Learn Microsoft PowerApps

Learn Microsoft PowerApps

by Matthew Weston
Released November 2019
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781789805826

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Book description

A step-by-step guide that will help you create, share, and deploy applications across your organization using MS PowerApps

Key Features

  • Create apps with rich user experiences without paying for costly developers
  • Improve productivity with business process automation using Microsoft Power Automate
  • Build enterprise-grade apps with MS PowerApps’ built-in storage space, Common Data Service

Book Description

Microsoft PowerApps provides a modern approach to building business applications for mobile, tablet, and browser. Learn Microsoft PowerApps will guide you in creating powerful and productive apps that will add value to your organization by helping you transform old and inefficient processes and workflows.

Starting with an introduction to PowerApps, this book will help you set up and configure your first application. You’ll explore a variety of built-in templates and understand the key difference between types of applications such as canvas and model-driven apps, which are used to create apps for specific business scenarios. In addition to this, you’ll learn how to generate and integrate apps directly with SharePoint, and gain an understanding of PowerApps key components such as connectors and formulas. As you advance, you’ll be able to use various controls and data sources, including technologies such as GPS, and combine them to create an iterative app. Finally, the book will help you understand how PowerApps can use several Microsoft Power Automate and Azure functionalities to improve your applications.

By the end of this PowerApps book, you’ll be ready to confidently develop lightweight business applications with minimal code.

What you will learn

  • Design an app by simply dragging and dropping elements onto your canvas
  • Understand how to store images within PowerApps
  • Explore the use of GPS and how you can use GPS data in PowerApps
  • Get to grips with using barcodes and QR codes in your apps
  • Share your applications with the help of Microsoft Teams and SharePoint
  • Use connectors to share data between your app and Microsoft’s app ecosystem

Who this book is for

This book is ideal for business analysts, IT professionals, and both developers and non-developers alike. If you want to meet business needs by creating high productivity apps, this book is for you. Don’t worry if you have no experience or knowledge of PowerApps, this book simplifies PowerApps for beginners.

