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Module 4

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14 views

Module 4

Uploaded by

bhatlanandini2002
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Module 4

Canvas Apps
 There are three ways to create a canvas app.
1. You can start from blank.
2. You can start from a data source, set up your data connections
first and then think about the actual interface.
3. Or you could start from a template.
 You can design for landscape or portrait orientation
 When you select a component on this page, you can adjust the
properties in the right pane like color, appearance, text, etc.
 On the left pane we have a list of all the screens and the
components in them.
 You can also select a control and modify its properties.

Canvas Apps vs Model Apps vs Portal Apps

 You can create only one portal app per environment.


 They must use the Microsoft Dataverse for all of their data.
 You do not use separate connections to outside data sources for
portal apps. That would be a little dangerous security-wise if you're
giving web users access to confidential data sources. So it's strictly
a Dataverse connection that enables users to access that Dataverse
data through a website that you create.
 When you create a portal app, you get a starter page. It establishes
the connection to the Dataverse but it doesn't design the website
for you.
 It gives you a start page which you can then modify and design your
own web interface as needed using an interface like this. So you can
select individual elements, configure them as you would design
another web page except that here you're putting in access to the
Dataverse data as well.

App designer interface

We take elements from the right and add to the left to create an app.

Licensing
 Licensing is an issue with Power Apps.
 If you are a Microsoft 365 subscriber, then that product comes with
the Power Apps and Power Automate licenses that you would need
to create canvas apps using standard connectors. If you have a
need to create a model-driven app and use the Microsoft Dataverse
or to use premium connectors, you have to have an additional
Power Apps license, at an additional cost.
 Dynamics 365 is wholly based on model-driven apps and the
Microsoft Dataverse. So when you subscribe to that product, you
have the licenses needed to create model driven apps and use
premium connectors.
 For users that subscribe to neither of those products, Microsoft 365
or Dynamics 365, you can purchase Power Apps licenses on a
standalone basis in two forms, one called per user per app, and the
other is just per app.
Formulas
When you create a Power Apps app with data fields in it, it's possible to
operate on the data in those fields using formulas much in the way that
you would use formulas to operate on the data in cells in an Excel
spreadsheet.
 Some Formulas:
1. Value – The value function converts the text of these fields into a
number that can be operated on. So it's no longer just text, it's
now an actual value, a number.
2. If – Once a criteria is met, an action will take place, otherwise a
different one will take place.
 It is also possible to configure controls using formulas. For example,
you can add the date picker control. In the left of the function bar
we have a dropdown list of the properties of this selected control.
 So if we're looking at the default date property in the function field
is to day. That's a formula value of today with parentheses, and that
means it shows today's date. You could modify that function to
display any date you want in that field.
 Now, another thing we could do if we select in the dropdown list
here, if I select the format property, then we're going to see a
default value of date time format dot short date. You can select
different types like short data with timestamp, long data format, etc.

Creating a canvas app


Method 1:
When you select a canvas app from blank, you get a very simple screen
like this in which all you have to do to actually create the app is supply a
name for it, and select the format which is really the orientation. A tablet
would be a landscape orientation and a phone would be a portrait
orientation. And then you click create and Power Apps actually creates the
app.
You can use the data tab on the left to find the required data source.
So if we click the "Add data" button, we get this dropdown list which
enables me to choose tables that are currently connected in this case to
the Microsoft Dataverse or you can go down to the connectors menu.
In many cases, a data source requires credentials. You have to sign in and
you would, in that case, get a pop up window prompting you for the
connections to that specific source.
If you are using an excel sheet as a data base, you can select the specific
table (each worksheet is considered as a table).
Method 2:
We begin by selecting a data source and the power app will create an app
based in what it thinks we need. The rest is the same.

Method 3:
A template is a pre-designed app with screens and other elements in it,
and it may have sample data included with it as well. But the idea would
be that you would create an app from the template, plug in your own data
source and use that data to populate the screens that already exist in the
template.

