# data[].attributes.headline
Microsoft Power Apps Ranks High in Low-Code Research Report

# data[].attributes.subject
Microsoft Power Apps Ranks High in Low-Code Research Report

# data[].attributes.body
The report, in the company's trademarked Forrester Wave format, places Microsoft among Mendix, OutSystems and ServiceNow in the "Leaders" part of the wave, ranking third on an index measuring the strength of current offerings. Fourteen vendors were included in the "Low-Code Development Platforms for Professional Developers, Q2 2021.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Microsoft Power Apps Ranks High in Low-Code Research Report

Microsoft's Power Apps low-code development offering was among four market leaders identified in a new report from research firm Forrester.

The report, in the company's trademarked Forrester Wave format, places Microsoft among Mendix, OutSystems and ServiceNow in the "Leaders" part of the wave, ranking third on an index measuring the strength of current offerings. Fourteen vendors were included in the "Low-Code Development Platforms for Professional Developers, Q2 2021."

The low-code/no-code, rapid application development market in recent years has exploded in the face of increased demand for enterprise applications amid a dearth of experienced professional coding talent able to harness the greater power of more advanced tools like Visual Studio and VS Code.

The global pandemic served to further that growth, Forrester indicated.

"As the COVID crisis proved, rapid app development and constant iteration in software have become table stakes. Thus, low-code platforms are now a first-class development approach. At the same time, vendors from more specialized segments are maturing their capabilities across a wider range of use cases and developer personas -- leading to a convergence in the digital process automation (DPA) and low-code markets," Forrester said.

Power Apps is the low-code development component of Microsoft's larger Power Platform, which also includes offerings for Business Intelligence and other functionality.

[Click on image for larger view.] Low-Code Development Platforms for Professional Developers, Q2 2021 (source: Forrester/Microsoft).

The product enables users to create their own applications typically for specific business functions, while also providing professional developers with a simple and quick development route, the latter being the focus of this report.

Professional coders are among several different constituencies targeted with the product:

App makers/creators: They can create basic canvas, model-driven, and portal apps.

App users: They can run apps created by themselves or shared with them by other creators, on mobile devices or browsers.

Admins: They create and manage environments, users, roles, and data-loss prevention policies.

Developers: They can write code to extend the basic functionality of simple Power Apps.

Power Apps offers options for developing canvas apps (starting with a blank slate to which components are added), model-driven apps, web portals or Dataverse-based apps (business data repositories). It also includes services and data connectors.

Last year, Microsoft announced Power Apps enhancements including mixed reality, canvas/model support in a new mobile app, UX improvements and more.

These and other moves have resulted in a glowing review from Forrester.

"Ubiquitous in enterprise, Microsoft's Power Apps is fast becoming a standardized low-code platform of choice," the report says. "The software giant's aligned technology strategy -- from Azure to Office, with Power Apps as the low-code lingua franca at the center -- is powerful and unique."

[Click on image for larger view.] What Is Power Fx? (source: Rory Neary).

The report also references the open source PowerFx programming language that Microsoft introduced to the platform in March, based on Excel spreadsheet technology.

[Click on image for larger, animated GIF view.] Power Fx in Animated Action in VS Code (source: Microsoft).

"The product is comprehensive, with good features across the breadth of our assessment and several great ones," the report said. "Integration capabilities are a standout, and one customer said that the product's 'growing ecosystem of connectors' was helpful in automation projects. Other high points are the Excel-style Fx development language, AI features designed expressly for citizen developers, and tooling for UX and mobile development."

However, the report also mentions weaknesses.

"A key weakness is the portfolio approach to adjacent Power Platform capabilities (such as Power BI) and useful Azure services (such as Azure DevOps), which must all be separately licensed and can cause confusion. Also, Power Apps is only available through a traditional PaaS model -- a mismatch for customers that must deploy their apps on-premises or to another cloud provider."

Microsoft yesterday (May 11) published a blog post noting its inclusion as a leader in the report.

Seizing on the opportunity for more PR, the post listed five reasons the project is popular:

1. Power Apps enables fusion teams, from citizen to professional developers, to seamlessly collaborate. From a low-code interface to empower everyone to build apps quickly, to sophisticated UX controls, Power Apps' combination of drag and drop functionality and rich developer tools like Azure DevOps and GitHub empowers all developers to be productive and collaborate effectively.

2. A powerful built-in data platform with rich connectivity. Power Apps natively includes Microsoft Dataverse, a fully managed data platform built atop Microsoft Azure. Dataverse offers the scale, sophistication, and security necessary to run advanced workloads, wrapped in the approachable productivity of low-code tools. In addition, Power Apps enables customers to connect directly to data using one or more of 400 plus connectors to Microsoft and third-party data sources to build rich mashups of data sources in a single view for an application. Customers can also create their own connectors to any service with a REST API.

3. Deep integration across the entire productivity experience. Power Apps is natively integrated into all Microsoft cloud offerings. Microsoft Power Platform is the single extensibility platform across productivity apps and Microsoft Teams (Office 365), business apps (Dynamics 365), and our developer cloud (Azure). With an embedded app studio in Microsoft Teams, and our investment in Dataverse for Teams, everyone can now build, customize deploy, share, and use apps all from within Microsoft Teams.

