specific needs.
In fact, you can act on every single component of the application: from the graphic interface to the individual functionalities up to the different data logics.
In terms of data, canvas apps, in addition to having the ability to connect to more than 200 different sources, they allow greater flexibility in managing and displaying the information obtained in a personalized way compared to model apps.
In addition, Power Apps supports the development of canvas apps starting from individual collections of data originating from Dataverse or AppSource.
Model-based apps are built starting from one of the several predefined templates made available by Power Apps or from a model configured by the user in Dataverse.
In the latter case, the data is imported into Microsoft Dataverse, the platform made available together with Power Apps to store information from different sources and use it to create form templates, visualizations, business rules and business processes.
Whether it is a Power Apps or Dataverse model, the advantage remains in any case that it is a quick and efficient solution to develop an app in a short time, already tested and ready for use by virtue of its predefined structure.
All this, however, at the expense of a greater possibility of customization, which in model-based apps is much more marginal than in canvas apps.
Portals are the last category of products that a user can develop through the low-code mode of Power Apps.
These are extensions of business applications that allow an organization to extend access to its information to a larger audience, which could consist of customers, partners and suppliers, as well as the employees themselves.
Portals often take the form of websites, protected by Microsoft security protocols and equipped with a wide range of functionalities, ranging from data and user management to integration with external work apps (for example Power BI, SharePoint or Microsoft 365 Dynamics applications).
The updates arrived this year with Wave 1 include new design features, improvements in content management and new options for integration with other applications and services such as, for example, Dynamics 365 and SharePoint to offer even richer and more interactive user experiences.
In addition, Power Apps Portals now offers new advanced search capabilities that allow customers to get the information they need more quickly by using filters, keywords, and other search options to narrow down results and find exactly what they're looking for.
Dev4Side Software specializes in creating business apps with Power Apps, drastically reducing internal application development and maintenance processes.
Operating vertically across the entire Microsoft Power Platform ecosystem, we have developed extensive expertise in Power Apps, which allows us to offer custom-designed and fully integrated solutions within your Microsoft 365 tenant.
Contact us to transform business information into concrete actions.
Now that we have a clearer overview of what it is, how it works and the advantages it can offer us, to better understand the potential offered by developing apps for your company with Microsoft Power Apps, let's see together some useful examples of applications that can be created within the low-code development environment offered by Microsoft.
With Power Apps, it is possible to develop quick and responsive activity tracking applications, with the possibility of also being used on mobile devices to allow employees to accurately record the hours dedicated to assigned projects. This type of app is designed for organizations that want to manage time tracking without incurring onerous CRM license costs.
These simple applications allow you to easily manage multiple projects and ensure that your workforce accurately invoices customers and projects by adding daily time entries.
The application can present three distinct roles for users:
The applications developed with Power Apps, as we have already seen, have a simple user interface that can be loaded quickly on mobile devices without adding superfluous elements.
In addition, we can implement the automatic generation of a weekly report and allow you to generate reports on request to calculate the time spent on each project.
Approval of expenses can be a time-consuming task that can involve multiple submissions and processes, risking errors or wasted time for employees and purchasing managers. However, with Power Apps, you can create an application that simplifies the expense approval process, streamlining cumbersome procedures and skipping unnecessary intermediate steps.
The app can allow employees to request reimbursement of expenses by sending a request along with valid evidence of the need for the desired purchase. Once the request is received, the manager can approve or reject it and add comments if necessary.
The applicant may be informed of the status of their request through notifications. Thanks to the integration capabilities of Power Apps, our application can be seamlessly integrated with any existing human resource management system.
This type of Power App can give employees the option to request annual leave, sick leave or other special leave, sending their requests using their mobile phones as well. Their manager can approve or decline them quickly, without the need to subject requests to redundant steps or checks. All employees need to do is create permission requests and send them to their managers.
Managers can view through the app all requests on a single unified screen and manage them more efficiently, helping them to easily monitor vacation status, major company holidays and the balance of permits.
Another possible implementation is that of a Power App that allows companies to easily monitor inventory levels, reorder products and manage their supply chain. Companies can create a customized inventory management system that meets their needs, such as product tracking, storage alerts, and real-time reporting of shortages and surpluses.
