Mendoza Microsoft Power Apps Cookbook

Build user-friendly apps, troubleshoot challenges, and navigate the evolving Power Apps landscape
3. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-83546-248-5
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 438 Seiten

In the rapidly evolving world of low-code development, Microsoft Power Apps stands out as a powerful platform for building custom business solutions. Microsoft Power Apps Cookbook, 3rd Edition, is your hands-on guide to mastering this platform. Through a collection of step-by-step recipes, this updated edition helps you navigate the latest features, such as AI-powered Microsoft Copilot and custom UI elements while empowering you to build efficient and scalable apps.
This book emphasizes practical solutions, guiding app makers through building everything from canvas apps to complex data integrations. You will learn how to streamline repetitive tasks using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and explore how to create external-facing websites using Microsoft Power Pages while handling data management with Dataverse and extending app functionality with the Power Apps Component Framework.
Whether you're extending your app's capabilities with custom components or integrating advanced AI features, Microsoft Power Apps Cookbook equips you with the knowledge and skills to take your app development to the next level.
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Autoren/Hrsg.

Mendoza, Eickhel

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Angewandte Informatik

Leseproben

Preface

Power Apps is a low-code platform for building applications from Microsoft. With this platform, you can create solutions to your business needs while integrating with other components of the Power Platform, such as Power Automate and Power BI.

Quite different from the complete online documentation, you will find that this is not your regular reference book. Instead, this book exposes real-world scenarios and experiences to help you get a headstart in your Power Apps projects.

By exploring a carefully selected collection of chapters, you will delve into various aspects of Power Apps. This includes learning the fundamentals of creating canvas apps, designing model-driven solutions, enhancing apps with custom connectors, and integrating with other platforms. You will also gain insight into the pro-developer aspects, such as the Power Apps Component Framework and developing website experiences for external users with Power Pages.

Who this book is for

Since we cover practical use cases, basic knowledge of building applications using Power Apps is required to take advantage of the solutions explored in this book. You will get a step-by-step tutorial on building the recipes crafted for each chapter.

What this book covers

, , serves as the base instructions for building the subsequent recipes. Instead of repeating these steps in each recipe, we concentrate them in to one chapter for tasks such as creating a Dataverse solution or building a SharePoint list.

, , starts with the best practices for building canvas apps and continues with creating sample solutions, including coverage of the data source handling.

, , continues our journey by following a collection of recipes joined together to create an all-around help desk solution. We will also explore the Entity Relationship Diagram capabilities from the maker Copilot in Power Apps.

, , will help you to make a sound decision when determining the data source of your applications. This chapter also explains the importance of the licensing model on this platform.

, , focuses on several use cases, from inside and outside the Microsoft ecosystem, to improve business processes using this component of the Power Platform.

, , builds upon the concept of enhancing the application-building process by using components. We will also learn how to extend the platform by creating custom connectors, using geospatial capabilities, and integrating mixed reality.

, , looks at how to enrich your user interfaces to make your applications more appealing to end users. This chapter will also cover how to create a responsive application using the latest techniques available in Power Apps.

, , explains all the possible ways to use and integrate Power Apps on many platforms, from mobile device consumption to embedding scenarios on SharePoint and Power BI, without forgetting the latest on Microsoft Teams development, including Dataverse for Teams.

, , focuses on using AI Builder solutions to improve our applications and processes by bringing artificial intelligence into the mix, including Copilot.

, , is about learning how to manage the Power Platform using the tools and settings available in this admin center.

, , offers a collection of hints from the application-building experience in Power Apps with a set of topics that will help solve or improve a wide variety of scenarios.

, , tackles the pro-developer side by building a Power Apps Component Framework component from scratch. We will look at setting up our development environment, deploying the component to an environment, and using it on a canvas app.

, , introduces the Power Pages component. It offers a solution to allow external users to interact with our Dataverse data. This chapter will extend the help desk solution built in previous chapters.

To get the most out of this book

Before diving into building solutions with Power Apps, you are going to need a Microsoft 365 subscription.

You might have one already from your organization, but if you want to have a playground to build apps, I’m going to give you two suggestions:

• Microsoft 365 Developer Program

This program allows you to have a Microsoft 365 subscription with many features available: 25 E5 user licenses, apps such as SharePoint, learning resources, and more. It’s the perfect sandbox environment to create your apps, not only to build Power Apps but also to learn other technologies from the whole Microsoft 365 ecosystem. This subscription renews automatically every three months as long as you actively use it.

To get more information, please refer to https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/dev-program.

• Power Apps Developer Plan

This option is ideal if you want a more focused approach to the Power Platform. It offers a free environment for individual use with the same advantages as a paid plan, including premium connectors. However, some restrictions exist, such as app sharing and the need for a Microsoft organizational account.

This subscription has no renewal process; it’s perpetual. For more information, please visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/products/power-apps/free.

Power Platform licensing requirements

Power Apps paid plans

The licensing model on this platform depends on the type of connector needed for your data sources. Standard connectors, such as the one used for SharePoint, don’t require an additional license besides Microsoft 365, but premium or custom connectors do require a Power Apps license:

• Per app plan

Allows running one app (canvas or model-driven) or portal per user.

• Per user plan

Allows building and using unlimited apps and portals (within service limits).

• Pay-as-you-go plan

Allows a per user plan that charges for the number of apps or portals runs by a user each month (note that this plan requires an Azure subscription).

To get more insight into the licensing model, please visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/products/power-apps/pricing/.

Power Automate paid plans

In Power Automate, three licensing plans allow access to data using premium connectors, custom connectors, and on-premises data. The difference lies in the capacity of these plans and who will be the end-user of them:

• There are two user plans: the Power Automate Premium and the Power Automate Hosted Process. Both let you create unlimited flows, including AI builder service credits, but the latter adds unattended robotic process automation in a hosted virtual machine.
• On the other hand, the Power Automate Process licenses a bot that runs unattended robotic process automation.

Using either of these options depends entirely on the analysis of the business process that requires automation. For detailed information about the pricing of these plans, please refer to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/products/power-automate/pricing.

Download the example code files

The code bundle for the book is hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Microsoft-Power-Apps-Cookbook-Third-Edition. We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file with color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/gbp/9781835465158.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, and user input. Here is an example: “Repeat for the column, using the following choices: Low, Medium, and High.”

A block of code is set as follows:

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words you see onscreen. For example, words...

Über Autor(innen)

Mendoza Eickhel :

Eickhel Mendoza is a Microsoft Business Applications MVP with many years of experience in project management, Microsoft Azure development, and Microsoft Power Platform technologies. He is a team lead of the Business Apps department and oversees all Microsoft 365 and Power Platform projects. He has contributed to significant community events such as the Power Platform World Tour, Global Azure Bootcamp, Microsoft 365 Developer Bootcamp, and Dynamics 365 Saturdays. He coordinates the TenerifeDev and Power Platform Canarias user groups with a group of like-minded developers eager to share their knowledge in different technologies. Eickhel is also a member of the organizing committee of the Business Applications Summit Spain.