Microsoft Power Apps

Power Apps Features for Developers: Top 10 Highlights

Evelyn Dennis

Power Apps is constantly evolving to provide developers with powerful tools to enhance productivity and improve app performance. In this blog, we’ll explore the top 10 features introduced in 2024 that every Power Apps developer should know about. From simplifying formula creation to enabling seamless collaboration, these updates are designed to streamline your development process.

1. Comment-Generated Formulas

This feature simplifies PowerFx formula creation by allowing developers to input natural language prompts. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced developer, this feature reduces complexity and boosts productivity.

For example, you can input: ‘Filter the gallery to show items where the status is Active.’ Power Apps will automatically generate the corresponding formula: ‘Filter(GalleryItems, Status = “Active”)‘.

Availability: December 2024 (2024 Release Wave 2)

Reference: What’s new in Power Apps: October 2024 Feature Update – Microsoft Power Platform Blog

Power Apps Features for Developers

2. Real-Time Co-Authoring

Collaborating on canvas apps has never been easier! With real-time co-authoring, multiple makers can now edit an app simultaneously, just like in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. This feature significantly speeds up development and fosters better teamwork.

Example: If you and a colleague are working on a canvas app, you’ll both be able to see each other’s changes in real-time, making collaboration seamless and efficient.

Availability: June 2024 (2024 Release Wave 1)

Reference: Work together in real time to create canvas apps | Microsoft Learn

3. Customizable Offline Profiles

Optimize your offline-enabled apps by selecting specific columns for each table. This reduces unnecessary data load, ensuring a smoother and more efficient experience for users, even when they’re offline.

Example: A field agent app that only needs a subset of columns can be customized to download only the essential data, reducing load time and improving offline performance.

Availability: December 2024 (2024 Release Wave 2)

Reference: Select columns downloaded on mobile devices | Microsoft Learn

4. Code View for Canvas App Functionality

Power Apps introduces a Code View that allows developers to inspect, share, and copy control code easily using a YAML-based format. This feature is invaluable for understanding app functionality at a granular level.

Example: To view the code for a specific control, right-click on it in the tree view and select ‘View Code (Preview)’. This makes it easy to share and modify control code.

Availability: October 2024 (2024 Release Wave 2)

Reference: Use code view for canvas app controls (preview) – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn

Visuals:

  • To view the code for a control, right-click the control in the tree view or directly on the screen, and then select View Code (Preview).

To add a new control from the copied code, right-click on the screen where you want to place the new control, and then select Paste Code (Preview).

5. WYSIWYG Data Modeling with Copilot

Create tables and relationships visually with Copilot’s WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) data modeling feature. Copilot generates Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs), making complex data modeling easier and more intuitive.

Settings:

  1. Open Power Apps
  2. Invoke Copilot
  3. Create a Table
    1. Prompt
    1. Define Relationship
  4. Visualize Relationships
  5. Refine and Update

Example: With a few clicks, you can generate an ERD that visually represents your data tables and their relationships, making the process of creating and managing data models faster and simpler.

Availability: June 2024 (2024 Release Wave 1)

Reference: Visualize and work with complex data using copilot | Microsoft Learn

Visuals:

Describe the solution requirements.

The copilot will generate the ERD (Entity Relationship Diagram) based on the requirements

An AI-generated table containing sample data.

Drag and drop the entities to establish a relationship.

6. Seamless Pipeline Setup

Setting up deployment pipelines is now faster than ever. In less than 60 seconds, you can automate solution transitions between development, testing, and production environments, ensuring smoother releases and better version control.

Example: Set up a pipeline to automate your app’s deployment from development to production, reducing the risk of human error and ensuring smoother transitions.

Availability: June 2024 (2024 Release Wave 1)

Reference: Set up pipelines in Power Platform – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn

7. Canvas App Insights with Monitor

Monitor your app’s performance and get actionable insights to improve its functionality with the new Monitor tool. This feature helps identify issues and recommends improvements, ensuring a better user experience.

Example: After deploying an app, use the Monitor tool to check performance metrics and receive recommendations to optimize the app’s responsiveness.

