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Beginner’s Guide to
Power Apps

Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 4

Citizen Development, Power Apps, What’s All the Fuss About? ................................................... 4

Is Citizen Development a Good Thing? ...................................................................................... 5

How do I Get Started? .................................................................................................................... 7

The Power Apps Dashboard ....................................................................................................... 7

Start From Copilot .................................................................................................................. 8

Other ways to create an app .................................................................................................. 8

Your Apps ................................................................................................................................ 8

Learning for every level .......................................................................................................... 8

The Power Apps Studio .............................................................................................................. 9

1 - App Authoring Menu ........................................................................................................ 10

2 - App Authoring Options .................................................................................................... 10

3 - The Canvas ....................................................................................................................... 10

4 - The Properties Pane......................................................................................................... 10

5 - The Formula Bar ............................................................................................................... 11

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 6 - The Build Hub ................................................................................................................... 11

Starting With a Power Apps Template ........................................................................................ 12

Starting With Copilot.................................................................................................................... 13

Things to try with Copilot ......................................................................................................... 16

What Other Options Are There to Build a Power App? ............................................................... 17

Blank Canvas App ..................................................................................................................... 17

Blank App Based on Dataverse ................................................................................................ 18

Power Pages Website ............................................................................................................... 18

I’ve Chosen a Type of App to Build, What next? .......................................................................... 19

Building for different devices ................................................................................................... 19

Is The Look and Feel Important? ................................................................................................. 20

Managing Themes & Styling Options .......................................................................................... 21

Power Apps Modern Themes ................................................................................................... 22

Custom Themes Using Formulas ............................................................................................. 23

Formulas and Properties ............................................................................................................. 26

Top 10 Formulas ....................................................................................................................... 28

Connecting Power Apps to External Data ................................................................................... 31

Galleries ........................................................................................................................................ 34

Forms ............................................................................................................................................ 39

Variables & Collections ................................................................................................................ 42

Creating Variables .................................................................................................................... 42

Using Variables ......................................................................................................................... 42

Collections ................................................................................................................................ 43

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Debugging & Error Handling ........................................................................................................ 45

App Checker .............................................................................................................................. 45

Formulas ............................................................................................................................... 47

Runtime ................................................................................................................................. 47

Accessibility........................................................................................................................... 47

Performance.......................................................................................................................... 47

Data source ........................................................................................................................... 47

IntelliSense ............................................................................................................................... 48

Do More in Power Apps with Microsoft Power Automate ........................................................... 49

Publishing & Sharing Your Power App......................................................................................... 50

Power Apps Mobile App ............................................................................................................... 51

Licensing of Power Apps .............................................................................................................. 52

What’s Next? ................................................................................................................................. 54

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Introduction
If you are just beginning your learning Journey with Power Apps or completely new, then this
eBook is a must-read.

It will give you an insight into the key concepts you need to know before moving on to other
learning where you may build apps or see how more complex tasks are completed. Consider
this book as giving you a foundation to begin building upon.

It covers topics such as Citizen Development, the tools that help you develop a Power App,
formulas and properties, connecting to data, Power Automate, Publishing and using your first
Power App.

Citizen Development, Power Apps, What’s All the Fuss

About?
Citizen development is still one of the hottest terms in the Gartner dictionary, but what does it
mean and what is a citizen developer? Gartner describes it as:

“A user who creates new business applications for consumption by others using
development and runtime environments sanctioned by corporate IT.”

In short, this means that "citizen development" refers to non-developers who have the skills to
create business applications, tools or processes.

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Is Citizen Development a Good Thing?
Absolutely! Who else other than the business owner, or someone very aware of the business
operation, knows enough about what’s needed to build the business app they need?

Becoming a Citizen developer will help you stop thinking about who you should hire to help
improve your business processes, how much will it cost or whether the developer will
understand the needs and unlock the potential to be able to build productivity solutions
yourself.

Using learning tools like this from Collab365 you can start YOUR journey and quickly realise the
potential of the Microsoft Power Platform to save your business time and money.

Here's an example of a Power App.

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In the past business users who wanted to create an application to improve efficiency in their
processes didn’t have the tools and often decided to spin up projects to develop or buy
solutions.

For more routine needs, there were often cases where work revolved around creating complex
Excel spreadsheets or Access databases. Solutions that solve complex business problems are
still often passed on to an IT department to be developed, enhanced or maintained going
forwards.

Opportunities within Microsoft 365 are now so available that the idea of becoming a Citizen
developer is much more possible.

Modern companies are embracing Agile methods and ideas and want to be able to respond and
adapt quickly. Unlocking shorter and more efficient journeys to better workflow, decision
making and processing of information helps them in that mission. This is where the Power
Platform and specifically Power Apps can begin to earn its money.

As part of the Microsoft 365 suite of technologies, Power Apps allows a person to learn core
skills quickly and using a drag and drop interface, develop fully functioning, scalable and
attractive apps for mobile or desktop devices.

