So far, we have introduced you to PowerUp – the umbrella that covers each member of the Power Platform suite – and touched upon the separate business process software that it connects to, such as Power Apps. But how does the software application work and how can it help improve your digital transformation strategy?

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What is Power Apps?

Power Apps is a low-code development platform that allows you to build business applications for mobile, web or portal. It can help you build custom apps in hours — not months — that connect to your existing data and systems to solve problems faster, improving business efficiency. You can use its templates, drag and drop functionality or custom code to build pixel perfect, simple to mission critical web and mobile applications. It is a full featured, end-to-end platform built for citizen and professional developers, with IT in control. Power Apps allows you to leverage the Common Data Service with pre-built AI models in AI Builder and unlock innovation faster across your organisation.

Power Apps enables you to interact with data sources and services within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Your custom applications can be fully linked to your Microsoft solutions or other IT tools already used in your business. Part of the suite of business solutions, Power Apps helps create custom applications that allows your team to efficiently communicate and share information. The core characteristic of Power Apps is that it is a low code app builder.

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What is Power Apps used for?

Power Apps is used for building any business application based on your data. Specifically, it allows you to create the app that best suits your needs with your own data source without any programming or app development skills. The software brings agility, connectivity and sustainability to the forefront of your organisation.

Who is Power Apps for?

Power Apps’ highly intuitive interface is designed to allow as many people as possible to create an unlimited number of apps without the need for coding or development skills to produce a custom app from scratch. It is an exceptional tool for creating your own apps with no experience required. Once the app is developed, it can be easily shared with your entire team.

Types of Power Apps

Power Apps gives you two options to choose from – basic canvas and model-driven.

A basic canvas app allows you to drag and drop components onto a new page to design a user interface, with Excel-style formulas. You can use the software to integrate with data from Microsoft and other external sources and build an interface that suits your business needs. Once the Canvas app has been developed, you can use it on portable devices, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Power BI dashboards.

Model-driven apps allow you to apply business processes for stability and structure by outlining stages and actions for users to follow. This type of Power Apps is based on prime data – the data that is stored in a Common Data Service (CDS). CDS is a protected, cloud-based storage system that you can use to save your business application data.

The advantages and disadvantages of Power Apps

There are many advantages to incorporating Power Apps into your business operations. It is time and cost effective; provides resource on training and coding; meets business needs with bespoke software development solutions, and enables the ability to use hardware devices, such as cameras for uploading images and tablets for note taking and sketches.

However, there are also certain disadvantages that are worth mentioning. Firstly, unlike other open-source business improvement software, there is limited customisation as the application is owned by Microsoft. Additionally, Power Apps does not let you deploy onto the Microsoft Store, Apps Store or Google Play, so you have to upload android and IOS mobile products onto the Microsoft 365 platform separately.

Power Apps and PowerUp

Using PowerUp we can provide you a fully integrated service, taking you through the entire business process software from A to Z. This ensures your organisation is fully equipped with the appropriate tools required to carry out your operations in a seamless, effective manner.  

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With PowerUp, we can take you from Complexity to Clarity.

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For more information, contact: info@stcinsiso.com

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