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright and Credits
    1. Learn Microsoft PowerApps
  3. Dedication
  4. About Packt
    1. Why subscribe?
  5. Contributors
    1. About the author
    2. About the reviewers
    3. Packt is searching for authors like you
  6. Preface
    1. Updates to PowerApps
    2. Who this book is for
    3. What this book covers
    4. To get the most out of this book
      1. Download the example code files
      2. Download the color images
      3. Code in Action
      4. Conventions used
    5. Get in touch
      1. Reviews
  7. Section 1: Getting Started with PowerApps
  8. Introducing PowerApps
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Understanding PowerApps
    3. Understanding PowerApps licensing
      1. Seeded apps
      2. Per-user plans
      3. Per-app plan
      4. Community Plan
    4. Understanding the types of apps
      1. Canvas apps
      2. Model-driven apps
    5. The start screen
      1. The Home screen
      2. The Learning Resources screen
      3. The Apps screen
      4. The Create screen
      5. The Data menu
        1. Entities
        2. Option sets
        3. Connections
        4. Custom connectors
        5. Gateways
      6. Business logic
    6. What are templates?
      1. Leave request app
      2. Help desk app
    7. Using PowerApps Studio
      1. PowerApps Studio menus
        1. Home
        2. Insert
        3. View
        4. Action
      2. PowerApps formula bar
      3. Screens browser
        1. App
        2. Screen list
      4. The PowerApps canvas
        1. Breadcrumb
        2. Zoom
      5. Looking at the properties area
        1. Properties
        2. Advanced 
    8. Summary
    9. Questions
    10. Further reading
  9. Creating Your First Canvas PowerApp
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Creating a mobile app
    3. Creating a tablet app
    4. Changing the app settings
      1. Accessing the App name + icon setting
        1. Changing the name
        2. Setting the icon
      2. Accessing the Screen size + orientation setting
        1. Using the phone app
        2. Using the tablet app
      3. Accessing the Advanced settings
        1. Data row limit for non-delegable queries
        2. Preview features
        3. Experimental features
    5. Lab 1
      1. Activity 1: Creating a blank tablet app
        1. Creating the identity of the app
        2. Saving the app
      2. Activity 2: Creating a blank phone app
        1. Creating the identity of the app
        2. Saving the app
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  10. Creating Apps from SharePoint
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Preparing your list within SharePoint
    3. Creating your app
    4. Exploring the auto-generated PowerApp
      1. Browse screen
      2. Detail screen
      3. Edit screen
    5. Customizing forms
      1. Modifying forms
      2. Advanced options
      3. Publishing the app
    6. Lab 2
    7. Summary
    8. Questions
  11. Publishing and Leveraging PowerApps
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Publishing a PowerApp
      1. Version history
    3. Accessing your app through SharePoint Online
      1. Getting the PowerApp ID
      2. Adding the PowerApp to SharePoint
    4. Microsoft Teams
      1. Adding a PowerApps tab
    5. Using the mobile app
      1. Using the app
      2. Pinning to home
    6. Lab 3
      1. Activity 1: Installing the mobile app
      2. Activity 2: Pinning the app
    7. Summary
    8. Questions
  12. Section 2: Developing Your PowerApp
  13. Exploring Controls
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Control properties
    3. Text controls
      1. LABEL
      2. TEXT INPUT
      3. HTML text
      4. RICH TEXT EDITOR
      5. PEN INPUT
    4. Controls
      1. BUTTON
      2. DATE PICKER
      3. Presenting multiple choices
        1. DROP DOWN
        2. COMBO BOX
        3. LIST BOX
        4. RADIO
      4. Boolean controls
        1. CHECK BOX
        2. TOGGLE
      5. Numerical inputs
        1. SLIDER
        2. RATING
      6. TIMER
      7. IMPORT and EXPORT
    5. Gallery controls 
    6. Icon controls
    7. Lab 4
      1. Activity 1: Building basic branding
      2. Activity 2: Adding the name of the app
      3. Activity 3: Inserting an enter button
    8. Summary
    9. Questions
  14. Exploring Formulas
    1. Technical requirements
    2. The function browser
    3. Using the formula bar
    4. Interacting with text
      1. Replace and substitute
      2. Searching and matching
      3. Regular expressions
    5. Using numbers
      1. Rounding
        1. Round
        2. RoundUp and RoundDown
      2. Other numerical functions
    6. Working with dates
      1. Formatting dates
      2. Calculating dates
    7. Using conditions
      1. If
      2. Switch
    8. Variables
      1. Global variables
      2. Context variables
      3. Reviewing variables
    9. Lab 5
      1. Activity 1: Navigating to our new screen
      2. Activity 2: Using math to position a control
      3. Activity 3: Using conditions to change control behavior
    10. Summary
    11. Questions
    12. Further reading
  15. Working with Data
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Creating and interacting with collections
      1. Filling collections
      2. Updating collections
    3. Displaying data as tables
      1. Displaying data in a gallery
      2. Displaying data in a data table
    4. Using forms
    5. Lab 6
      1. Activity 1: Creating the collections
      2. Activity 2: Applying branding
      3. Activity 3: Adding navigation
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  16. Introducing Connectors
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Understanding standard connectors
      1. Interacting with tables of data
      2. Interacting with actions
    3. Understanding premium connectors
    4. Introducing custom connectors
      1. Creating a custom connector from scratch
        1. The General tab
        2. The Security tab
        3. The Definition tab
        4. The Test tab
      2. Importing an OpenAPI file
      3. Creating a connector from within Postman
    5. Lab 7