4. A trusted, secure, and governable platform. Customers are adopting Microsoft Power Platform to help steer away from shadow IT and silos to common platforms that are easy to govern and monitor in a unified way. Power Apps offers enterprise reliability via 100 plus Azure data centers, Microsoft's global network edge and a 99.9 percent financially backed uptime guarantee, as well as 90 compliance certifications, more than any other low code data platform. With a unified admin center across Microsoft Power Platform with built-in security roles and permissions, customizable DLP policies, and authentication via Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), IT is armed to combat shadow IT with full visibility into what the business is doing, and centrally manage Power Apps across their organization.

5. The world's most comprehensive low code platform. From low code apps, to automation, to analytics, chatbots, built-in AI, to process mining and RPA, Microsoft Power Platform provides customers with the most complete set of low code tools in a connected platform that ensures all customers, and all their employees, regardless of whether they have technical skills or are software engineers, have the tools they need to solve problems at scale across their organizations.

"Microsoft is a logical fit for customers wishing to launch their pro coders and technically minded Office users together into the low-code age," Forrester said in concluding its Power Apps profile.

Such reports from research firms are often provided to the public in licensed-for-distribution formats from leaders, as is the case here. A simple web search for this report will find multiple such offers, which sometimes require registration information.

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Microsoft Power Apps Ranks High in Low-Code Research Report -- Visual Studio Magazine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Microsoft's Power Apps low-code development offering was among four market leaders identified in a new report from research firm Forrester. The report, in the company's trademarked Forrester Wave format, places Microsoft among Mendix, OutSystems and ServiceNow in the "Leaders" part of the wave, ranking third on an index measuring the strength of current offerings.

# data[].attributes.headline
What is Power Apps (Microsoft Power Platform)?

# data[].attributes.subject
What is Power Apps (Microsoft Power Platform)?

# data[].attributes.body
Microsoft designed Power Apps to let you build business applications based on your data. Specifically, it allows you to create the app that best suits your needs with your own database, without any programming or development skills. Your custom applications can be fully linked to your Microsoft solutions or other IT tools already used in your business.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Perhaps not as well known as other Microsoft software, Power Apps nevertheless positions itself as a remarkable utility for developing custom apps, personalized to your data and your systems to meet your teams' expectations. This suite allows developers to create professional applications that can be equipped with AI to make them efficient, creative and intelligent.

Let us take a look at its features and the users who would benefit from them, so we may fully grasp all that Power Apps entail.

What is Power Apps?

Microsoft designed Power Apps to let you build business applications based on your data. Specifically, it allows you to create the app that best suits your needs with your own database, without any programming or development skills. Your custom applications can be fully linked to your Microsoft solutions or other IT tools already used in your business.

Read our overview of this powerful program suite by Microsoft to help you get a better idea of what it has to offer :

Microsoft Power Platform

Microsoft Power Platform is the "parent company" - a platform that consolidates all the programs that will inevitably overhaul your relationship with digital tools, namely: Power BI, Power Automate and, of course, Power Apps.

Power BI

The Power BI application allows you to capture your company's most important data, even spread across different departments. Advertised as a powerful data analysis service, Microsoft Power BI lets your employees or partners turn that same data into a simple visual element. These visuals can then be used in your operations. The conversion of data into easily accessible visuals is an essential feature of software like Power BI.

Power Automate

As the name implies, Power Automate is designed to help with the automation of repetitive tasks. Perhaps the most famous of all Power Apps, it allows you to create workflows in a fully automated manner in only a few minutes. It allows you to turn repetitive tasks into preprogrammed processes and manage them step-by-step in a clear and efficient environment. You get to benefit from a wide variety of automated tasks that function with over 296 applications, including: Twitter, SharePoint, Outlook, RSS, Agilite, Adobe Creative Suite and even Asana. In short, Power Automate allows you to significantly increase your productivity by automating certain tasks that no longer need to be manually performed by a human.

Power Apps

Part of the Microsoft suite of business solutions, Power Apps helps create custom applications that allow your team to efficiently communicate and share information.

Power Apps's defining characteristic is that it is a code-free app builder. Its highly intuitive interface was designed to allow as many people as possible to create the apps they need. Save time and resources on training and coding, while meeting your business' needs with the most personalized solution.

It can be quite costly to set up custom apps and the availability of your developers may not always match your production schedule. Often, small and very small businesses won't even be able to afford it. Fortunately, Microsoft sought to democratize the development of applications with Power Apps, to help businesses of all sizes achieve their growth goals.

What purpose does Microsoft Power Apps serve?

Microsoft Power Apps makes sure that you no longer waste time searching for the one app that meets your business needs. It was designed with your needs and your data in mind, so that you can create the custom solutions you need. In this regard, Power Apps acts as a kind of personalized application generator.

Let's say you need to create an application to manage your human resources, vacations and absences, or even the number of billable hours. Power Apps allows you to create a tool adapted to the size and nature of your team. If you want to set up a warehouse management system personalized to the type of products you sell, Power Apps will make your life easier. Additionally, if you have multiple locations for your warehouses or offices, Power Apps works across platforms on computers, smartphones and tablets alike.