Here’s the best part, these people – Citizen Developers – don’t have to have the coding
language skills of a developer. Power Apps can be thought about, developed and deployed in
MINUTES.

Keen to find out how? Read on …

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How do I Get Started?
Power Apps creation happens within the Power Apps Studio. You can going by navigating to
make.powerapps.com in your browser and signing in to Microsoft 365.

It’s worth noting that you’ll need a Microsoft 365 licence, but Power Apps and basic data
storage is included in subscriptions for as low as a few dollars per month (search for Microsoft
Business Basic if you don’t already have access to Microsoft 365).

The Power Apps Dashboard

If you navigate to make.powerapps.com, the first screen you will see looks like this. This is the
Power Apps dashboard.

The dashboard brings together a collection of shortcuts to useful aspects of Power Apps to help
you get started quickly. Many of these options lead to the Power Apps Studio but let's look at
the most important ones to start with.

If you click the Home Icon in the left navigation menu, you'll see a screen similar to the one
above.

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The main sections to be aware of for now are (note this changes from time to time but the idea
of being your quick start area remains):

Start From Copilot

This is the latest addition to the Power Apps and the Power Platform allowing you to describe
the application you would like to build in natural language, and have AI dream up your app
for you. It will provide you with a basic table and app layout to help you solve the needs you
have. Copilot is improving all the time, so this is definitely a tool you should explore with
every now and then.

Other ways to create an app

We also have options to decide how we would like to start our app build. We can start with the
data which is a strong way to go – or we can start with page designs and app templates which
is heavily influenced by the user experience.

Your Apps
Here you’ll find a list of apps frequently entered in to within your Power Apps environment. If
you are brand new to Power Apps, this will be an empty list, but we will look at building your
first app later. If you do have apps, you’ll be able to play, edit and share alongside many other
options for specific apps here.

Learning for every level

Access options here to learn from Microsoft materials.

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The Power Apps Studio
For now, that’s plenty to digest on the Dashboard. Let’s look at the Power Apps Studio that
you will use when you are creating an app.

You can get here by Selecting the Create Tab in the Dashboard. From time to time, new options
will be revealed, and items will change but the basic form and structure is likely to be very
similar to what you see below. Each section has a specific purpose to the Citizen Developer.
The Power Apps studio looks like this.

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1 - App Authoring Menu
Selection pane to switch between data sources and insert options. On the left pane in Power
Apps Studio, you can switch between options such as:

• Tree View (like file explorer this allows you to navigate pages and controls in your apps)
• Insert (This is where you find controls you want to add to your apps)
• Themes (Change the underlying theme of your app)
• Data (You connect to sources of data for your app from here)
• Media (Import images, audio, video and other assets to the app studio)
• Power Automate if you’d like to trigger automations from your Power App (see our
Power Automate Beginners Guide), you can do so from this icon
• Variables (View global and local variables and collections in your app)
• Advanced Tools
• Search (Find and replace controls, variables and formulas easier)

Each item clicked will appear in the App Authoring Options pane so you can interact further.

2 - App Authoring Options

This pane shares options relevant to the selected menu item from the App Authoring Menu. In
the example above, the Tree view has been selected.

3 - The Canvas
This is where you compose and view your app and its pages. This will show the currently
selected screen from the Tree view.

4 - The Properties Pane

The Properties list for the selected object. Think of a property as either a behaviour that an
item in a Power App exhibits or an attribute i.e. something about that item such as a colour or
a border.

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Properties are displayed on the right-hand side in a form for you to view and update. You can
access generic ‘Properties’ such as the Name, Text, color, size, or position.

The Advanced tab in the properties pane shows more options for customization and may be
locked for editing. It's possible to unlock but we won’t dig into that in this eBook.

5 - The Formula Bar

Compose or edit a formula for the selected property. You can use calculations, values or
functions to change the appearance and behaviour of your screen items.

Access the different Properties of each item using the drop-down on the left of the Fx notation
in the formula bar. Once selected, you can edit within the formula bar. For the example, to
change the Fill color of a Button, change the Fill property in the formula bar to "Blue" or
change the RGBA value.

6 - The Build Hub

Another way to navigate to actions relating to your Power App. This has recently been
redesigned so you can now add items to your app, add screens, change themes and more.

Also on the right-hand side, you can add comments, play your app (to test it) as well as Save
and Publish (more on how you publish an app later).

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Starting With a Power Apps Template
The recommendation, if you're just starting, is to create your first Power App from one of the
templates. This helps you quick start into the way a Power App works and gives you controls
to learn from and repeat in your own apps.

Head out of the Power Apps Studio (use the ‘Back’ button in the Studio if you like) and back
to the Power Apps Dashboard.

Click the + Create menu item on the left. Using the start from template options (part way down
the screen), you can see there are a multitude of ready baked apps to choose from.

