Microsoft Power Apps Cookbook

Microsoft Power Apps Cookbook

by Eickhel Mendoza
Released January 2021
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781800569553

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Book description

Practical recipes that go beyond official documentation to help you create custom solutions, automate processes, and extend the platform's capabilities using Power Apps, Power Automate, Component Framework, and Dataverse for Teams

Key Features

  • Improve business operations by creating impactful Power Apps solutions with real-world use cases
  • Explore a variety of built-in templates to create custom apps for specific business scenarios
  • Strengthen your enterprise applications with advanced techniques and proven tips using a low-code approach

Book Description

Microsoft Power Apps provides a powerful, low-code solution for application development, empowering non-technical users to create robust, practical solutions in no time. This book will help you create a wide range of custom business solutions using the ease of development that Power Apps provides by overcoming many of the challenges faced in business application development.

You'll start by getting to grips with Power Apps Studio and finding out how canvas apps help you build pixel-perfect applications as per business needs. The book then covers the practicalities involved in designing model-driven apps and teaches you how to automate business processes using Power Automate. You'll also discover how to improve user experience (UX) to make applications more appealing. As you advance, you'll learn how to strengthen your business apps by using AI Builder's artificial intelligence capabilities. You'll also explore advanced troubleshooting techniques to find creative ways to overcome various challenges in your Power Apps solutions. The book concludes with Power Apps Component Framework to help you further improve the existing applications' capabilities.

By the end of this book, you'll have gained experience in developing applications using the Power Apps platform and its features.

What you will learn

  • Build pixel-perfect solutions with canvas apps
  • Design model-driven solutions using various features of Microsoft Dataverse
  • Automate business processes such as triggered events, status change notifications, and approval systems with Power Automate
  • Implement AI Builder's intelligent capabilities in your solutions
  • Improve the UX of business apps to make them more appealing
  • Find out how to extend Microsoft Teams using Power Apps
  • Extend your business applications' capabilities using Power Apps Component Framework

Who this book is for

This book is for citizen developers and business users looking to build custom applications as per their organizational needs without depending on professional developers. Traditional app developers will also find this book useful by discovering how to build applications in a rapid application development environment with increased productivity and speed. The book is recommended for Power Apps beginners who have taken a couple of online tutorials but are struggling to implement or create real-world solutions. Basic knowledge of Power Apps is necessary to get the best out of this cookbook.