Other things:
 Unlike power BI, the data in power apps is not one directional and
can go back and forth. This means that a user can edit the data in
the excel sheet using one of the screens of the power app. This can
be done to any data source and the permissions you have for that
data source.
 The customer journey is the experience that a consumer undergoes
when working with a company or organization, including all of its
interactions with salespeople, customer service reps, tech support
personnel, and others. Power Apps can enhance the customer's
journey by providing company representatives with the information
they need to satisfy the needs of the customer.
 It's not so much a tool for end users, but it's a tool for
representatives of the company or organization providing them with
up to the minute data on their products or anything else they need
to handle.
 It's also possible to connect to multiple data sources. When using a
connector to access a resource, it's possible to access multiple
tables or other elements from the same connection.
 And once you've created an app like the sample app that was
created automatically for us, that's created from a single table, but
the developer can add other tables, other data sources, anything
they want to modify the existence of the sample app.
User Interface:

So if you want to change controls, you modify their properties, as I said.


When you click any element in the screen or any one of those controls in
the tree pane, then the corresponding control properties are listed in the
right pane, and they also appear in an equation bar near the top of the
interface.
Publishing and Sharing the app
We can save the app to the cloud or the computer.
For anyone else to use it, you need to share the app.
Types of sharing – Users, Owners, Co-owners. So a user of the app can run
it but a co-owner of the app can edit it and share it with other people.
You can edit the app at any time but the changes you make will not take
effect to your other users unless you publish the app in its revised version.
If you open the app, make any change at all and save it, you will get a
button on that success screen that says Publish and that generates a pop
up like this one in which you have to confirm that you want to publish that
app.
In addition to publishing apps and sharing them directly with consumers,
it's possible also to integrate them into Microsoft Teams. There are two
ways of doing that.
The first is by creating a tab app in Teams. While in teams you have tabs
along the top margin, clicking the plus sign opens and add a tab screen in
which you can select Power Apps from all the other apps available to you.
Once you do that, you have the opportunity within Power Apps to select a
particular app that you want to add into Teams.
Another way of adding an app to Teams is directly from the Power Apps
portal. When you select an app and choose the more commands menu,
you'll see there's an add to teams option there that essentially does the
same thing as adding it directly from Teams.

Creating a Model Driven App


The process of creating a model-driven app is very similar, almost
identical to that of creating a canvas app. If you look on the Create page
in the Power Apps portal, you'll see there's a tile for creating a model-
driven app from blank, and there are a number of templates available for
various types of model-driven apps.
Now, a model driven app requires the Microsoft Dataverse database and
the sample apps included with Power Apps. If the database and the
samples don't exist in the environment you're currently working in, Power
Apps displays a pop up that offers to create a new environment that
includes both. So you may or may not have to install the Dataverse as
you're creating your Power Apps app because it's not yet there. If you
have the Dataverse in your environment already, then the installation
would proceed more easily and more quickly.
The difference in a model-driven app comes when you actually are
working with the app to edit it. And instead of the what you see is what
you get interface that you used for canvas apps, we have a separate tool
called the App Designer, which is used for model-driven apps and it is not
WYSIWYG, what you see is what you get. What you're seeing is little
dropdown lists that represent the elements of the app and you can work
with them that way. It's important to note in a model-driven app that the
developer has no control over the appearance of the interface.
To add a new entity (should be called tables after the name change is
complete) click on entities on the right panel and select the extra table
you want included.
The interface is composed of tiles which are movable according to how the
app is arranged. When you create a model-driven app, you do not choose
a portrait or a landscape orientation, the app takes care of that itself.
To edit the elements from a table, you need to click the dropdown then
edit for the particular element. For example to change the chart, click
chart and then select the chart you want to edit. It will open the following
screen.

Publishing the app


When you complete your editing, you would save your changes as you
would with anything in any application. And when you do that, in the
upper right corner here, the validate and publish buttons become active.
And when you click "Validate", then the App Designer runs through all of
your elements here and looks for problems.
However, as with any Power Platform element, you have to share that app
with specific people who you want to be able to work with it and run it.
Here again, we're dealing with the Microsoft Dataverse and you're
providing users with access to it.
When you select the app, you can define the security rules that will apply
to this app.

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