Taking the example of an onboarding app, Power Apps will launch, connect to the sources of
data it knows will contain “To-Do lists”, it will create an onboarding list for you and expose it in
the app. It will also set up other screens so that you can decide who can access the app and
what tasks you ask them to perform as part of onboarding.

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This is quite a complex app so have an explore of 2 or 3 apps to start to get used to what’s on
offer. We particularly like the Shoutout template and the Asset Checkout and plan to use these
in some form in our organisation.

Starting With Copilot

As AI grows and adapts to Power Apps technology, we’ve started seeing it pop up and is now
more useful than ever. At the time of writing this eBook we can initialize a conversation with
Copilot using natural language and have it build the foundation of apps for us. We don’t have
to worry about complex data infrastructures and perfecting a user interface from the get-go.
Copilot will handle most of this for us.

To start with Copilot, navigate to the Home tab in the Power Apps Dashboard and start
describing the app you’d like to build into the prompt box at the top. It will do its best to give
you everything you need and even open another conversation with you where you can adapt
and ask it to change data, controls and other aspects of your app.

There are various instances of the Copilot interface that you can interact with, the first being
from the Home page where you can describe and build your first instance of the app.

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There is also a data setup phase after this step which allows you to adjust and configure your
data structure using natural language.

This allows you to prompt Copilot to make changes to your data. For instance, you could add
extra columns, define data types, add sample records and adjust them. Once you’re happy with

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your data, you can click Create App and your app will be generated. You can come back to your
data at any time to make amendments.

Finally, there is the Power Apps Studio Copilot that allows you to make changes and
adjustments to your app in real time using natural language.

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You can prompt directly into any of the Copilot text boxes or in most cases, you’ll find
suggested actions you can take too. This is where an underlying knowledge of Power Apps
studio comes in handy. Knowing what you want and referencing it in chat helps yield better
results. For example, you could ask it to add a text input box, a dropdown box and a submit
button inside a form, and for the most part it would do a good job at achieving what you are
after.

Things to try with Copilot

More actionable things are becoming available on a regular basis so it’s always worth revisiting
later, but here are some things to try with Copilot to hit the ground running:

• “Create an app that tracks employee holiday”

• Add, remove or change columns to your table structure
• “Populate my table with sample data that I can use for testing”
• “Add a button to my screen that navigates to a second screen”
• “Change the colour of all of the text in my app to blue”

Copilot is out of the scope of this eBook, but we’d recommend exploring further, the options
that are available to you and what you can do. It’s worth revisiting Copilot frequently as it is
consistently updated with new actionable commands bosting the Power of AI within Power
Apps. How long do you think it will be until Copilot can build an entire app with very little input
from the developer?

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What Other Options Are There to Build a Power App?
Starting from a template or Copilot is great but there’s nothing like building out your first app
from scratch to really get to grips with both the interface and the essential controls and
formulas you will need going forward.

If you click Create tab from the Power Apps Dashboard and select Blank App, you have 3
choices.

Blank Canvas App

Canvas apps are created to work on mobile devices or tablets. They work on desktop devices
but render as if they are on a mobile device. The great thing about Canvas apps is you can
create them directly from a data source. Out of the box (using various methods to start the
process), you can generate a screen to Browse, Edit and View your data.

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Blank App Based on Dataverse
They are like Canvas Apps but are by design ‘responsive’ meaning they will respond to the
device they are being used on and scale appropriately.

Another distinction is that they sit on top of database tables which Microsoft 365 provides for
you. These tables are called the ‘Dataverse’. The Dataverse (previously known as CDS or the
Common Data Service) has been created based on re-usable table structures which exist within
a Product called Dynamics 365.

The Dataverse is designed to provide out of the box storage and relationships to support some
common use cases – like Sales or Stock Management. However instead of needing a Dynamics
365 licence, you can create and access the same capabilities from within a Power App (and
other Power Platform Services).

Model-Driven Apps are built with the data model taking precedence over the user experience,
where structuring your data in a meaningful way makes delivery of Model-Driven Apps a
seamless and deployable experience.

There may be licence implications when using the Dataverse to store data from a Power App,
so this tends to be a second option if a Canvas App is insufficient.

Power Pages Website

These are websites for internal or external audiences but built using the same interface as a
Power App. They are the newest addition to the Power Platform.

The simplest form of app is the Canvas App. It’s where we would recommend you begin. It will
teach you the most about development in Power Apps, helping you to understand how
controls, data, variables and collections work together to build a seamless experience.

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I’ve Chosen a Type of App to Build, What next?
Once you are into the world of creating and working with your first app, there are going to be
some common considerations. Let’s look at some of the more fundamental concepts.

Building for different devices

When creating Canvas apps from blank, you are given the option to choose a Tablet or Phone
format. Advanced Power Apps developers will tell you, what you choose here doesn’t matter
as they build responsive designs into their app making them suitable for all devices. However,
for beginners, you can choose tablet or phone out of the box to give you appropriate screen
dimensions to use.

