How to get started with Power Apps (A helpful guide for PowerApps for beginners)

Are you a beginner in Power Apps? Want to know how to create your first Power Apps app? Read this complete tutorial on how to get started with Power Apps? This is a complete tutorial on PowerApps for beginners.

Here we will discuss:

• What is Microsoft Power Apps
• How to get started with Power Apps?
• Various Power Apps licensing options
• Power Apps capacity limits
• Advantages of Microsoft Power Apps
• Create your first App in Power Apps
• Is PowerApps included in Office 365 E3
• Is PowerApps free?

Introduction to Microsoft Power Apps

• Power Apps is a service-based application that is used to develop some custom business apps for your organization. It is also known as a low code tool that users can use to build an app quickly using Power Apps.
• Power Apps helps to build applications that connect to several data sources in various online and on-premises as Office 365, SharePoint, Excel, SQL Server, Microsoft Azure, Dynamic 365, JIRA, OneDrive, Power BI, and so on.
• Also, it helps to connect the external data sources directly inside the app. Once your app is ready, you can publish it and share it with your team members in your organization.
• By using Power Apps, you can easily and quickly build your business apps which is responsive in designs. This app is user-friendly and works in any Browser (Microsoft IE11, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Edge) and any mobile device like phone or tablet.

Read: Power Apps Audio and Video Control

How to get started with Power Apps

In Power Apps, we can create three types of Apps:

1. Canvas App: In this case, you will start with UI, even we can create a canvas blank app and connect with more than 200 data sources. This is really easy to create a canvas app in Power Apps using SharePoint list or even from an Excel file. We can create an app for mobile or tablet or for the web. We can easily customize a Power Apps canvas app by using various controls in Power Apps.
2. Model-driven app: A model-driven Power Apps app start with your business data and process in Dataverse to model forms, views, etc.
3. Portal: Power Apps portal apps will help us to create external-facing websites where your external users can sign in with various sign-in options. Even users can browse content anonymously.

We can start creating Power Apps from https://make.powerapps.com/.

Read What is Power Platform?

What are the advantages of using PowerApps?

Below are some Power Apps advantages as:

Easy to create apps using PowerApps

A user can easily create an app without using the code, simply by drag and drop. Whether you are creating a mobile app, a browser app, or any desktop app, Power Apps helps make the app simple and quick.

Connect to various data sources

• Connect to the Data Sources is the biggest advantage of using Power Apps. Power Apps provides many connectors to easily connect to standard data services. Some of the connectors are SharePoint, OneDrive for Business, Dynamic 365, Salesforce, and so on.
• Once you will go to the Connections section and click on a new connection, then you can see all the connectors will be available.

Mobile Ready Apps

Power Apps allows you to build an app by using your Mobile device (iPhone or Android device). You can create a mobile version with the same data sources and with the same connectors. It is really a good thing which is given by Power Apps.

Low Costs

The main advantage of Power Apps is the Low cost. You can subscribe to the basic single plan at $10 per month or $40 per month for an unlimited plan. Where PowerApps is included with many of the Office 365 subscriptions.

Microsoft Flow

Power Apps is fully integrated with Microsoft Flow or Power Automate. You can easily and quickly create a Microsoft Flow for your business needs.

Efficiency

Another benefit of Power Apps is its efficiency. A user can easily create an application directly from the user interface. As it is a drag and drop interface, so via drag and drop, you can use many components and elements to create a new app.

Office 365 Integration

Office 365 Integration is one of the most important features where the Power Apps is fully integrated with Microsoft Flow, Microsoft Power BI, Office 365. These are easily making it easy to transfer the data to and from SharePoint, Excel, or any other Office 365 application.

Create PowerApps from SharePoint list

Now, let us follow step by step, how to create a Power Apps app from a SharePoint Online list within no time.