Availability: December 2024 (2024 Release Wave 2)

Reference: Get valuable insights and recommendations for your canvas app using Monitor | Microsoft Learn

8. GitHub ALM Integration

With GitHub integration, Power Apps now supports Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), enabling developers to implement version control, continuous integration (CI), and continuous deployment (CD) workflows.

Example: By linking your Power Apps project to a GitHub repository, you can manage source code, automate deployments, and monitor testing processes in one unified platform.

Setting Up ALM in Power Apps with GitHub

  1. Create a GitHub Repository
  2. Install Power Platform Build Tools
  3. Export Solutions from Power Apps
  4. Set Up a CI/CD Pipeline
  5. Configure GitHub Actions
  6. Automate Testing
  7. Monitor and Maintain

Availability: September 2024 (2024 Release Wave 1)

Reference: Available GitHub Actions for Microsoft Power Platform development – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn

9. Smart Paste in Model-Driven Apps

Streamline data entry in model-driven apps with the new Smart Paste feature. This feature automatically suggests inputs based on the content copied to your clipboard, saving time and reducing manual entry errors.

Example: If you copy a list of addresses into your clipboard, Smart Paste will automatically fill out the corresponding fields in your model-driven app, making data entry faster and more accurate.

Availability: September 2024 (2024 Release Wave 1)

Reference: Use Copilot’s form fill assistance feature in model-driven apps – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn

Visuals:

The Smart Paste feature suggests inputs for the fields in the form by analyzing the copied text and the form structure.

To accept all suggestions on the open tab of the form, on the notification bar, select Accept all suggestions.

10. SQL Server Procedure Integration

You can now call SQL Server stored procedures directly in PowerFx without relying on Power Automate, simplifying the app development process and improving performance.

Example: The following PowerFx formula demonstrates how to call a stored procedure: ClearCollect(ResultCollection, SQLConnection.spMyStoredProcedure(param1: TextInput1.Text).ResultSets.Table1).

Availability: September 2024 (2024 Release Wave 1)

Reference: Call SQL Server stored procedures directly in Power Fx (Preview) – Microsoft Power Platform Blog

Example:

ClearCollect(
    ResultCollection,
    SQLConnection.spMyStoredProcedure(
        param1: TextInput1.Text
    ).ResultSets.Table1
)

Select the stored procedure, as shown in the image below.

Below is an example of reference code that you can use in the Power Fx formula bar

Conclusion

The 2024 Power Apps features offer developers powerful tools to improve efficiency, collaboration, and app performance. These updates, including real-time co-authoring, enhanced offline capabilities, and better integration with GitHub and SQL Server, will significantly streamline your development process and improve your app’s functionality.

Stay ahead of the curve by exploring these features today. For detailed guides and video tutorials, visit Microsoft Learn or watch the latest demo videos on Sysfore’s YouTube channel.

Power Apps: Unlocking Offline Capability for Robust Mobile Applications

Evelyn Dennis

Introduction

In today’s dynamic business environment, many professionals, especially those in field sales, service, and remote support roles, often operate in areas with limited or no internet connectivity. To ensure productivity and data integrity in such scenarios, applications need to seamlessly transition between online and offline modes. Microsoft Power Apps, a platform for building custom business applications, offers tools to achieve this. The challenge lies in enabling the mobile Apps to store data locally, monitor network connectivity changes, and synchronize data seamlessly when connectivity is restored, ensuring a smooth user experience and data consistency.

Power Apps Offline Capability
Power Apps Offline Capability

Problem Statement

Traditional applications often struggle to provide robust offline functionality, even custom-built native mobile applications with custom code can be unreliable at times due to network connectivity issues or device limitations. For professionals in industries such as manufacturing, distribution, engineering, and medical supplies, with large field sales, service, and support teams working in remote locations, the inability to access or input data offline can lead to significant inefficiencies and data loss. Challenges include remote inventory management, field service operations, and real-time data collection, all of which are hindered by connectivity constraints. A reliable offline-capable application must address these issues by:

  1. Storing data locally for uninterrupted access.
  2. Detecting changes in network connectivity.
  3. Synchronizing offline data with the server once connectivity is restored.