A phone factor doesn’t mean your Power App cannot be displayed on a PC or tablet; it means
it will work optimally for a phone (having a small rectangular design).

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It is up to the Power App creator to choose the design mode and the orientation of the Power
App (landscape or portrait) if they choose to start from scratch.

A general rule of thumb to help you get started is…

If your app will predominately be used by phone users, select phone… If you plan on using your
app on a browser, in a Teams window or a Tablet, choose Tablet.

The Power Platform does allow you to automatically generate apps – from items like
SharePoint lists via the Integrate menu option in any list – however you will generally have less
control about the setup. You will get what the Power Platform considers fitting best with the
data you are exposing.

Is The Look and Feel Important?

The format of your Power App is one aspect to consider, another is how the end user feels when
they use it.

A Power App is very much like a shop window to your data. Make it appealing and people will
return time and again. Make it messy, cluttered and visually hard to read and you won’t gain
the engagement and adoption you would like.

This is a highly subjective matter and will naturally be different for different creators and
consumers of a Power App. It’s beneficial to have your users become part of the design process
as it will be ultimately them who are using it.

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One aspect in this area that is worth thinking about however is that when you settle on aspects
like the colour scheme, making it easy to adapt and change is more important than you might
think.

Colours and visual aspects are set within items called Properties for the controls you add.
Controls are items you add on screen that share information or allow interaction. You will have
many options or Properties for each control you add.

When it comes to colours for example, for a simple button control, you have properties such
as:

• Color – which determines the color of the button text

• BorderColor – Which determines the color of the border
• Fill – Which denotes the overall color of the button
• HoverFill – Which denotes the color when a user hovers using a mouse
• HoverColor – Which changes the text color when a mouse hovers over the button

… and more! You have many Properties for almost every control you add to a screen.

Managing Themes & Styling Options

Making the choice of colour scheme is one thing. Making it easy to change across your whole
app is a VERY important decision to make.

In your first app, our strong recommendation is to start how you mean to go on. The important
action to take is to have a consistent brand and colour.

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This is easily achieved by defining your colors when you are editing within the Power App
Studio. Do this right and they can be re-used and changed very easily.

Power Apps Modern Themes

You can use the inbuilt themes options from the App Authoring Menu where you can choose
from an existing theme or create your own that your controls can use within your app.

This might be enabled by default but if you don’t see the option you’ll need to enable modern
controls and themes from your app settings found on the build hub menu.

You’ll now find a themes tab on the left-hand side where you can choose from an existing them
or create a new theme. Creating a new theme allows you to select a primary color and Power
Apps will dynamically adjust various controls of your app that utilize modern controls with
different shades of your primary color.

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Custom Themes Using Formulas
When you edit an app, you can set Global Variables. This is a variable or an item which you
create and set up once and then reuse throughout your app. You can also re-use Global
Variables in any control you wish.

We can do this by first defining a new variable when our app loads (the logical place for setting
app variables). Navigate to the Tree View, select App then choose OnStart from the properties
drop-down menu above.

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In the formula bar, we now need to create a new variable. Type:

Set(varPrimaryColor, Color.DarkBlue)

This formula initializes a variable using the Set() formula, followed by the name of the
variable. This can be anything of your choosing. Then the color you’d like to set inside the
variable. In this case I’ve chosen the inbuilt Dark Blue color.

When naming your variables and controls its good to use recognizable prefixes to help you
quickly identify them later. You should also consider other approaches to color values such as
using hex codes where you can use the value ColorValue() formula.

To do this, add a button or a rectangle to a new Screen in a Power App. (click the + New Screen
option in the Tree view if you have not done this before. Next click the + icon and choose
Button)

Now you have created your first formula, it’s time to use it. Let’s add a control to our screen
from the insert menu. Select a control to add, in this case we can use a button.

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With the button selected, lets navigate to the BaseColorPalette Property where we can now
add the name of our variable to the formula bar – varPrimaryColor

When using the App OnStart formula, it will need to be manually triggered. The formula is
designed to run whenever the app starts; however, we are already loaded into Power Apps
Studio. To manually run it, select the ellipsis on the App in your Tree View and select Run
OnStart.

You may find there might be a difference in property names and behaviour between modern
controls and standard controls, its worth exploring which types of controls are beneficial to
your use case.

Now you have a variable with a color value being used, this value can be applied to any property
that requires a color value. Building your apps in either of the ways shown in these sections

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allows you to quickly change the color theme of your entire app just by changing the values in
a single place.

Formulas and Properties

You have already had hands on experience of Formulas and Properties when setting a colour
to re-use throughout an app but let’s dig a little deeper.

Power Apps often contain many properties and formulas. Each item in a Power App will have a
variety of properties to work with. Some of these will describe an attribute for the item. A
screen for example has:

• BackgroundImage
• Fill
• ImagePosition
• LoadingSpinner
• LoadingSpinnerColor

These properties are set up and persist until you change them.