Publisher resources

Download Example Code

Table of contents

  1. Why subscribe?
  2. Contributors
  3. About the author
  4. About the reviewer
  5. Packt is searching for authors like you
  6. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
      1. Microsoft 365 Developer Program
      2. Power Apps Community Plan
      3. Power Apps paid plans
    4. Download the example code files
    5. Download the color images
    6. Conventions used
    7. Get in touch
    8. Reviews
  7. Chapter 1: Building pixel-perfect solutions with Canvas Power Apps
    1. Discovering best practices when building canvas apps
      1. Variable naming
      2. Control usage
      3. Coding methodology
    2. Creating an incident tracking solution – Setting up the data source
      1. Explanation and overview
      2. Getting ready
      3. How to do it…
      4. How it works…
    3. Creating an incident tracking solution – Building the user interface
      1. Explanation and overview
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    4. Embedding an expense tracking list with SharePoint list Power Apps
      1. Explanation and overview
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. See also
    5. Creating a Power App from existing data
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
  8. Chapter 2: Building from data with model-driven apps
    1. Technical requirements
      1. Licensing requirements
    2. Exploring Dataverse
    3. Building a help desk solution
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    4. Defining data structures
      1. Explanation and overview
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    5. Building the model-driven app
      1. Explanation and overview
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    6. Setting up business process logic
      1. Explanation and overview
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    7. Designing dashboards to visualize data
      1. How to do it…
      2. How it works…
    8. Integrating canvas apps inside model-driven apps
      1. How to do it…
      2. How it works…
  9. Chapter 3: Choosing the right data source for your applications
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Data sources and the licensing model
      1. Power Apps/Power Automate for Microsoft 365
    3. Reducing your application complexity by using Azure SQL database views
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
    4. Choosing the right data source – real-world tests
      1. Getting ready
      2. How it works…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
    5. Integrating on-premises data with the data source flexibility of canvas apps
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    6. Improving application speed and responsiveness by using static data
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    7. Consuming external data by using Dataflows
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
  10. Chapter 4: Automating processes with Power Automate
    1. Technical requirements
      1. Paid plans
    2. The different types of flows
      1. Automated
      2. Instant
      3. Scheduled
      4. Business process
      5. UI
    3. Creating a sales survey solution with Power Automate and Microsoft Forms
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    4. Building a file processing automation for SharePoint document libraries
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    5. Overcoming Power Apps delegation with Power Automate
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
    6. Creating a modular solution with Power Automate
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
  11. Chapter 5: Extending the Platform
    1. Technical requirements
    2. User interface guidelines
    3. Setting up your first canvas Power Apps component
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
      4. There's more
    4. Building a floating action button component
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
    5. Creating a vertical navigation component
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
    6. Developing template fields using components
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
    7. Using the Power Apps component library
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
    8. Expanding communications with custom connectors
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
      4. There's more
  12. Chapter 6: Improving User Experience
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Enhancing application interfaces
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    3. Building a responsive password manager in Power Apps – setting up the Azure Key Vault service
      1. Explanation and overview
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    4. Building a responsive password manager in Power Apps – designing an adaptive application
      1. Explanation and overview
      2. Getting ready
      3. How to do it…
      4. How it works…
  13. Chapter 7: Power Apps Everywhere
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Discovering Power Apps Mobile and the Windows desktop player
      1. How to do it…
      2. How it works…
      3. There's more…
    3. Leveraging modern browsers for Power Apps
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
    4. Improving SharePoint document libraries with Power Apps
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
    5. Embedding Power Apps in SharePoint pages
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
    6. Making Power BI reports interactive with embedded Power Apps
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    7. Working with Power Apps in Microsoft Teams channels
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
    8. Automating the integration of Power Apps inside Teams
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    9. Building apps with Dataverse for Teams
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
  14. Chapter 8: Empowering your applications with no code Artificial Intelligence
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Creating a customer success solution using sentiment analysis
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    3. Building a text recognition system using canvas apps
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
    4. Using Power Automate to create an invoice classification system
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
  15. Chapter 9: Discovering the Power Platform admin center
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Managing Power Platform environments
      1. How to do it…
      2. How it works…
    3. Gathering Power Platform analytics
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
      4. There's more…
    4. Synchronizing data using data integration
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How to do it…
      4. There's more…
    5. Managing connectors through data policies
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works…
  16. Chapter 10: Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Sharing OneDrive data between tenants
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
    3. Playing with vectors – SVGs in canvas apps
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
      4. There's more
    4. Transferring SharePoint List Power Apps from one site to another
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
    5. Troubleshooting using the Power Apps canvas Monitor
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
      4. There's more
    6. Extending screen real estate using the canvas control
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it…
      3. How it works
    7. Handling image resources in components
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
      4. There's more...
    8. Changing Azure SQL Server connections in Power Apps with ease
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
    9. Renaming files in SharePoint document libraries
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
  17. Chapter 11: Advanced Techniques with Power Apps Component Framework
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Setting up your environments
      1. Getting ready
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
      4. There's more
    3. Configuring Font Awesome
      1. How to do it
      2. How it works
    4. Creating the project
      1. Explanation and overview
      2. How to do it
      3. How it works
    5. Building the application logic
      1. How to do it
      2. How it works
    6. Deploying the solution
      1. How to do it
      2. How it works
    7. Testing the component on a canvas app
      1. How to do it
      2. How it works
      3. There's more
  18. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

Product information

  • Title: Microsoft Power Apps Cookbook
  • Author(s): Eickhel Mendoza
  • Release date: January 2021
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781800569553