# data[].attributes.headline
Don't wait for the next disaster to embark on digital transformation - Assured Digital Technologies

# data[].attributes.subject
Don't wait for the next disaster to embark on digital transformation - Assured Digital Technologies

# data[].attributes.body
Whilst COVID-19 has unquestionably put a strain on all businesses, it’s also forced business owners to rethink how they work. Traditional businesses who had never considered allowing remote working were forced to do so and possibly only then realised their IT couldn’t facilitate this. Adopting IT solutions that enable your employees to effectively work from home is one area of what’s called digital transformation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Whilst COVID-19 has unquestionably put a strain on all businesses, it's also forced business owners to rethink how they work. Traditional businesses who had never considered allowing remote working were forced to do so and possibly only then realised their IT couldn't facilitate this. Adopting IT solutions that enable your employees to effectively work from home is one area of what's called digital transformation.

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation ( as defined by Citrix) is "the strategic adoption of digital technologies. It's used to improve processes and productivity, deliver better customer and employee experiences, manage business risk, and control costs." Organisations can embark on digital transformation of their whole business or break it down into different projects.

Common digital transformation projects

Moving to the Cloud is a common theme with digital transformation as it provides a number of business benefits including increased productivity, scalability and better security to name a few. Examples of Cloud migrations are:

Migration to Microsoft 365 - Including moving some, or all of the below areas of IT to the Cloud:

Migrating to Microsoft 365 Email

Moving to SharePoint for online document collaboration and online

Switch to using M365 user authentication and device

Migration to Azure - moving away from onsite server infrastructure to the Cloud

Migration to Hosted VoIP - moving from an on-premise phone system to one hosted in the Cloud

Migration to new cloud-based software (SaaS) - Moving away from old software or even spreadsheets to:

Bespoke cloud software application (see British Rowing case study)

Established cloud software such as a large CRM or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) platform

Digital transformation with Bristol IT

As part of everything we do, including digital transformation projects, we offer consultancy to devise your IT strategy and then project manage the whole process from start to finish. But we don't stop there. Digital transformation is an ongoing activity, we will work alongside you as your dedicated IT consultant to continually review, improve and transform your business with the latest technologies.
Discover how we delivered digital transformation for Bristol Music trust.
Conclusion

Buying car insurance after an accident has occurred or installing a burglar alarm after a break-in is futile. The same goes for your business IT. Solutions need to be put in place to prevent issues or solve potential problems not as an afterthought. Don't wait for the next disaster to embark on digital transformation. Take the first step today and contact us for a no obligation conversation to see how the right solutions can take your business to the next level.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Don't wait for the next disaster to embark on digital transformation - Assured Digital Technologies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Whilst COVID-19 has unquestionably put a strain on all businesses, it's also forced business owners to rethink how they work. Traditional businesses who had never considered allowing remote working were forced to do so and possibly only then realised their...

# data[].attributes.headline
Fill the gaps with PowerApps - power to the user, accelerating digital transformation - eBECS

# data[].attributes.subject
Fill the gaps with PowerApps - power to the user, accelerating digital transformation - eBECS

# data[].attributes.body
Our current challenging times have highlighted the need for emergency solutions to crisis management issues and to support collaboration on app solution builds. Below outlines what’s available out there for businesses, and most importantly what’s available for your users and how to get started.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the age of the smartphone, you as the user are accustomed to finding and downloading an app that meets your requirements easily. It is an 'everyday' thing to do that people, no matter what age, have no problem doing. It's quick and easy! Although, when we think about the challenges and needs of our businesses, it hasn't been as easy to find the right app. The time and costs to develop an app which meets your needs has been excessive, often with a necessity to involve an experienced IT or Development team.
Enterprise apps have seriously lagged behind consumer apps in terms of ease-of-use, ease-of-development, build costs, and 'time-to-market' to solve the business need or challenge. This is changing and changing fast!

Our current challenging times have highlighted the need for emergency solutions to crisis management issues and to support collaboration on app solution builds. Below outlines what's available out there for businesses, and most importantly what's available for your users and how to get started.
Power Apps and the Power Platform
Business leaders, teams and individual innovators have traditionally taken their business solution requests to the IT departments and Developer teams and then waited a while (weeks or months) for the build - a costly and time-consuming approach taking the IT team away from other critical tasks. Businesses are ever-reliant on data to gain insights and action tangible value; and with the constantly increasing amount of data, businesses need availability and accessibility to data and insights for typical (non-techy) end users so they can innovate more quickly to meet a business challenge or need, quickly test/trial, own their solution creation and ultimately drive rapid results for the business.

Power Apps enables faster solutions to be developed by non-techies, supports sharing of ideas and collaborative solution build, and importantly the realization of ideas across your organisation, now with no cost barrier.

Not only is the app creation quick but the results are rapid - improving efficiencies and job satisfaction such as new employee induction with an onboarding app that enables a new employee to start and be 'up and running' by lunchtime the same day. Power Apps supports ease-of-use and simplification of often complex business processes (e.g. your ERP system) by providing a friendly interface for end users enabling digital transformation across your entire business that you wouldn't have previously considered.

Microsoft's Power Platform enables this data democratisation through a low code approach to fast custom app development, providing technologies (Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents) that allow staff to do more with their data themselves, without an IT background or any coding knowledge.

Power Platform enables users and organizations to analyse, easily manipulate, surface key information and automate on the data, and can be used with Office 365 and Dynamics 365 (as well as other apps such as Google Analytics).
The technology that is helping right now
The current situation has accelerated the need for fast solutions and is highlighting how transformation and adapting to changing demands is less about technology and more about people - employee wellbeing, communication, collaboration. Microsoft and DXC have been at the forefront of developing Power Platform solutions to support organisations across the globe. Using a combination of PowerApps, Power Automate and Teams, Microsoft have created a Crisis Communication solution that allows the sharing of information and collaboration between employees to support home working. At DXC, we have further developed the Microsoft's Crisis Communication solution to make it 'enterprise-ready' with enhanced back office integration. To read further on these frontline solutions, read our recent blog.
How to get started
Join our webinar to hear more on how Power Apps and the Power Platform can support your business right now and into the future. You can also contact us to find out more on DXC's 'Power Platform in a Week' training course where your teams will learn how to create different Power Apps and Power Automation Flows and build a complete impactful end-to-end solution for your business.

Author: Jill Carroll - Product Marketing Manager

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fill the gaps with PowerApps - power to the user, accelerating digital transformation - eBECS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the age of the smartphone, you as the user are accustomed to finding and downloading an app that meets your requirements easily. It is an 'everyday' thing to do that people, no matter what age, have no problem doing. It's quick and easy! Although, when we think about the challenges and needs of our ...

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

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

# data[].attributes.body
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.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.headline
Why Choose Microsoft Power Apps to Develop High Quality App Solutions for your Business

# data[].attributes.subject
Why Choose Microsoft Power Apps to Develop High Quality App Solutions for your Business

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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Microsoft Power Apps: How They Facilitate Businesses’ Digital Transformation by Tech Geekk

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Microsoft Power Apps has gained a lot of traction in the market of late and none of this attention is unwarranted. Microsoft Power Apps is included in the Office 365 subscriptions which imply wider re...

# 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. Power Apps' existing features, as well as Microsoft's most recent upgrades to the program, enable further capabilities and customization for businesses.

# 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.