In this article, you will learn some of the basic concepts of power apps that includes components and features of power apps, knowledge of connectors, components that are used to create business solutions and so on.
Most of the business works on the basics of data. Interacting, Processing and analysing data plays an important role in modern technology. Power platforms provide an efficient data handling mechanism to help all sorts of employees from front line workers to the top most ladder.
Let’s create a business solution using the power platform from scratch.
Components and features of Power Platform
Power platform comprise of the following four products as given below in the diagram:
Power Apps
Power Apps used to build custom apps with low code development environments. It contains connectors, services, and app platforms which allow us to integrate with external data sources.
You will be able to create mobile and web apps using power apps. The most important benefit of using power apps in a development environment is to meet exact business needs really quick.
Power Automate
Earlier it was called Microsoft Flow, now renamed as Power Automate. It allows users to create automated workflows between different services with the help of connectors. It acts as a simple interface that automates the repetitive task or process such as mail communication, updating status, alerts and notifications.
Power BI
Power BI is a business analytic service that provides insights for data analysing. It creates insights of data via data visualization by means of that reports and dashboards are created for the purpose of fast decision making. It helps us to display data in various ways and that makes more sense to data. You can deploy power BI reports anywhere based on the criticality of the report.
Power Virtual Agent
Power virtual agent enables us to create powerful virtual bots (chat bots) with no code. It acts as a graphical interface that minimizes the effort of building and deploying the virtual agent chat bots.
Cross Cutting Features of Power Platform
The main cross cutting features that enable the power platform to reach its distinct potential is given below.
AI Builder
This feature of Power Platform allows us to add AI capabilities to the workflows and power apps.
Prediction, form processing, entity extraction and object detection plays an important feature of AI builders. The main reason why the business adapts to power platforms is usage or integration of AI schemes that enable the work efficiently to satisfy both the business and the client.
Common Data Service (CDS)
It used to store data securely and integrate the data with business applications. It lays foundation to display, manipulate and analyse data.
Connectors
This feature of power apps enables us to connect data sources. The most important and popular connectors are Twitter, Salesforce, Dropbox and so on.
In order to understand common features as a beginner’s guide. Let’s build a simple login form using power apps. This demo deals with how zero code technology helps us to build an entire login form.
Step 1:
Login to PowerApps portal and create a simple canvas app by clicking Create Choose blank canvas app.
Step 2:
Enter the name of an application and choose phone as given below in the screenshot.
Step 3:
Create backgrounds and other mandatory text fields that are needed for a login form. Drag and drop button, textbox and another field required for a login form as given below screenshot. Customize the property as per need.
Step 4:
Adding a data source, in this demo SharePoint site is added as a data source. Add SharePoint as a data source as given below in the screenshot.
Step 5:
Below is the SharePoint list where the user details are saved which will be validated against the login form built using Power Apps.
Step 6:
Adding a condition to validate user input from login form against the SharePoint details as given below.
DemoExample in the screenshot denotes the name of the SharePoint list name.
Step 7:
Add a new screen, whenever the user enters matching user details and validates successfully it needs to re-navigate to a new screen that contains a welcome message. If the user fails to validate display error message in label as given below in the screenshot.
Step 8:
Use the play button at the top to run and check the app. The functionality added can be validated in live now. The screenshot given below shows us the mobile view of a power app that is developed with zero code.
Hope this article provides the basic understanding of what a power platform is and the various factors and features that play an important role in the potential growth of power apps with simple demos. The upcoming article will discuss some in depth concepts of utilizing the power platform features in modern business development.