If you have a large customer base with multiple sources of leads, it can be difficult to share all the data with your entire team. In order to respond to this need, Power Apps allows you to create an application that your employees can use to access relevant data about your customers. The app will be built on the foundation of your business database, thus allowing access to your customers' contact information, their order history, and even their billing information, for example. Your database allows you to generate a customer application that all of your employees can access. This tool can then be consulted via your employee's mobile phone or your company's tablets.

Power Apps gives you the power of decision making when it comes to running your business. All your data is connected, thanks to this Microsoft Power Platform solution. Whatever your needs may be, you can build the apps that accurately reflect your data without worrying about forgetting anything.

One of the main benefits of using Power Apps is making your employees' jobs easier with proper app implementation. For instance, every task that must be automated can be consolidated into one application that can then be easily set up. This offers obvious productivity gains, but also less risk of error, thanks to limited human intervention.

Who is Power Apps for?

Power Apps was designed to serve as many people as possible, needing no coding or development experience to develop a custom app from scratch. This solution allows your team to innovate in the way they work, by letting them create the specific IT tools they need to succeed.

You can build an app from existing templates and keep adapting it as your business grows. Using this business application builder is very simple and intuitive. The developers of Power Apps have thought of everyone, and implemented functionalities that most users are already familiar with.

Naturally, developers can also work with Power Apps. Custom connectors let developers provide support for your application, either from your database or from the app you started to build and improve. Whichever way you use it, the greatest strength of Power Apps is that it's adaptable to everyone.

Whether it's employees with no coding experience, or seasoned developers, Power Apps is an exceptional tool for creating your own apps. It does not matter who created the application. Once it's made, it can be easily shared with the entire team or just the employees involved. Thanks to Microsoft Dynamics 365, information can be shared with any team member in seconds.

Power Apps lets you set up processes that facilitate decision making in your organisation, like all other Microsoft solutions. Every application you design, no matter its size or scope of use, becomes a piece of the puzzle that gives you a bigger picture of your business. With Power Apps, your only limit is your imagination. With just a few clicks, you can create apps for accounting, for logistics, for human resources, for customer relations, and absolutely anything else.

However, simply automating a series of daunting and repetitive tasks that used to be done by your employees will not be enough to increase your business profitability. It is your decision-making, your commercial choices and your development plans that will take your company to new heights, thanks to the data you optimized with your applications built in Power Apps.

How to integrate Power Apps with Microsoft Dynamics 365?

If you are already using Microsoft Dynamics 365 and you wonder if you could integrate Power Apps into your system, there is nothing simpler.

By using Microsoft Dynamics 365, your database is already in place and securely populated. The integration phase is no longer needed - to build an application from Power Aide, you use the data already captured in Microsoft Dynamics 365. Everything happens as naturally as possible because the underlying data platform is the same. This is what the Dataverse looks like.

Since Power Apps consists of over 200 connectors, integration is really easy to achieve. To design the layout you need, all you have to do is drag and drag-and-drop the item you want from a task manager in Outlook or another compound list in the database.

Additionally, the data connection is further facilitated by the intuitive design of Power Apps. Everything is set up in a way that you can easily adjust all the parameters of your app without development knowledge.

If you edit data in Microsoft Dynamics 365, you can easily customise your app via Power Apps. The apps are not only built according to your needs, but also follow your business' growth and development.

Integrating Power Apps into the companies we work always proves to be a welcome innovation for their employees. Power Apps provides them with powerful tools for their daily tasks, making their work easier and more efficient. This creates a sense of trust and competence in teams more quickly. In addition, using Power Apps enables continuous improvement of working methods.

Conclusion

You can see how easily Power Apps is establishing itself as an indispensable utility for designing apps that will meet your immediate business needs in terms of processes or workflows - created in a matter of hours.

Power Apps offers immense, perhaps even endless possibilities. To find out how this solution could meet your company's specific needs, contact one of our specialists at Gestisoft. We will make sure that Power Apps will establish itself at the core of innovation in your teams.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is Power Apps (Microsoft Power Platform)? - Gestisoft

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Perhaps not as well known as other Microsoft software, Power Apps nevertheless positions itself as a remarkable utility for developing custom apps, personalized to your data and your systems to meet your teams' expectations. This suite allows developers to create professional applications that can be equipped with AI to make them efficient, creative and intelligent.

# data[].attributes.headline
5 Ways PowerApps Accelerates Achieving Your Business Goals

# data[].attributes.subject
5 Ways PowerApps Accelerates Achieving Your Business Goals

# data[].attributes.body
Imagine a situation where a retail store owner wants to use available data to offer the best product selection and combinations to cross-sell a purchase, with just a barcode scan? What if the retailer wants to reduce carbon footprint, and e-mail receipts instead of printing them, while simultaneously having a way to stay in contact with customers? This world of possibilities opens with PowerApps.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
December 9, 2020

No idea is too out of the box when working with Microsoft PowerApps. Businesses are always looking for ways to offer their customers an increasingly exceptional experience, as this can ultimately drive sales. What if those ideas could easily be translated into an app? With Microsoft PowerApps, a brilliant idea for an app can become a reality.

