Microsoft Power Apps – The Ultimate user guide
Microsoft launched Power Apps in 2016 as one of the products under Microsoft 365. Since then, the product has become popular and now has thousands of organizations worldwide using it. For those who may not know, MS Power Apps is a platform that helps organizations create in-house web and mobile apps that they can use to solve a couple of problems within the organization.
You don’t have to be a mainstream computer programmer to create apps with Microsoft Power Apps. The platform has a straightforward UI that makes it easy for even beginners to build apps with just a few lines of code and sometimes no code at all. Despite being in the market for a few years compared to Google App maker and Appian’s likes, many have appreciated this platform because of its easy to use user interface and intuitive user experience.
In this article, I will share everything you need to know about Microsoft Power Apps, how best to use it, and how it works with other 365 apps like Power Automate. Just make sure you read it till the endP
How does Power Apps work?
Power Apps are the favorite to build low-code level business apps used within the organization. These apps can either be mobile apps (that work on smartphones) or web app apps (accessed through mainstream web browsers like chrome and edge). The whole idea about power apps is to reduce the amount of time spent building simples apps.
This platform provides templates for the different use cases that users can use to design and deploy apps within a few hours. For instance, an organization can use Power Apps to create a departmental to-do list whereby all department members can see what their team members are supposed to be doing and when.
It usually takes a couple of days to develop and code this app from scratch. But with Power Apps, all that can are done in a matter of days and sometimes hours. Apps created with Power Apps can import data from other Microsoft apps like Excel, Word, contacts, and many more. If, for instance, you need to integrate the contacts of your team in a specific app you created with Power Apps, you have to import them from the Contacts app instead of inputting them manually.
With recent template developments, This platform is also getting more robust as more templates solve different organizations’ problems. Just like it is possible to create almost any kind of Website with WordPress, at some point, it will be possible to make nearly every type of business app with PowerApps. The limitation is still with the number of templates that are currently available for this platform.
Why use Microsoft power apps?
- Creating custom apps
There are so many apps in the App store of Microsoft, but the problem is some of them may luck a few things that you may need as an organization. With Power Apps, you can create your apps that suit the needs of the organizations.
- Easy to use
You don’t need to know how to code to create applications with Power Apps. All you need is to have the necessary computer skills and choosing the right template for the type of app you want to build. The rest of the work is primarily to drag and drop.
- Easier collaboration
With Microsoft Power Apps, creating applications is not only for the IT department. Other team members can also contribute since the platform has a straightforward UI that even non-coders can quickly adopt in no time.
- It communicates with other MS Apps.
Chances are your organization is already using other Microsoft Apps like Excel, Share point, outlook, and many more. The apps that you create with power apps can import data from any of these apps. So, in situations where the data is available in other apps, you won’t have to input that data again. You have to import it.
Power Apps integration with Power Automate
Microsoft 365 apps are powerful when working individually, but they are even more powerful when working together. Power Automate is another application under the Microsoft power platform. This application automates tasks within the organization. For instance, you can trigger a task ticking on the departmental to-do list you created with Power Apps when a particular worker submits in an email using outlook.
So, when you build your power apps, you can integrate them with the capabilities of Power Automate to make the use of these apps you created even more friendly. The idea is to automate all the repetitive tasks that do not require human judgment. This will, in the end, boost the productivity of everyone in the organization as their focus will be more on tasks that need human judgment to execute.
Pros and cons of Power Apps
Pros
- Very easy to use considering the power it brings to the table.
- Apps created can communicate with other Microsoft apps.
- It has powerful mobile functionality.
- It has lots of templates available for creating different types of apps.
- Contains features you can play with to create your apps.
Cons
- It is not that easy to learn if one is new to the development world.
- Data imports can be made easier.
- At times apps take longer to load
Final thoughts
Power Apps is one of those Platforms that many organizations out there can take advantage of to create custom apps that could save them a lot of time. Microsoft also integrates Power apps with Power Automate to automate some of the tasks, making them even more powerful. This integration means the repetitive tasks that don’t require any automation from humans, and your team can focus on other tasks.