Some properties will perform actions based upon a state of the item. For example, a screen
has:

• OnHidden
• OnStart
• OnVisible

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These types of properties will execute a change that you associate to the property only when
that behaviour is initiated, e.g. when a screen becomes visible you can cause the data to be
refreshed.

To execute change or define an action that takes place when a property is triggered, you use
Formulas. Think of formulas like instructions. They may calculate something, cause something
to happen or help create a logical flow within which certain actions can happen.

They are similar to formulas in excel, however within Power Apps, you have many more
capabilities.

Some controls have properties such as OnSelect where you can define – using a Formula - what
should happen when you directly select it. For example, in the image below, a Button on screen
has formula written into the OnSelect property to update our varPrimaryColor variable with a
new color, then Navigate to another screen.

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Controls that link to data may have a formula within the Items property where you can define
and filter a data source (don’t worry about the complexity yet. It’s enough to know that
formulas often describe actions to take)

Top 10 Formulas
The art when using formulas is to find what works and experiment. Within the formula bar you
have something called IntelliSense. This is Microsoft 365’s way of helping you. It may
autocomplete a formula for you or suggest a structure for a formula that you’d like to use
(hover over items with red lines beneath to get tips on any problem that’s being highlighted).

In the example above, you can see we have added a button to our canvas and want to navigate
to another screen when it is selected. Using the Navigate() formula, we can see how
IntelliSense is suggesting parameters that should go inside this formula and also giving us a list
of options to choose from.

A useful tip that will allow you to develop with speed is to use the arrow keys to cycle through
suggested parameters and use the TAB key to auto add and complete the formula. Once you

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get used to these quick shortcuts, you’ll be ready to write complex formulas at lightning speed
whilst reducing fatigue by writing and adding complex syntax.

The more you use IntelliSense, the more it will become second nature so don’t worry about it
right away. Just test and build experience to get the results you would like.

There are around 150 formulas that you can use with Power Apps (probably more as you read
this), details of which can all be found on Microsoft's documentation site.

To help you get started amongst this vast array, the next page shows some of our favourites
and most commonly used.

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 Formula Description

Determines if an expression evaluates to true. If it is then a specified

If
value is used, otherwise a default value is returned.

SortByColumns Allows you to sort a table by one or more columns.

Sort Sorts a table based on a given formula and sort order.

SubmitForm Saves the contents for a form to the underlying data source.

Filter Allows you to filter a set of records based on a given formula.

Search Allows you to search for a set of records based on a given search query.

Allows you to store any useful value in a context variable. Scoped to

UpdateContext
the Power Apps Screen.

Similar to UpdateContext only this time the variables stored are

Set
globally scoped.

Finds the first row in a table matching a specified formula. Returns a

Lookup
single record.

Clears all records from a collection and then adds a different set of
ClearCollect
records to the same collection.

Patch Creates or updates a specific record or set of records in a data source.

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Connecting Power Apps to External Data
Once you have some basic form and function to your app, you have some level of interaction
taking place, the next area to consider is the data you want to expose. This may be something
you consider creating and adding first. This can make testing and designing your app much
faster as you’ll have everything you need to make informed decisions at your disposal.

Power Apps has great support to connect to data from many systems and locations – some
inside Microsoft 365 but also others external to the service.

There are already more than 200 connectors available. Examples of the most common ones are
shown in the screenshot below. You can add connections to your Power App via the Data tab
in the App Authoring Menu.

Because this is a beginner’s eBook, we won’t go into detail about each and how each one may
help you, we just wanted to expose you to the idea of connecting an App to a data source.
This can be internal to your Microsoft 365 tenant or external.

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To give you a quick example showing how easy it can be let’s connect to a SharePoint list so
we can surface its data visually in our app.

First navigate to the Data tab in the App Authoring Menu. Then select Add data.

Search for SharePoint and select it from the list.

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Then choose a list (or multiple) from the SharePoint site of your choosing and select Connect.

Now our data is available to us in our app, and we can utilize it within our controls.

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Galleries
We can create the ability to add to the list or update existing records using Form controls and
also view the list in a visual sense using Galleries. Let’s explore how this is done.

Add a Vertical or Horizontal Gallery to your canvas from the Insert menu.

Above the gallery you’ll find a Data tab (this can also be found on the properties pane on the
right or alternatively you can navigate to the Items property in the property drop-down menu).
Choose the SharePoint list you added to your app.

We can also select the Fields tab and change which column values are being used in our subset
of controls that sit within our Gallery.

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There are many different styles of Galleries to choose from and even the ability to create your
own if you’re feeling confident to get stuck in!

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By creating your own gallery, you can use the Blank template in either a vertical or horizontal
gallery. You can add any number of controls to your gallery. To do this you first need to ensure
the gallery is selected, then press the small pencil icon in the top left.

Then navigate to the insert pane as you would to add any control normally. Upon selection,
your control will be added to the gallery and can be customized with formulas and properties
– just like any other control.

