Introduction

  • 6 minutes

Power Apps is a suite of apps, services, connectors, and a data platform that let you build custom apps for your business needs. By using Power Apps, you can quickly build custom business apps that connect to your business data that is stored either in Business Central, Common Data Service or in various online and on-premises data sources (SharePoint, Excel, Office 365, Dynamics 365, SQL Server and others).

Apps that are built by using Power Apps provide rich business logic and workflow capabilities to transform your manual business processes to digital, automated processes. Power Apps simplifies the custom business app building experience by enabling users to build feature-rich apps without writing code.

In this module, you will:

  • Explore how Power Apps can make your business more efficient.

  • Learn which technologies to use to perform tasks in Power Apps.

  • Learn about the different ways to build an app in Power Apps based on Business Central.

  • Create your first apps from data in a Business Central.

Go to the Create Power Apps page to create both canvas and model-driven. On this site, you can open apps, specify the type of app that you want to create, share your app, and create data connections and flows. To use this site, you'll need to log in by using your organizational account. After that, when you want to start with building apps, you must run Power Apps Studio. Similarly, when you want to edit an existing app, you must open the app in Power Apps Studio.

Screenshot of the Power Apps home page.

Build an app from a template

We'll start with an example where we'll build a canvas app, by using a template. It is the easiest way to build canvas apps. The templates in Power Apps Studio help you learn, hands-on, how to build an app. We won't connect to Business Central in this example.

Select + Create on the menu bar on the left side of the page to start the building process and find the templates under the Start from template section.

Screenshot of the Power Apps templates page.

Choose a template by selecting its tile. In this example, we'll use the Leave Request template. On the first request form, you should choose between Tablet or Phone formats and you can change the default name. You can also see the connectors your app will use in Connects to field.

Screenshot of the Format field with Tablet and Phone options.

After that, select on Create. If this is the first time you are using these connectors, you will be prompted to Allow using your permissions in the process to make the app. If you allow, the Power Apps Studio opens in a new tab and the app is created.

An app from a template opens in the default workspace, where you'll spend most of your time customizing. Before you make any changes to the app, explore how the app works in Preview mode.

Select the right arrow in the upper-right corner to open the app in Preview mode. The app is populated with sample data to demonstrate the functionality of the app.

Screenshot of the Preview mode button.

Press Ctrl+S, give your app a name, and then select Save to save your app to the cloud.