Imagine a situation where a retail store owner wants to use available data to offer the best product selection and combinations to cross-sell a purchase, with just a barcode scan? What if the retailer wants to reduce carbon footprint, and e-mail receipts instead of printing them, while simultaneously having a way to stay in contact with customers? This world of possibilities opens with PowerApps. In fact, 60% of all occupations have at least 30% technically automatable activities.* The best thing is, you do not have to be a coding genius or expert app developer, because you do not need a single line of code to build with PowerApps. According to Microsoft, IT application development is gravitating towards low-code and high-productivity platforms like PowerApps to minimize cost and support rapidly changing business needs.

So, are you ready to become a #PowerAddict or do you need a little more convincing? In any case, here is a list of ways PowerApps can accelerate you achieving your business goals.

1. You can build apps without risk: PowerApps connect apps to your data, so you are always ready to act on new insights, all without compromising your security, governance, and compliance standards. Allow employees to excel and add business value by quickly and securely developing innovative apps to reduce inefficiencies and solve business challenges.

2. App development is simplified without constraints: Just because a staff member might not have a technical background, does not mean that they would not have a great idea for an app that might increase efficiency, reduce cost or improve customer experience.

For example, staff members who deal with customers first and define the customer experience, have the best knowledge of customer needs, and might have ideas on how to react to them. Developing apps is made easy with PowerApps, so even a non-technical employee can bring a brilliant app idea to life, without limiting development possibilities. App development can be streamlined for non-technical team members and seasoned developers alike with out-of-the-box components and limitless customization options.

3. Apps can be deployed quickly, while value can be added continuously: In the everchanging world of today, businesses need to be able to respond to changes and developments quickly to stay competitive. PowerApps makes it possible to launch working apps in a fraction of the time with a platform designed for quick deployment, so businesses can deliver value fast and continuously evolve features for more benefit.

By being able to deploy apps quickly, you can increase your competitiveness in your respective field. According to research, 80% of executives at Fortune 1000 and other industry-leading companies are concerned about threats from more agile, data-first companies.*

4. Data can be integrated with just a few clicks: Do not let the data you've acquired sit and collect dust! In fact, 70% of organizations believe their data is not used to its fullest extent.* Instead, create business apps with PowerApps that act on the data you collect and use every day. Capture new data directly, integrate data from hundreds of sources with pre-built custom APIs, and easily act on insights.

5. Infuse AI to add powerful InApp Intelligence: Step into the future - there are so many ways we can benefit from artificial intelligence, making our processes more efficient. As a matter of fact, 50% of work activities globally have the potential to be automated using current technology.*

Let's take for example a product distributor that has products over a wide variety of physical locations. An important factor is always having enough stock of each product at every location. With PowerApps, a company can easily create an app where it can (A) use a picture of the product to identify it, (B) tag the product with the correct description, and program the app to count the number of a specific product present on a shelve. Imagine how much time this would save a merchandising team; they wouldn't have to continuously spend hours of their time counting and reporting stock and will have time to visit more accounts. Furthermore, the possibility of mistakes is limited, while the company immediately has real-time access to stock reporting.

In conclusion, PowerApps offers businesses that want to be front runners in a quickly evolving world the opportunity to be able to safely develop low-code apps that allow them to immediately respond to changes, make optimal use of data and be more efficient.

Are you curious to know how your overall business can benefit from PowerApps and how you can build apps on a platform without limits, like Azure? Contact the cloud solutions experts at Inova Solutions.

Sources:
*McKinsey, *NewVantage Partners, Big Data Executive Survey 2018, 2018 IDC, *Gartner, 2019, *IDG - Big Data Survey,
*McKinsey

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Ways PowerApps Accelerates Achieving Your Business Goals

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
December 9, 2020 Imagine a situation where a retail store owner wants to use available data to offer the best product selection and combinations to cross-sell a purchase, with just a barcode scan? What if the retailer wants to reduce carbon footprint, and e-mail receipts instead of printing them, while simultaneously having a way to stay in contact with customers?

# data[].attributes.body
PowerApps has become the smartest way to enhance business productivity, engage customers, organize projects, or whatever you wish to do. Businesses are finding that it’s no longer difficult to build apps solutions right according to their needs and requirements. This is just because of the PowerApps.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
PowerApps provides a way for non-professional developers to build business solution applications using an interface that requires no code.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
Benefits of Using Microsoft PowerApps

# data[].attributes.body
Power Apps is considered PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) from its core functionality. The major use of it is to help businesses create mobile applications that will be feasible to run on iOS, Windows, and Android. These are termed to be modern apps that can run over any browser or OS without any barriers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Power Apps is considered PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) from its core functionality. The major use of it is to help businesses create mobile applications that will be feasible to run on iOS, Windows, and Android. These are termed to be modern apps that can run over any browser or OS without any barriers.

For your knowledge, Power Apps is also known to be a mobile app platform through which the modern developed apps run for your business operations. Its role is to handle the differences and variations within the OS while you can seamlessly run or execute the apps.

In this article, you will know the complete attribute and usage of Power Apps within businesses and its immense contribution to business productivity.

Importance of Power Apps for your Business

Integration of Power Apps has been proved proficient for businesses. The company uses technology in the present era to change the operational communication within the enterprise. There are many routine actions that have been implemented recently for streamlining the production rate.

Power Apps is one such technological boom brought up by Microsoft for the companies to create custom applications for meeting the business objectives and goals. The service offered by Power Apps is feasible for knowledgeable individuals to develop various applications for managing office chores.

