What is Power Apps?

Power Apps is a suite of apps, services, and connectors, as well as a data platform, that provides a rapid development environment to build custom apps for your business needs. Using Power Apps, you can quickly build custom business apps that connect to your data stored either in the underlying data platform (Microsoft Data verse) or in various online and on-premises data sources (such as SharePoint, Microsoft 365 with Microsoft Power Apps.

Apps built using Power Apps provide rich business logic and workflow capabilities to transform your manual business operations into digital, automated processes. What’s more, apps built using Power Apps have a responsive design and can run seamlessly in browser and on mobile devices (phone or tablet). Power Apps “democratizes” the business-app-building experience by enabling users to create feature-rich, custom business apps without writing code.

Power Apps also provides an extensible platform that lets pro developers programmatically interact with data and metadata, apply business logic, create custom connectors, and integrate with external data.

For more information:

• Watch Power Apps demos
• Power Apps for app makers/creators

Using Power Apps, you can create three types of apps: canvas, model-driven, and portal. More information: Overview of creating apps in Power Apps

To create an app, you start with make.powerapps.com.

Power Apps Studio is the app designer used for building canvas apps. The app designer makes creating apps feel more like building a slide deck in Microsoft PowerPoint. More information: Generate an app from data

App designer for model-driven apps lets you define the sitemap and add components to build a model-driven app. More information: Design model-driven apps using app designer

Power Apps portals Studio is a WYSIWYG design tool to add and configure webpages, components, forms, and lists. More information: Power Apps portals Studio anatomy

Ready to convert your ideas into an app? Start here: Planning a Power Apps project

Power Apps for app users

You can run apps that you created, or that someone else created and shared with you, in browser or on mobile devices (phone or tablet). More information:

• Find and run apps
• Run apps on Power Apps mobile
• Power Apps for admins
• Power Apps administrators can use the Power Platform admin center (admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com) to create and manage environments, view Dataverse analytics, and get real-time, self-help recommendations and support for Power Apps and Power Automate. More information: Administer Power Platform

Power Apps for developers

Developers are app makers who can write code to extend business app creation and customization. Developers can use code to create data and metadata, apply server-side logic using Azure functions, plug-ins, and workflow extensions, apply client-side logic using JavaScript, integrate with external data using virtual entities and webbooks, build custom connectors, and embed apps into your website experiences to create integrated solutions. More information:

Dataverse developer

Model-driven apps developer
Canvas apps developer
Power Apps and Dynamics 365
Dynamics 365 apps (such as Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, and Dynamics 365 Marketing) also use the underlying Data verse platform used by Power Apps to store and secure data. This enables you to build apps using Power Apps and Data verse directly against your core business data already used within Dynamics 365, without the need for integration. More information: Dynamics 365 and Data verse

Try Power Apps for free

You can build Power Apps for free. Simply sign in to Power Apps. For more information, go to Sign in to Power Apps for the first time. Initially, you’ll have access to the default environment. You can build in your own developer environment with Data verse by signing up for the Power Apps Developer Plan.

A license is needed to play the apps made with Power Apps. You can play Power Apps for free by signing up for a 30-day trial.

Purchase Power Apps

If you’ve decided to purchase Power Apps, see here for detailed information: Purchase Power Apps.

Power Apps US Government plans

Power Apps US Government consists of several plans designed for US government organizations to address the unique and evolving requirements of the United States public sector. The Power Apps GCC environment provides compliance with federal requirements for cloud services, including FedRAMP High, DoD DISA IL2, and requirements for criminal justice systems (CJI data types). More information: Power Apps US Government.

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