      1. Activity 1: Preparing the data source
      2. Activity 2: Adding the data source to the app
      3. Activity 3: Adding a list of assets
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
    8. Further reading
  17. Section 3: Extending the Capabilities of Your PowerApp
  18. Using GPS in PowerApps
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Placing maps into your apps
      1. Leveraging Bing maps
      2. Leveraging Google Maps
    3. Capturing geographic position
      1. Finding the location
      2. Finding direction
    4. Lab 8
      1. Activity 1: Updating the data source
      2. Activity 2: Creating a new asset
      3. Activity 3: Displaying a map
      4. Activity 4: Adding navigation
    5. Summary
    6. Questions
    7. Further reading
  19. Working with Images and Barcodes
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Understanding how to store images within PowerApps
    3. Using images with the camera control
      1. Capturing the camera image
      2. Capturing from an icon
    4. Using the Add picture control
    5. Understanding the barcode scanner
    6. Lab 9
      1. Activity 1: Updating the data source
      2. Activity 2: Updating the PowerApp to capture a photo
      3. Activity 3: Updating the app to scan and store barcode data
    7. Summary
    8. Questions
  20. Securing Your PowerApps
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Securing your PowerApp
    3. Securing your data
    4. Applying in-app security
      1. Storing access lists within the app
      2. Implementing security with AAD security groups
    5. Lab 10
      1. Activity 1: Creating the collection
      2. Activity 2: Creating the Administrators view screen
      3. Activity 3: Creating the link
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  21. Working Offline
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Detecting a connection state
    3. Working with local data
      1. Saving data locally
      2. Loading data from the local cache
    4. Implementing offline capability
      1. Implementing the on-start process
      2. Working offline
      3. Synchronizing online and offline data
    5. Lab 11
      1. Activity 1: Adding a connection indicator
      2. Activity 2: Adding data to an offline cache
      3. Activity 3: Tracking new additions while offline
      4. Activity 4: Synchronizing changes
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  22. Using Power Automate with PowerApps
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Understanding Flows
    3. Creating Flows through the Azure portal
      1. Creating a Flow from templates
      2. Creating Flows from scratch
        1. Requesting data from PowerApps
        2. Testing your Flow
        3. Calling a Flow within PowerApps
    4. Creating a Flow from within PowerApps
    5. Returning data from Flow
    6. Using Power Automate to process data
    7. Lab 12
      1. Activity 1: Updating the data source
      2. Activity 2: Creating a Flow
      3. Activity 3: Wiring up PowerApps
    8. Summary
    9. Questions
    10. Further reading
  23. Using Azure with PowerApps
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Utilizing Azure resources
      1. Integrating with Azure Active Directory
      2. Implementing Azure Automation
        1. Creating an Azure Automation account
        2. Preparing your automation account for use
          1. Installing modules
          2. Storing credentials
          3. Storing variables
        3. Using runbooks
      3. Using Azure Automation in PowerApps
        1. Calling CreateJob
        2. Getting the job's output
      4. Using Azure Functions
        1. Using a queue
        2. Creating an Azure Function
    3. Lab 13
      1. Activity 1: Creating the security group
      2. Activity 2: Displaying the group users
      3. Activity 3: Adding add and remove functionality
    4. Summary
    5. Questions
    6. Further reading
  24. Section 4: Working with Model-Driven Apps
  25. Introducing Model-Driven Apps
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Understanding the CDS
      1. Creating the CDS database
    3. Understanding the CDM
      1. Introducing entities 
      2. Exploring an entity
    4. Modeling data
      1. Creating an entity
      2. Creating Fields
      3. Creating entity relationships
    5. Building a model-driven app
    6. Lab 14
      1. Activity 1: Creating the database
      2. Activity 2: Modeling data
    7. Summary
    8. Questions
    9. Further reading
  26. Creating Model-Driven Apps
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Introducing Views, Forms, and Dashboards
      1. Creating Views
      2. Creating Forms
      3. Creating Dashboards and Charts
        1. Creating charts
        2. Creating Dashboards
    3. Creating a model-driven app from scratch
    4. Using your model-driven app
    5. Lab 15
      1. Activity 1: Creating Views
      2. Activity 2: Building the model-driven app
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  27. Section 5: Governing PowerApps
  28. Exploring Environments within Our Tenancy
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Introducing environments
      1. Viewing your environments
      2. Creating environments
      3. Setting security on the environment
        1. Working with security with no database
        2. Working with security within a database
    3. Introducing data loss prevention
      1. Creating data loss prevention policies
    4. Lab 16
      1. Activity 1: Creating an environment
      2. Activity 2: Setting a DLP policy
    5. Summary
    6. Questions
  29. Assessments
    1. Chapter 1
    2. Chapter 2
    3. Chapter 3
    4. Chapter 4
    5. Chapter 5
    6. Chapter 6
    7. Chapter 7
    8. Chapter 8
    9. Chapter 9
    10. Chapter 10
    11. Chapter 11
    12. Chapter 12
    13. Chapter 13
    14. Chapter 14
    15. Chapter 15
    16. Chapter 16
    17. Chapter 17
  30. Other Books You May Enjoy
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Product information

  • Title: Learn Microsoft PowerApps
  • Author(s): Matthew Weston
  • Release date: November 2019
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781789805826