Read more on " Why Microsoft Power Platform is a Must Skill in 2021? "

There is no such necessity of implementing programming or coding aspects for the same as the platform allows drag & drop feature for better convenience. The only thing that the office individuals need to take concern for is adequate training of using the Power Apps platform. Power Apps has brought in revolution for the start-up companies and enterprises to develop internal office portals or management applications without the necessity of being an expert in coding.

Benefits of Seeking Power Apps Integration For Operational Efficiency of Businesses

Before the era of Power Apps, it was quite difficult for businesses to find ideal solutions to meet corporate or productivity needs. The time factor was highly responsible in the past days that interrupted the productivity outcomes of the company.

Therefore, integrating the Power Apps tool to create powerful internal applications and portals led to better business management. To help you understand the efficacy of Power Apps, here are some of the benefits of its integration:

Power Apps is a dedicated application development platform that consists of a Microsoft Office 365 subscription. Therefore, the service has high availability that intends to help you create numerous types of applications and integrate them to different platforms.

With this approach, Power Apps can be used for transforming manual business operations into automated implementation. Hence, this is what makes Power Apps so popular among businesses.

Data Integration is Proficient With Power Apps

Suppose your company has integrated its operation with CDS (Common Data Service) by Microsoft; in that case, the applications developed with Power Apps can help you allow prime access to the commercial data involved within your operations. Power Apps can help you integrate data from over 200 sources such as OneDrive, Excel, PowerPoint, Dropbox, and others.

And with these data integration possibilities, your business operations involved with data sharing can be executed efficiently without any boundaries like location. Hence, Power Apps have proved its might in the sector of data integration as well.

By integrating Power Apps for creating or developing company applications, you can expect to automate most of the business functions and processes. As a result, the manual data entry aspects can be eradicated completely from the business operational jobs. Moreover, the automation implemented within the apps can allow you to send or receive data or updates from buyers/workers within the company.

The automated update feature will be integrated into smartphones with push notifications for immediate alerts. Along with that, you can also create apps for troubleshooting or reporting with automation even when the admin is not controlling the app or portal.

When you have proficiency in creating applications for your company operations, you can meet the necessity and goal aspects of the business. In the process, you can evidently expect high productivity as the time consumption for executing or implementing certain processes reduce stupendously.

The individuals who were requested to impose certain processes manually will be free from that hassle and can take care of other core business operations. The apps developed within the Power Apps platform will take concern for automating such selected processes.

How to Create a Power App?

Creating an app through the Power Apps platform is quite easy and convenient. You just need to have the Power App Windows Modern App or a device with OS Windows 8.1 or Windows 10. You can also use the web designer of Power Apps that is feasible to run on any modern-day web browser.

Follow the below steps to create your first Power App:

Step 1: Select the Environment

There are basically four environments or tools within Power Apps for you to work upon. Each of them has its own capabilities and roles to play. The four tools are Power Apps mobile, Power Apps studio, Power Apps Admin Center, and Site Power Apps. Choose one that suits your business needs and move further with the Microsoft Power app development task.

Step 2: Select the Application Type

Now, after you have chosen the environment, it is time for you to pick the type of application that you want to develop for your business. Basically, there are two types of applications that you can possibly develop with the use of the Power Apps platform that includes Model-driven apps and Canvas apps.

Canvas apps enable you to freely organize the required aspects and are meant especially for lightweight apps. The canvas type of apps can be developed in no time with Power Apps. It demands you to implement creativity and business knowledge onto the app design.

Give your career a promising boost with MICROSOFT POWER PLATFORM CERTIFICATIONS. Check out our courses today.

Model-Driven apps are based upon CDS or data integration for rapidly building processes and business rules. Therefore, they intend to help you develop heavier applications for your business management aspects that will be used for quite a large amount of time in a day.

Step 3: Pick the Storage Type

Power Apps platform intends to target the importance of data for leveraging its potential to enhance outcomes of any business process. Therefore, it is important for you to pick the right data sources or storage type while designing applications within the Power Apps platform.

All data are stored within different data sources that can be imported within the application by creating a connection in the Power Apps platform. Some of the most common data sources picked for the purpose are Excel spreadsheets and SharePoint lists.

Final Words

With this brief explanation of the importance, perks, and usage of Power Apps, you must have gained immense knowledge of how things work within the Power Apps platform. Therefore, if you own a business and want to streamline most of the operational and management processes within your company, the Power Apps platform can be your best bet.

FAQs

1. Why should one use collections for Power App?

The apps with large databases can make things useful by manipulating the local data. Therefore, collecting the data right from the start of the app development process and filtering them throughout the application for distribution of data can prove to be feasible.

2. Is there any limitation to Power Apps?

Yes, the limitation is that for canvas-type app development, only one developer is permissible to work on it at a single time. Moreover, it is also permissible to retrieve a maximum of only 500 items by default.

3. Is it easy to master Power Apps?

With the convenient accessible features, it is quite easy for people to master Power Apps. There is no need for coding or programming knowledge for creating a perfect internal portal or application for the business.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Power Apps is considered PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) from its core functionality. The major use of it is to help businesses create mobile applications that will be feasible to run on iOS, Windows, and Android. These are termed to be modern apps that can run over any browser or OS without any barriers.

