What Is PowerApps

Microsoft PowerApps is a browser-based platform that allows non-developers to build apps by simply dragging and dropping objects to a Web browser. You may learn more about PowerApps here: https://powerapps.microsoft.com

PowerApps targets business users, and the interface looks like PowerPoint and Office. Eventually, it may become a part of Microsoft’s Office Suite or Office 365.

 

Microsoft PowerApps targets both business and professional developers. As Bill Staples writes in his blog about PowerApps:

PowerApps is an enterprise service for innovators everywhere to connect, create and share business apps with your team on any device in minutes. And PowerApps helps anyone in your organization unlock new business agility.

For employees: 

• Quickly create apps that work on any device using a Microsoft Office-like experience, templates to get started quickly and a visual designer to automate workflows.
• Use built-in connections, or ones built by your company, to connect PowerApps to cloud services such as Office 365, Dynamics CRM, Salesforce, Dropbox and OneDrive and on-premises systems including SharePoint, SQL Server, Oracle databases, SAP and more.
• Share PowerApps like documents. It’s as simple as typing an email address and your coworkers can take advantage of an app you created. 

For developers and IT professionals: 

• PowerApps includes Azure App Service for employee-facing apps, so native web and mobile apps get into employee hands faster than ever.
• Build additional data connections and APIs to any existing business systems, thus empowering any users in your organization to create the apps they need.
• Data security and privacy controls are respected by PowerApps, so you can manage data access and maintain corporate policies.

Here is a list of features of the PowerApps app: 

• Create a new app from scratch
• Create app from gorgeous templates
• Create apps from data connecting to SharePoint, Salesforce, Dropbox, Google Drive and more
• Use the app yourself or share them with colleagues in your organization
• Add business logic and intelligence using the power of Excel-like expressions
• Compose rich interactive visuals and media to create custom, unique apps 

In this episode of Azure Friday, this video shows how to create a very basic “hello world” kind of application using Power Apps.