With an inventory management system based on Power Apps, businesses can streamline their inventory management processes, reduce manual errors, improve accuracy, and can also automate routine tasks, such as generating purchase orders and receiving notifications when inventory levels reach a certain threshold.
With Power Apps it is possible for companies to develop solutions to provide a ticketing system and help desk functionality through their apps and portals. With the ticketing system, users can submit support requests and monitor the status of their tickets.
Using a ticketing system created in Power Apps, a company's employees and customers can generate new support requests, view their open and closed tickets, and receive updates on the resolution status they are in.
Users can also search for existing tickets to find solutions to problems similar to theirs or to see if their problem has already been solved in the past for someone else.
An activity management application created with Power Apps can help businesses streamline their workflow by providing a centralized platform for assigning, tracking, and managing activities.
This app can give members of their team the means to easily view their tasks and deadlines, collaborate with others, and receive notifications for updates or changes. In addition, managers in various departments can use the app to monitor progress, allocate resources, and ensure that tasks are completed on time and within budget.
SharePoint library lists and forms can be customized using Power Apps to provide a more user-friendly and intuitive data entry and management interface.
The Power App can give users the ability to access and view data stored in SharePoint, such as lists, documents and libraries, allowing for more efficient management of resources and content.
Employees will be able to modify and update data directly from the app (also using their mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets), allowing real-time management of the information in SharePoint.
With Power Apps, you can create custom forms that reflect your company's needs and branding, add conditional formatting options, and integrate your SharePoint data with other data sources.
This can significantly improve the user experience and productivity of a team that will no longer need to change software to enter specific types of information and can do everything from a single, convenient app.
Finally, the employee onboarding app is one of the most useful examples of an app that can be developed with Microsoft Power Apps: an application that allows companies to rationalize their onboarding process, which can be customized and made easy to access and use through the possibilities offered by Microsoft's low-code development environment.
The app can exploit existing data and resources with other Microsoft products, including Teams and Dynamics 365 through the connectors made available by the platform, ensuring simple and quick access to all the information necessary for a new employee.
In addition, the app can be set up to provide analysis and reports in real time, empowering HR teams to monitor the progress of new hires and identify possible areas for improvement.
Microsoft Power Apps is, to sum it up, a versatile and powerful tool that offers a wide range of advantages to organizations of all sizes and sectors and with which they can optimize their workflows, improve efficiency and enhance their overall operations.
As we have been able to observe, the platform provided by the Redmond company can be used for a wide variety of purposes and each project developed in Power Apps can be customized to adapt to the unique needs of each organization, allowing the creation of solutions tailored to the needs of each type of company.
Both through the development of customized apps and through the use of predefined models and solutions, Power Apps offers a flexible and scalable platform that can help organizations achieve their objectives and remain competitive in today's business environment, characterized by constant attention to the increasingly rapid growth and development of secure, accessible and reliable digital infrastructures.
Microsoft Power Apps is a cloud-based low-code development platform that allows users to create custom applications without needing advanced programming skills.
Power Apps offers quick development, ease of use, integration with Microsoft 365, flexible customization, reduced costs, cross-platform accessibility, and more.
Power Apps supports the development of canvas apps, model-driven apps, and portals.
Power Apps can help monitor inventory levels, automate reordering, and manage supply chains efficiently.
Canvas apps are fully customizable applications built from scratch, offering flexibility in design and functionality.
Power Apps can streamline onboarding by integrating with tools like Teams and Dynamics 365, providing easy access to necessary information and real-time progress tracking.
Portals are external-facing applications that allow businesses to extend access to their information to customers, partners, suppliers, or employees via secure, interactive websites.
Yes, Power Apps can be integrated with SharePoint to enhance data management and provide user-friendly interfaces for data interaction.
Power Apps can automate and streamline the expense approval process, reducing the need for manual submissions and oversight.
Model apps are built using predefined templates and data structures, offering a faster development process with less customization flexibility than canvas apps.
The Modern Apps team specializes in development and integration across the entire Microsoft 365 ecosystem. We design native applications for Microsoft and Azure platforms, and implement business processes that integrate with and maximize the investment in Microsoft 365.