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It’s important to note that when you are making visual changes to a gallery that the changes
are replicated across all the items in your gallery. For instance, if you add a button – the button
will appear on all items within the gallery.

You may run into a case where you only see 1 version of the control you have added. If this
occurs, ensure that the first item in your gallery is selected as this is where you make
changes to your entire gallery.

Galleries are ‘some-what’ intelligent and recognise pieces of data that make up your
infrastructure, just like with forms (which we will cover in the next section), Galleries are
populated with the information form the data you provide to it. For example, if your SharePoint
list (or data source) has an image column, Power Apps will likely utilize that within any Gallery
templates that include an image automatically.

If you choose to build your gallery from scratch, a popular formula to consider is the ThisItem
formula, where you can reference any column within your data source using enumeration, for
example I might want to give a text label that I add to my gallery the text property formula of
ThisItem.Title or ThisItem.Description (as long as those columns exist in your table).

Enumeration: Allows you to dig deeper into a record or set of properties with the Period (.) key.
For example, you might have a table of users. Each user will have specific attributes such as email
addresses, phone numbers or locations. In this case you might need to pull a specific email
address for a user in which case you could use enumeration to like this User.EmailAddress or
User.Location.

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In this case I have used enumeration multiple times within my formula to retrieve the specific
piece of data I want to use. ThisItem points to the specific item that this record will show, the
LeaveRequester points to my person or group column in SharePoint for the leave requester,
and I am retrieving the DisplayName which is a deeper level of data that exists in my Person or
Group column (surfaced from Entra ID).

You’ll often find mismatches of data and Power Apps will let you know with IntelliSense and
error messages when this happens, and you may be sat twiddling your thumbs, wondering why
this might be happening. Often is the case where it’s a simple as you might be retrieving an
entire record rather than the specific piece of data within that record – so my advice, is play
around with enumeration using the period key (.) to see what options become available to
you.

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Forms
We’ve seen how galleries allow us to display and data in our app, but what can we do to add
new records to a data table? Whilst we can add controls that allows us to update data in
Galleries, Forms allows us to create interfaces to add and edit existing records.

Forms work similarly to galleries in the way they are created and setup, providing a drag and
drop interface. Give it a go for yourself before moving on!

Let’s take a look at the Leave Requests data we added in the Galleries section of this eBook.
Just like we did before we can tie our data source to a form control. We can begin by adding a
Form control to our canvas and choose the SharePoint list we want to use.

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After a few seconds, you’ll see how the form control automatically creates input boxes
representing each of the columns available in our data source. We can rearrange the order of
the items in our form (known as data cards) by dragging and dropping within the interface. We
can also choose different options for each of our fields and the type of visibility or editability
from the properties too. We can also choose to remove fields (data cards) from our form if we
don’t want our users to be able to add data to it.

Just like Galleries, we have a lot of flexibility with design and can use the properties of
individual controls within our form to change aspects such as color and behaviour.

By default, Forms do not have an option to submit the form for the user. This has to be built
manually by the developer. Depending on how you would like your form to function, this can
be done in several ways, but the most common is to have a clickable button on the canvas that
submits the data entered in to the form to the database to create a new record.

Begin by adding a button on to your canvas. Then, using the OnSelect property of the button
add the formula SubmitForm(Form1).

Using the OnSelect property will run the formula whenever the but is clicked or selected by the
user. The SubmitForm formula is a built in Power Apps formula that is preconfigured to submit
data to a data source passed into the parameters if this function. In this case, IntelliSense tells
us it expects the name of the form. We can find the name of the form by selecting it and finding
the highlighted control in the Tree View pane.

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There are more advanced ways to create new records in data sources using Power Apps via the
Patch formula. This formula gives more control and flexibility over how your data is submitted.
You can perform additional calculations and formulas during this process but goes beyond the
scope of beginner level Power Apps learning. If you want to learn more about this – We
recommend following our Power Apps JumpStart Challenge which covers this topic in more
detail.

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Variables & Collections
Creating Variables
We’ve already touched on variables in this eBook throughout our theme section, but variables
extend beyond this and can be used in creative and forward-thinking ways.

Think of variables as a phone book, I can store contacts, remove contacts, change the numbers
or names of my contacts and when ever I refer to my phone book I will have the latest contacts
ready at my disposal.

In layman’s terms, let’s say I want to create a variable to store the users email address who is
using my app. I might want to reference it later on – maybe to check that the user hasn’t
changed or maybe check if the user has access to the data I want to display on the screen. I can
create a variable with a name, in this instance ill call it varUser then assign my variable with a
value I can do this using the Set() formula. Where the formula would look like this:

Set(varUser, User().Email)

Many different type of data can be stored in variables, from colors (as we’ve seen previously)
to numbers, tables records, and strings. They can also be changed throughout your app by
reusing the same formula but changing the value (the second parameter).

Using Variables
We can access any variable we have created by referencing it within formulas, simply by using
the variable name, in this case I can surface the varUser variable I created in a text label.