# data[].attributes.headline
Now that everyone can quickly build and share low-code apps – will everyone do?

# data[].attributes.subject
Now that everyone can quickly build and share low-code apps – will everyone do?

# data[].attributes.body
This is how Microsoft sees Power Apps, and, in the bigger schema, this is what Power Platform is all about – democratizing development by providing the tools everyone can use. With Power Automate, we can connect to almost everything almost everywhere, and, then, we can perform actions on those connections without writing a single line of code.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Now everyone can quickly build and share low-code apps with Microsoft Power Apps" - this is the slogan you see when you open https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/

This is how Microsoft sees Power Apps, and, in the bigger schema, this is what Power Platform is all about - democratizing development by providing the tools everyone can use. With Power Automate, we can connect to almost everything almost everywhere, and, then, we can perform actions on those connections without writing a single line of code. With Power Apps, we can use the same connectors, but, this time, we can create UI experiences without writing any pro code.

Naturally, when looking at it that way, the next logical step would be to encourage business users to start writing applications for themselves since, of course, they are the ones who know how businesses operate, and, from that standpoint, they have obvious advantage over developers who might be able to use pro-code, but who would not be able to foresee all the peculiar scenarios their applications may have to cover because of how businesses are supposed to operate.

Traditionally, application development would be organized around a project team, and that team would be expected to follow some kind of delivery methodology - it could be agile/scrum with all the user stories, it could be waterfall with all the business requirements, or, possibly, it could be something else. However, all of those would, normally, assume that business requirements would be captured, this way or another, before development starts. This would be to ensure that all those peculiarities of the business process were clearly explained to the developers, and, therefore, to eventually develop applications that provide expected functionality.

With the introduction of low-code, which has brought application development within the reach of the actual business people, where is this all going to go? Is it, really, that everybody in any organization will start building low-code apps or is there more to it?

Personally, I believe there are at least a few things to keep in mind:

Business users are not going to become low-code developers just because they can

For any organization to stay manageable, there should be some consistency in the data it's collecting from various sources and in the processes it's following

There are certain rules an organization may need to follow, and those rules may have to be enforced (think of various data protection laws, for instance)

I will talk about this more below, but, just by looking at the list above, you can probably see what I'm going to arrive at, and, basically, it's that an organization may have to meet certain conditions to really start benefiting from the democratized application development.

Why so?

First of all, if you think of the business folks, they have their immediate operational responsibilities, and, often, their performance might be measured by certain metrics. Those have nothing to do with application development - this holds true for the sales agents, this holds true for the CEO-s, and this holds true for the business owners.

Of course some of them might be interested to jump into the application development since this would be something they always wanted to try, but there we are talking about people trying another hobby. For those turning to the low-code tools to improve their personal efficiency, there will always be a very interesting dilemma (I find it surprising "improving personal efficiency" is often touted as a benefit, since it's sort of ignoring the obvious): you can become more efficient, but, once your secret is revealed to your peers, they will all reach the same level of efficiency, and you will all be equal, again. What's the point? It seems obvious, so why would anybody other than those who have been given some incentives push for the personal efficiency? Of course business owners would be naturally incentivized to improve personal efficiency of their employees/contractors. People on commission might also see benefits in becoming more efficient, even if that end up being only a temporary boost in payments.

However, for most of the business folks, unless, again, they were always dreaming of doing this, the idea of becoming a low-code developer might seem far from what they would really want to be doing on their spare time.

And there is no judgement there - after all, not that many pro-developers would want to become sales agents, right?

Although, there could be an alternative (or complimentary) approach where organizations will start encouraging employees to spend time on citizen development somehow. Possibly, they will, but, this way or another, for the business users to start using low-code development tools, they must be willing to do so. In other words, everyone probably can start developing apps now, but not everyone will.

But that would still be only the first step. Imagine everybody jumping into it and starting to develop all sorts of low-code applications. For everyone involved, it might turn into a really interesting experience, but, in the end, if some of those applications start storing their data in Excel, other are going to start using personal one-drive, and yet others would opt for and Azure SQL database, this will become a nightmare for the organization. Since, after all, you need to ensure the data produced by all those apps is available and manageable somehow. Otherwise, what's the point in having that data?

But, even when you have manageable data, you can't really allow one sales person to start following a process that's completely different from what another sales person would be doing. Mind you, there might be advantages in doing exactly that, since, after all, this way the organization might be able to invent and/or identify better processes.

And, then, the second pre-condition for "everyone starting to do low-code development" would be to either have standardized business processes in the organization (so, any improvement that someone comes up with would be useful for others), or to implement some sort of "incubator" program where the organization would be able to identify the improvements made by individual citizen developers and adjust remaining business processes accordingly. Which, in the end, will lead to standardizing the processes across the organization.

Again, those scenarios are not, necessarily, mutually exclusive. There could be well-defined data and processes in the organization, but there could still be room for significant process adjustments (not just for minor process improvements/"automation").

Let's say there are people in the organization who can see how turning to low-code development might be useful to them, and let's say there is some structure to the organizational data / processes those folks can rely on.

