SharePoint and PowerApps

PowerApps is a powerful tool aimed at power users.  Since teams use SharePoint lists to access, share and collaborate around structured data, PowerApps utilizes SharePoint lists as the data source.  By bringing PowerApps,  Flow and SharePoint together, capturing data and producing useable business apps is a natural progression for cross platform data integration.

PowerApps can be created on mobile (PowerApps Mobile), on the web (PowerApps Studio) or on-prem (On-Premises Data Gateway) and can be published on the web or on mobile.  Not only can data be derived from SharePoint lists, but the data can also be derived from Excel files, Dynamics CRM record, custom APIs, Dropbox, Azure Blob, Azure Service Bus and a host of other sources.  As with Flow, PowerApps does not require any coding on your part.  PowerApps supplies a variety of templates which are customizable to your business needs.  The business apps that you build can use the device’s capabilities such as the camera, pen control and GPS. 

There is a major difference between Forms and PowerApps.  The functionality and purpose of each is very different.  Forms, which is currently under preview in the Education module, behaves very much like a questionnaire whereby the creator poses questions and the user will answer the questions in multiple choice style.  For more details of how Forms works, please refer to my article Microsoft Forms in Office 365 and SharePoint 2016. 

PowerApps, on the other hand, is not a questionnaire, but a business application which provides the user information that is derived from actual data via an app that is created with PowerApps and SharePoint lists.  For example, from the SharePoint list view menu, you will have an option to create a PowerApp for this list.  By initializing the Create PowerApp option, the PowerApps web designer will open in your web browser and the web designer will automatically create a default app for you based on the schema and data of that list.  You can then customize the app to suit your business needs.  These apps will show up as views and can be shared and launched from the SharePoint list. 

By leveraging the functionality of PowerApps to build custom and mobile capable views of your existing lists and sharing them with your team, it further enhances the collaboration aspect of SharePoint.  PowerApps is a cross-platform service and can run on all your devices, including Windows, Android, iOS and web browsers.

Microsoft continues to build upon the collaboration aspect of SharePoint and is integrating many of its services to strengthen collaboration amongst team members.  SharePoint and Office 365 are continuing to become stronger applications with greater versatility and functionality with the integration of PowerApps.