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It’s important to note that variables are stored locally. They are created and deleted in context
of the flow of your app. When the app is closed, the variable is removed and recreated when
it’s next opened or called upon and this goes for collections too…

Collections
Collections are similar to variables in the way they are created and stored but what is a
collection? A collection is a local table that exists within the context of where the app is run.
They allow us to configure and store data within a table and can be accessed just like a variable
by referencing the name of our collection.

So, how do we create a collection? There are a few ways to do this depending on the nature of
how you would like the collection to behave. For example – you may want to store a table of
barcodes. However, do you want to keep adding barcodes to your table each time, or would
you like to empty the table first before collecting new ones? This is where the Collect and
ClearCollect formulas come in. Extra points for guessing which one does which!

To begin collecting data inside a collection we can use either of these formulas in this example
I will add a Barcode Scanner control to my canvas and find the OnScan property which is
triggered when an item is scanned.

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In the formula bar we can use Collect, then define a name for our collection, then define a
column name (in this case value) followed with the value we’d like to populate into that table
or collection. To do this, I have referenced the control name and enumerated down into its list
of properties where we can find the Barcodes value.

Collect(colScannedItems, {Value: BarcodeReader1.Barcodes})

We can view our collection inside the Power Apps Studio under the Variables tab in the App
Authoring Menu along with any other variables that exist in our app.

Just like other sources of data we can reference our colScannedItems in other fomulas where
we can use our own enumeration to find specific values. For example I could retrieve the first
row of data in my collection by using First(colScannedItems) or maybe I want to retrieve the

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barcode number as text in a text label, I’d populate a text label with
First(colScannedItems).Value

Debugging & Error Handling

Without a doubt, there will come a time where something doesn’t quite work the way you want
it to. Perhaps, when running your app at runtime or after writing what you believe to be the
perfect formula for your control. This is something a citizen developer will have to manage a
lot of the time and Power Apps makes it easy to diagnose and fix.

App Checker
There are multiple ways to diagnose issues or potential improvements to your app that are
built into Power Apps out of the box. The first one is to use the App Checker.

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The App Checker is a pre-set list of instructions that is run by Power Apps to evaluate the app
you have created. It can be accessed from the menu in the top right of the screen where you’ll
have options to either run for the first time, or recheck all if you have already ran it before.

The App Checker breaks your app down into 5 different categories that highlight improvements
and bug fixes you can to your app.

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Formulas
Under the formulas drop-down you’ll find any issues relating to the formulas you have created.
This will highlight any syntax errors such as missing parentheses and also highlight any
formulas that might not work – including the reason why. You may find different variations of
errors here; some are advisory and other might require a compulsory fix.

Runtime
Runtime errors are generated when the app is launched or in play mode within the Power Apps
Studio and will highlight errors such as controls being nonfunctional.

Accessibility
An often-overlooked aspect of app development is meeting accessibility requirements for your
users who maybe visual, hearing or physically impaired (amongst other disabilities that make
working with apps difficult). Power Apps has tools at your disposal to improve accessibility
within your app, such as navigation Z-Order allowing users to navigate through your app using
a keyboard. You’ll find a list of suggestions and improvements you can make under this
category.

Performance
Issues that hinder performance of your app will show here – for instance, data or controls that
take too long to load due to the way they are constructed at runtime, or “loops” and
functionality that falls over due to the way elements of your app may be processed.

Data source
Here, you will find a list of data sources that may have been deleted or changed since the time
your app was first built. You may have controls and functionality in your app that points to data
sources that may need adding, changing or fixing.

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IntelliSense
Error handling is also dealt with during the building process in Power Apps. A more common
area to expect to see errors and bugs might be the formula bar. Just like how IntelliSense can
offer suggestions and tell you what type of data is expected in Parameters, it can also highlight
and announce where you may have made a mistake. This could be due to a number of reasons
including a mismatch of data types (e.g. The formula expected a record, and you provided a
table). It could also be due to a syntax error (e.g. Expected a “)” at the end of the formula).

As a developer its important to understand what causes issues, evaluate your formulas and
begin to understand how you can reach the cause and solve problems.

Look at the example below.

In this instance, we have placed a text string (indicated by the double quotes wrapped around
the formula) in the item’s property of a table. We can see that it is recognised as text due to the
Data Type that is shown on the right. This is where knowledge of the building blocks plays a
part as we should expect that a table value should be placed in this formula.

Also notice how our formula has a squiggly line underneath, just as you’d see when making
spelling mistakes in Microsoft Word. This will indicate where the problem in your formula lies,
but you may see other colored lines such as blue or orange, which can suggest other formatting
issues such as delegation warnings and incompatible operators. This is where I would advise
using the App Checker to understand the errors clearly.

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Do More in Power Apps with Microsoft Power Automate
Power Apps allows you to create mobile applications easily and quickly. Along with your
mobile application, you will probably also need some automation to be done in the
background, for example, sending e-mails when a user clicks on a reservation button.

