Perhaps not as well-known as other Microsoft software, Power Apps nevertheless positions itself as a remarkable component for developing low code app, personalized to your data and your systems to meet your team's expectations.
This business app allows developers to create professional applications that can be equipped with AI through ai builder to make them efficient, creative and intelligent.
What is Power Apps?
Microsoft designed the Power Platform and Power Apps to let you build any business application based on your data.
Specifically, it allows you to create the app that best suits your needs with your own data source, without any programming or app development skills.
Your custom applications can be fully linked to your Microsoft solutions or other IT tools already used in your business.
Microsoft Power Platform
Microsoft Power Platform is a platform that consolidates all the programs that will inevitably overhaul your relationship with digital tools, namely: Power BI, Power Automate and, of course, Power Apps.
Power BI
The Power BI application allows you to capture your data, even spread across different departments.
Advertised as a powerful data analytics service, Microsoft Power BI lets your employees or partners turn that same data into a simple visual element.
These visuals can then be used in your operations. The conversion of data into easily accessible visuals is an essential feature of software like Power BI.
Power Automate
As the name implies, Power Automate is designed to help with the automation of repetitive tasks.
Perhaps the most famous of all Power Apps, it allows you to create workflows in a fully automated manner in only a few minutes.
It allows you to turn repetitive tasks into preprogrammed processes and manage them step-by-step in a clear and efficient environment.
You get to benefit from a wide variety of automated tasks that function with over 296 applications.
In short, it allows you to significantly increase your productivity by automating certain tasks that no longer need to be manually performed by a human.
Power Apps
Part of the Microsoft suite of business solutions, Power Apps helps create custom applications that allow your team to efficiently communicate and share information.
Power App's defining characteristic is that it is a low code app builder.
Its highly intuitive interface was designed to allow as many people as possible to create unlimited apps.
Save time and resources on training and coding, while meeting your business needs with the most personalized solution.
It can be quite costly to set up a custom app and the availability of your developers may not always match your production schedule.
Fortunately, Microsoft sought to democratize the development of applications with Power Apps, to help businesses of all sizes achieve their growth goals.
What purpose does Microsoft Power Apps serve?
It was designed so that you can create the custom solutions you need. In this regard, Power Apps acts as a kind of personalized application generator.
Example 1: Simple HR Management
Let’s say you need to create an application to manage your human resources, vacations and absences, or even the number of billable hours.
Power Apps allows you to create a tool adapted to the size and nature of your team.
Example 2: Simple Warehouse Management
If you want to set up a warehouse management system personalized to the type of products you sell, Power Apps will make your life easier. Additionally, if you have multiple locations for your warehouses or offices, Power Apps works across platforms on computers, smartphones and tablets alike.
Example 3: Simple CRM
If you have a large customer base with multiple sources of leads, it can be difficult to share all the data with your entire team. In order to respond to this need, Power Apps allows you to create an application that your employees can use to access relevant data about your customers.
The app will be built on the foundation of your business database, thus allowing access to your customers’ contact information, their order history, and even their billing information, for example.
Possibilities are infinite!
Your database allows you to generate a customer application that all of your employees can access. This tool can then be consulted via your employee’s mobile phone or your company’s tablets.
Power Apps gives you the power of decision making when it comes to running your business. All your data is connected, thanks to this Microsoft Power Platform solution. Whatever your needs may be, you can build the apps that accurately reflect your data without worrying about forgetting anything.
One of the main benefits is making your employees’ jobs easier with proper app implementation.
For instance, every task that must be automated can be consolidated into one application that can then be easily set up.
This offers obvious productivity gains, but also less risk of error, thanks to limited human intervention.
Who is Power Apps for?
Power Apps was designed to serve as many people as possible, needing no coding or development experience to develop a custom app from scratch.
This solution allows your team to innovate in the way they work, by letting them create the specific IT tools they need to succeed.
You can build an app from existing templates and keep adapting it as your business grows. Using this business application builder is very simple and intuitive.
The developers of Power Apps have thought of everyone and implemented functionalities that most users are already familiar with.
Naturally, developers can also work with Power Apps. Custom connectors let developers provide support for your application, either from your database or from the app you started to build and improve.
Whether it's employees with no coding experience, or seasoned developers, Power Apps is an exceptional tool for creating your own apps.
It does not matter who created the application.
Once it's made, it can be easily shared with the entire team or just the employees involved.
Power Apps lets you set up processes that facilitate decision making in your organization, like all other Microsoft solutions.
Every application you design, no matter its size or scope of use, becomes a piece of the puzzle that gives you a bigger picture of your business.
With Power Apps, your only limit is your imagination.
With just a few clicks, you can create apps for accounting, for logistics, for human resources, for customer relations, and absolutely anything else.
How to integrate Power Apps with Microsoft Dynamics 365?
If you are already using Microsoft Dynamics 365 and you wonder if you could integrate Power Apps into your system, there is nothing simpler.
By using your database that's already in place and securely populated, the integration phase is no longer needed.
Everything happens as naturally as possible because the underlying data platform is the same.
This is what Microsoft dataverse looks like.
Since Power Apps consists of over 200 connectors, integration is really easy to achieve.
To design the layout you need, all you have to do is drag and drag-and-drop the item you want from a task manager in Outlook or another compound list in the database.
Additionally, the data connection is further facilitated by the intuitive design of Power Apps.
Everything is set up in a way that you can easily adjust all the parameters of your app without development knowledge.
If you edit data in Microsoft Dynamics 365, you can easily customize your app via Power Apps.
The apps are not only built according to your needs, but also follow your business' growth and development.
Integrating Power Apps into the companies we work always proves to be a welcome innovation for their employees.
Power Apps provides them with powerful tools for their daily tasks, making their work easier and more efficient.
This creates a sense of trust and competence in teams more quickly.
In addition, using Power Apps enables continuous improvement of working methods.
Start your Digital Transformation
Power Apps offers immense, perhaps even endless possibilities.
To find out how this solution could meet your company’s specific needs, contact one of our specialists at Gestisoft.
We will make sure that Power Apps will establish itself at the core of innovation in your teams.
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March 09, 2021 by Frédéric Charest by Frédéric Charest VP of Marketing
Data-driven Growth Marketer with a Passion for SEO - Driving Results through Analytics and Optimization