It is really simple to create a fully functional app in Power Apps. Follow the below steps:

Step-1: Create a SharePoint Online list

The first thing, we need to do is, create a custom list on a SharePoint Online site. Here I have created an Employees list having 3 columns:

• Title (First Name)
• Last Name
• Address

Step-2: Create an App from SharePoint List

Open the SharePoint list, from the command bar, click on Integrate -> Power Apps -> Create an app like below:

Then it will ask a name for the App. Provide a Name and click on the Create button.

It will take a few seconds, create the app and will open the Power Apps app in the browser.

Step-3: Power Apps is ready to preview

Yes, you read it right! The Power Apps app is ready to preview. Microsoft created a fully functional app for us in just 3 clicks.

In the browser, you can see the Power Apps app in the designer like below:

Here you can see, by default the below screens has been created:

• BrowseScreen1: In the browse screen, we can see all the items. If you have items in the SharePoint list, it will display the items as well. Here you can search for items also. It is like the List view page.
• DetailsScreen1: This screen will be used to display individual items and it acts like the Display form of a SharePoint list.
• EditScreen1: This screen will be used to insert and update an item in the Power Apps app.

Step-4: Preview the Power Apps App

Now, it is time we can preview the Power Apps app and test the functionality. From the top right corner, click on the Preview button to preview the app in the browser.

Step-5: Test the Power Apps app

When you will click on the Preview button, it will open the app in the browser in the mobile layout. To add an item to the app, click on the + icon.

It will open the New form and you can enter the details and click on the tick icon to Save the item.

Once you save an item, it will navigate to the browse screen and you can see the item as well.

If you will open the SharePoint list, you can see the item added into the SharePoint list.

When you click on the arrow, it will open the Details screen and display the particular item.

Here click on the Edit icon, which will open the Edit form and prepopulate the values like below:

Update item and then click on the tick mark, it will save the item and will navigate to the Browse screen.

If you want to delete an item, then click on the Delete icon like below:

Once you delete the item, it will navigate to the browse screen, and you will see there is no item in it.

This is how to insert, update, delete and view items in Power Apps app.

Step-6:

By default the app is auto saved with the same name that you have given while creating the app.

If you want to save click on Save as -> Choose where you want to save, either Save to Power Apps or Save a copy to my computer. Then provide a name for the app and then click on Save.

This is how to save the Power Apps app.

Step-7: View and run the Power Apps App

There are different ways you can see the newly created Power Apps app.

• Open the SharePoint list, click on Integrate -> Power Apps -> See all apps like below:

This will open the Power Apps home page, here click on Apps and you will be able to see all the apps. Click on App to run the app in the browser.

• The other way is to open the https://create.powerapps.com/ URL and then click on Open -> Power Apps -> Then you can see the available apps like below:

This is how to view and run the Power Apps app.

Step-8: Share the Power Apps App

The last things, we will see here, how to share a Power Apps app.

Select the app, then click on the Share icon in the command bar or click on the … and then click on the Share option like below:

Then it will open the Share app page where you can share the app with other users as well as you can add co-owners to the app who can modify the Power Apps app as well.

Here, enter a user name with whom you want to share the app. If you want to make the user a co-owner for the app, then check the check box, Co-owner like below. And then click on the Share button.

This is how to share a Power Apps app with a user, and you can make a user as co-owner of the Power Apps app.

Microsoft Power Apps Licensing

The Power Platform license is really complicated to understand how it works. So the recommendation is to check the Microsoft documents, consult with the Microsoft team or Microsoft business certified partner.

Here, I have tried my best to put it in a simple and understandable format. Based on time Microsoft also changes the license options.

According to Microsoft document, Power Apps, Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents service can only be accessed if you have a Power Apps, Power Automate or Power Virtual Agents license. For functionality like input data, query, and view data, you need to have a license. You require a licese even if you are accessing thorugh an API.

If you shared a Power Apps canvas app with an external user, the external user required a license to run the app. External users or guest users required a valid license to access Power Apps.

You can access PowerApps if you have a license from the below:

• Microsoft stand-alone plan
  • Power Apps per app plan
  • Power Apps per user plan
• Dynamics 365 licenses
• Office 365 licenses

Now, let us try to understand the Power Apps standalone plan.