Simple tasks like this can easily be done in Power Apps, however when more advanced logic is
needed, Microsoft Power Automate offers more flexibility to handle this.

Power Apps integrates very well with Power Automate, and they make their connection via the
Power Apps and Power Automate buttons, each one allowing the other to be started. You can
even use Power Automate to handle some Power Apps maintenance and governance.

For this eBook, its sufficient to be aware that it’s so easy to integrate this Power Platform
component when you want to. Don’t forget to check out our Beginners Guide To Power
Automate eBook when you are ready to head in that direction as this contains a more detailed
step by step on how to setup Power Automate Flows that you can use in context of your Power
Apps applications.

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Publishing & Sharing Your Power App
When your Power App is ready, use the save, publish and share icons.

Your workflow for publishing for the first time would be:

• Build your app

• Save your changes
• Click Publish – to make this the version that people will use
• Share – select who can access the app or view it
• A final step to take if you have linked your app to data (a SharePoint list for example) is
to make sure the data is also shared with your intended group or person. In the example
of SharePoint, make sure you also share the list with the people or person you have
shared the app with.

Once this is done, others will be able to interact and use the app you have created. A tip here is
to use a helpful name, a good icon and share a little about it within the description.

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Power Apps Mobile App
To run a Power App that you have created on your mobile device you’ll need the Power Apps

application via the Google Play Store (for Android devices) or Apple App Store (for Apple

devices).

The first time you start the Power Apps app, it will ask you to sign into your organizational
account. When this is done, all apps that you created, or which have been shared with you will
be displayed.

If you have a couple of apps that you use frequently you can favourite them. You can also set
an app to load automatically when you open the Power Apps Mobile app.

The screenshots below are sourced on the Google Play store (provided by Microsoft) and give

a great example of what a Power App looks like on a mobile device.

If you don’t want to install another app, then don't worry, you can access them via your
browser.

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Licensing of Power Apps
Creating Apps, publishing Apps, using Power Automate within your apps and deciding how
widely used your App are all decisions you will take along the way to your first launch.

One aspect not to overlook is licencing. This aspect varies immensely and is ever changing
within the Microsoft Cloud eco-system so it’s worth spending a little time researching.

Here is the latest (at the time of writing this eBook) pricing sourced directly from Microsoft.

Power Apps Premium

Power Apps Power Apps
(with 2,000-seat
Developer Plan Premium
minimum)

Price FREE $20 per month $12 per month

Build custom apps ✔️ ✔️ ✔️

Run custom
✔️ ✔️ ✔️
websites

Use prebuilt, Use prebuilt,

Use prebuilt, custom,
Connect to your custom, and on- custom, and on-
and on-premises
data premises premises
connectors
connectors connectors

Store and manage Create and access Create and access Create and access
data customer entities customer entities customer entities

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 Use Microsoft 250 MB database 250 MB database 250MB database
Dataverse capacity capacity capacity

750 flows per month

Unlimited within Unlimited within the
Execute workflows within the app
the app context app context
context

Managed
✔️ ✔️
environments

AI Builder service
500 500
credits

One thing to focus on is the minimum level that you may need. For example, if your business is
3 people all wanting to share news items together, you can most likely get by on a licence which
cost less than $20 per month. However, if you are looking to roll out an enterprise-wide security
check-in solution which integrates with the Dataverse for secure permission sharing and scale,
you will be looking at an entirely different level of licence.

There are experts in the marketplace to ask for advice and many communities. Our advice
initially however would be to focus on the minimum you may need and work from there.

For even $5 (subject to the time of writing this eBook) per user per month, you can have access
to Power Apps, Power Automate, SharePoint and Office 365 at present with a Microsoft
Business Basic license, so it’s worth seeing what more you might need before taking a bigger
step.

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What’s Next?
We really appreciate you taking the time to read this eBook. We hope it has given some insight
into what you may need to focus on to build and publish your first Power App. None of the
concepts we have covered are too difficult and are all created to support a non-developer
getting to grips for the first time.

If you’d like more support or to learn more, drop us a line on [email protected] or visit us
on social. Also be sure to check out our other eBooks and learning materials.

But, what’s next? You’re likely to have approached this eBook as a complete beginner to the
world of Low-Code app development and want to jump in straight away. Maybe you’ve got
ideas for a project and app you’d like to implement in your business but are really wanting to
build your very first app.

We’ve built the perfect course designed just for you, with the intention of taking you through
building your very first real-world application that you can use in your business, whilst going
in-depth into the core parts of app development in Power Apps. You’ll learn to build a clock
in/clock out system that utilizes multiple screens that show records, utilize timers and
functionality and build reusable components that work across your entire app library.

It sounds like a lot, but we’ve already helped thousands of people learn the Power Platform
and we’d recommend getting stuck into the Power Apps JumpStart Challenge. See you there!

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