There can still be internal / external regulations and rules that the organization has to follow, and that may have to be accounted for while doing any sort of development (be it low-code or pro-code). Externally, those rules may come from various source, and of course, various data protection laws would be one such example. Internally, there might be a need to ensure integration of certain data with specific systems - for example, when taking a payment through a low-code app somehow, and assuming finance users are relying on SAP to see all financial data, some kind of integration may have to be implemented to ensure all payment data ends up in the SAP.

How would you enforce that on the organizational level? Since it is very unlikely every low-code developer would just start following those rules. The only way I see that happening is by somehow implementing an application development methodology that would be followed by everyone in the organization, and, then, you would need someone (possibly a team) to oversee proper implementation of that methodology on each "project".

This could all be represented by a funnel like this:

In the end, low-code development has a lot of potential, and it's true that "everybody can start building applications". Whether they will, and whether they even should, depends on a number of things, though, in the end, it all comes down to whether the organization is seeing this as an opportunity to improve, whether it has create the environment that encourages application development by "everyone", and whether it has the mechanisms to ensure that development is done consistently across the board.

This is not to say it's not possible, and, where possible, it might be really beneficial, but, in many cases, getting there is not a small feat.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Now that everyone can quickly build and share low-code apps - will everyone do?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Now everyone can quickly build and share low-code apps with Microsoft Power Apps" - this is the slogan you see when you open https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/ This is how Microsoft sees Power Apps, and, in the bigger schema, this is what Power Platform is all about - democratizing development by providing the tools everyone can use.

# data[].attributes.headline
8 Microsoft Power Apps use cases for organizations

# data[].attributes.subject
8 Microsoft Power Apps use cases for organizations

# data[].attributes.body
Microsoft Power Apps is one of the most popular products in the Microsoft 365 suite. Organizations use the program to solve common business process issues -- including service requests -- and address workflow needs, including those for new employees.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Fotolia

By

Microsoft Power Apps is one of the most popular products in the Microsoft 365 suite. Organizations use the program to solve common business process issues -- including service requests -- and address workflow needs, including those for new employees. Power Apps' existing features, as well as Microsoft's most recent upgrades to the program, enable further capabilities and customization for businesses.

What is Microsoft Power Apps?

Power Apps is an application creator that enables users to build mobile- and web-based forms and apps with low or no code. The apps it enables can interact with data sources and services within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. App creators can infuse business intelligence dashboards and automation into apps, making the platform more attractive to businesses.

When Power Apps hit the market, developers saw it as a basic tool for users with varying levels of technical expertise. It was primarily an app design platform focused on enabling users to create interactive apps for various business or personal scenarios. However, the platform took off, and the proof of its success is its ability to address common challenges that organizations face.

In recent upgrades, Microsoft introduced model-driven apps, as well as the Power Apps Portal. Its newer canvas apps, which enable users to develop apps without code written in traditional programming languages, remain flexible in designing and customizing different layouts. These capabilities enable a wide range of apps that offer more functionality for businesses with Power Apps.

The following Power Apps use cases highlight the program's usefulness to businesses.

1. Applications that interact with other Microsoft 365 services

Meeting Capture is a free template for Power Apps users. Microsoft designed Meeting Capture to help users take notes and assign activities or tasks to attendees in meetings. The app also enables users to capture rich media through a device's camera and handwritten notes from a touch-screen device.

This use case highlights some key capabilities that Power Apps offers, which include the following:

integration with Microsoft Office 365 services -- such as Exchange Online, Planner and OneNote;

the ability to use device hardware, such as cameras; and

the ability to use touch screens to take notes or draw.

2. Employee onboarding application

As Power Apps can interact with and tap into the data from other Microsoft 365 services, many businesses use the free Power Apps template to create an onboarding tasks app to support HR and new employees during the onboarding process. These apps offer many resources to new employees, such as links to policy guides, team member contact information and forms to complete their internal profiles.

3. Image processing tools

Power Apps can integrate with camera-enabled devices, so businesses can build apps that offer image processing functionalities.

Retailers, construction companies and healthcare providers can capture photos of products and other items during inspections with a mobile device's camera and the data collected from its GPS. A customized inspection app stores some of the information within SharePoint or in the common data service layer, mimicking a hosted database.

Additionally, manufacturing companies can use the platform to build apps for quality checks, which enable employees to inspect products and capture photos to document issues. Developers can also use the platform to create apps that capture photos of individuals, send the images to a back-end facial recognition process and return information about the individual.

4. New user setup scenarios

Power Apps can streamline new user setup processes. It offers easy-to-use intake forms for hiring managers to complete and submit to the necessary departments for new employees. Many businesses combine Power Apps forms with Microsoft Flow for workflow automation and approval.

5. Sales intake forms

For field employees visiting client sites who need to complete sales orders outside the office, they can use Power Apps along with a subscription to Microsoft Dynamics 365. This integration enables users to extract and insert data into the Dynamics 365 CRM with easy-to-use forms.

6. Service request applications

Some businesses use Power Apps to build an interactive helpdesk tool that permits users to submit IT tickets from the app. Other organizations use it to collect service requests for facility maintenance, HR, purchase orders and more.

7. Applications with complex entity relationships

With the model-driven approach in Power Apps, users can design fundraising applications, which contain several different entities: donations, campaigns, donors, recipients and users. The entities generally depend on each other -- i.e., donations come from donors, and recipients receive the donations.