Power Apps per app plan vs per user plan

What is the difference between Power Apps per app plan and Power Apps per user plan? Here is the list of difference between the Power Apps per app plan and per user plan:

Power Apps per app plan	Power Apps per user plan
The per user per app Power Apps plan allows the individual user to run 2 custom apps and allows to access 1 custom portal with full Power Apps capabilities.	The Power Apps per user plan allows an individual user to run unlimited applications with full PoweApps capabilities.
Each user can access standard, premium, and custom connectors as well as the on-premise data gateway.	Each user can access standard, premium, and custom connectors as well as the on-premise data gateway.
With this plan users can create and access custom tables, can utilize Dataverse. But users will have only read-only access to Dynamics 365.	With the per user plan users can create and access custom tables, can utilize Dataverse. But users will have only read-only access to Dynamics 365.
In this case, the user can execute automated, instant, scheduled flows, and business process flows within the app context.	In this case, the user can execute automated, instant, scheduled flows, and business process flows within the app context.
Each user will get 50 MB Dataverse database capacity, 400 MB Dataverse file capacity, and 1000 daily power platform requests.	Each user will get 250 MB Dataverse database capacity, 2 GB Dataverse file capacity, and 5000 daily power platform requests.

Power Apps features available in Microsoft 365 license plan (Office 365 license)

Microsoft allows us to access Power App if you have an Office 365 license but will have limited functionalities in Power Apps in an Office 365 license.

• It allows us to run unlimited canvas apps but we can not run model-driven apps.
• With the Office 365 license, we can not access custom portals.
• We can only use the Power Apps standard connectors, but we cannot access the premium and custom connectors, neither the on-premise data gateway.
• Dataverse we can utilize for Teams only.
• And the daily Power platform requests is 2000.

Is PowerApps included in Office 365 E3

Is PowerApps included in Office 365 E3? Yes, PowerApps is included in Office 365. Without any additional cost, you can easily build apps by using various non-premium connectors like SharePoint, Excel, OneDrive for Business, SQL Server, Google Drive, etc. But for any premium connectors like Amazon Redshift, DB2, Informix, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL, Salesforce, etc. required a PowerApps license plan like Power Apps per user per app plan ($10) or Power Apps per user unlimited apps plan ($40).

If you see a diamond symbol in the connector, then it is a premium connector. Check out, Power Apps connectors List.

is powerapps free with office 365? Yes, it is free as long as you are using the non-premium connectors. If you wan to use premium connectors then you need to take a Power Apps license plan.

Is PowerApps free

Is PowerApps free? Yes, there are two plans are available and you can use Power Apps for free. Power Apps is free with the Power Apps Developer Plan previously known as the Power Apps Community Plan. PowerApps is also free with the Power Apps Plan Trial (free for 30 days).

You can use for development purpose only, we can not use for production use and the Power Apps trial plan you can use 30 days for production Power Apps applications also.

You may like the following Power Apps tutorials:

• Microsoft PowerApps Radio Button Example
• PowerApps: Create a navigation menu using the Gallery Control
• PowerApps Collection – How to create and use
• Getting your data PowerApps
• PowerApps Search Function
• How to use PowerApps notify function
• PowerApps Timer Control

Power Apps is known as a low code tool to create apps easily without any developer knowledge. By just doing a few clicks users can build a fully functional app by using a lot of data sources like SharePoint, excel, OneDrive for business, etc.

Power Apps is easy to use and very user-friendly. It is considered as a platform to create business mobile applications within minutes without worrying about the complexity involved in writing cross-platform applications that support iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows, and the web.

Here we learned:

• Introduction to Microsoft Power Apps
• How to get started with Power Apps
• What are the advantages of using PowerApps?
• How to create PowerApps from SharePoint list
• How to run, share and set co-owner of the Power Apps app
• Microsoft Power Apps Licensing
• Is PowerApps included in Office 365 E3
• Is PowerApps free?