This figure shows the default dashboard for a fundraising application in Power Apps.

The model-driven approach can help users build apps to support complex relationships and manage information properly. Developers can create apps within the platform and enable Power Apps users to develop entities in the app. That way, users don't have to build all the different screens needed for the CRUD -- create, read, update and delete -- cycle. This reduces the development time, as users can quickly generate fully functioning apps within the platform.

8. COVID-19 pandemic tracking applications

After the pandemic started, many businesses and facilities needed to adhere to new federal and state restrictions. Similar to limited capacities in restaurants and retail stores, this forced companies to track how many visitors came in and out of their locations. In some cases, businesses performed temperature checks and vaccination validation, among other tests.

Many organizations resorted to paper to track information gathered from these tests. For other businesses, Power Apps enabled them to develop custom apps to address these new challenges. Businesses could create apps for mobile devices or tablets to track visitor counts, temperature checks and appointments to quickly and efficiently meet pandemic restrictions.

For all Power Apps projects, users can access their created apps within SharePoint or directly through the Power Apps application on iOS, Android and Windows devices.

Key takeaways

Looking forward, the need for apps will continue to rise as businesses look for ways to streamline processes, identify new ways to cut costs and increase employee productivity and efficiency.

The new enhancements introduced to Power Apps enable businesses to build more complex apps accessible from desktops, tablets and mobile devices. However, costs may still concern companies, as some of Power Apps' advanced services charge monthly fees. Power Apps is a licensed product, and while most Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans include it, the platform still requires a paid subscription for the use of advanced data connectors.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
8 Microsoft Power Apps use cases for organizations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fotolia By Microsoft Power Apps is one of the most popular products in the Microsoft 365 suite. Organizations use the program to solve common business process issues -- including service requests -- and address workflow needs, including those for new employees.

# data[].attributes.headline
Why Choose Microsoft Power Apps to Develop Enterprise Low Code App Solutions for your Business

# data[].attributes.subject
Why Choose Microsoft Power Apps to Develop Enterprise Low Code App Solutions for your Business

# data[].attributes.body
The Popularity of Power apps rising continuously. We'll guide you through everything you need to know about this new Low Code technology to see if it's right for your enterprise

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We live in a world that is becoming both increasingly digital and competitive at a very rapid pace. To successfully adapt to such change businesses need tools that not only facilitate high levels of productivity but also low-code, quick app development. Why? Well, how else will a business keep up with the quickly evolving demands of the modern market? High-productivity is the businesses need today. And, low-code development platforms help adapt and respond to rapid developments in real-time. Rather than trying to turn everyone into a developer or invest heavily in building in-house software in-house, the adoption of a low-code development platform could help address the challenges while closing the skills gap that exceeds current capabilities. Anyway, a robust solution to these requirements is found in Microsoft Power Apps which has become quite popular for its ability to come to the aid of organizations of all scales and sizes.

Below is a discussion of some of its key benefits to help you understand why that is:

1. Reduced costs: Budget will always remain a key concern for companies no matter the scale of their operations. Microsoft Power Apps have immense value to contribute in this context as well, allowing companies to access a variety of tools they need to ensure business continuity and be productive without incurring significant costs.

2. Enable remote work: The ability to work remotely is no longer a nice provision that employees can avail themselves of. Since the pandemic started in 2020, remote work has become a key means to operate for a vast majority of employees. This trend will continue for the foreseeable future and to accommodate this change, companies need to be able to quickly roll out custom apps and solutions to enable employees to work from wherever they want. Do you know what can help companies do that? Microsoft Power Apps, of course.

3. Speed: Power Apps are a terrific way to significantly accelerate the app development process since they involve a drag and drop setup. What that means is companies looking to develop apps using Power Apps essentially have to drag and drop different features, functionalities, etc. they want and voilà! Such a development method not only accelerates the development timelines but also allows teams to fast-track other associated processes.

4. Work sans an internet connection: No matter how much we may wish for the Utopia where internet connectivity is seamless round the clock, the fact remains in reality disconnections and internet issues are fairly common. This can have quite heavy consequences in the context of business; say, an employee loses connectivity in the field - such a situation would severely affect their ability to be productive, isn't it? Actually, no - not with Power Apps because they store data locally. The local data can then be synced with the company's systems via other processes.

The past few years have brought about immense change across the world. Speaking specifically in the context of business, companies have felt an increasingly compelling need to embrace the digital revolution. There are undoubtedly countless benefits of such a transition but it also brings up issues associated with investments and other relevant factors. Thankfully, as evidenced from the discussion above, the Microsoft Power Apps suite of solutions is quite adept at empowering companies to not only build low-code business applications but also tend to myriad other challenges associated with running a modern business in today's cut-throat market. You too can achieve all these benefits for your company; all you need is to find a trusted Power apps development company and soon you will be on your way to realizing the many advantages offered by this robust Microsoft offering.

Passionate writer. Love to explore new topics...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Makes Power Apps the Right Choice for Building Low-code Enterprise Solutions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We live in a world that is becoming both increasingly digital and competitive at a very rapid pace. To successfully adapt to such change businesses need tools that not only facilitate high levels of productivity but also low-code, quick app development. Why?