Dataverse vs. Collections: A Comparative Approach

Power Apps Offline Capability

Dataverse is the superior choice for building scalable, efficient Power Apps with offline functionality. It simplifies development, ensures a smoother user experience, and supports future scalability.

Solution: Implementing Offline Capability

To achieve offline functionality in Power Apps:

  1. Use Dataverse for data storage, leveraging its out-of-the-box offline capabilities.
  2. Configure offline profiles and sync filters to manage data access and updates effectively.
  3. Detect network connectivity status using built-in tools and trigger synchronization processes upon reconnection.

Video Demonstration

For a step-by-step guide to implementing offline capabilities in Power Apps Canvas applications, watch this video on Sysfore’s Official YouTube Channel.

Microsoft Power Pages Launched

HABY JOSEPH

The most powerful way to publish and share your ideas. 

microsoft-power-pages

Microsoft has just recently made it easy for their creators to obtain a brand-new platform designed for building affordable business-centric websites, named Microsoft Power Pages (MPP). Whether you have a low-code plan or are a professional developer working on the project, the initiatives taken by this company will empower you to create engaging content more easily and swiftly. So, this affordable and scalable solution empowers you to build business-centric websites easily and quickly. 

power-platform-page-cycle

Streamline business processes and easily automate workflows using low-code development tools. 

Power Pages makes it easier for organizations to rapidly create and manage beautiful and highly customizable websites without technical expertise from IT. This solution is significantly different from Power Apps Templates, a feature of PowerApps, which only allowed users to quickly create external portals. Power Pages takes the portal experience even further by providing much more powerful capabilities for page creation using a visual, low-code model that does not require any coding skills at all. This allows employees or customers to easily build their own pages or for IT professionals to customize applications on behalf of their organization, with advanced security capabilities built right in along with modern design tools and other customizations that larger organizations need. 

Low-code web development is not just useful for basic projects like a site to showcase a company profile or use as an e-commerce platform for other content! With Power Pages, you can do that and so much more such as support enterprise-wide, professional solutions at scale.
– Charles Lamanna, Corporate Vice President 

Power-Pages-Buil-Without-Boundaries

Build powerful business websites in minutes 

With an adaptable extensibility path for Microsoft Power Platform, it is now much simpler across broad varieties of industries to streamline business processes and enhance efficiency through automated workflows to ultimately streamline business processes and streamline end-to-end business procedures for any company. Microsoft Power Platform is far better by itself. Users can now complete comprehensive low-code business processes and completely automate workflows that generate a seamless end-to-end business solution for your company. Microsoft Power Platform functions together perfectly. 

Power-Pages-Modern-Secure-Responsive

Microsoft Power Pages Features in a Nutshell 

  • A powerful design studio that allows you to customize your power pages site in just a few clicks. 
  • Create your own layouts and styles and preview the changes in real-time. 
  • Customize your website without needing to code. This makes creating a website as easy as designing a PowerPoint Slideshow. 
  • Choose a style that fits your brand. Choose from over many pre-built themes that can be customized and extended to match your brand. 
  • Publish your website to the web and get your new site up and running in minutes using unlimited content blocks and pages. 
  • Design your own website pages with drag-and-drop technology. 
  • A one-stop solution for website building, modeling, visualizing and publishing. 
  • Save time in achieving your goals: Create professional modern-looking, engaging and interactive websites within a few minutes. 
  • Make your website a central hub for all your business information. 
  • Create a powerful site that drives conversions and increases sales. 
  • Build a site with a single click and focus on business. 
  • Create responsive and engaging pages that can be viewed on any device. 
  • Highly customizable, drag & drop user interface. 
Power-Pages-Easy-for all

Limitations of Using CMS in Website Development 

  • Plugin and widget dependency and hidden costs 

Users must be dependent on plugins and widgets for most of their functionalities and charges to access full features. 

  • Site load speed and Maintenance 

Running a CMS site takes a tremendous amount of effort to maintain, from customized configurations and plugins, installed themes, site configuration and security updates. 

  • Common vulnerabilities  

To name a few are Brute Force Attack, SQL Injection, Cross-Site Scripting, DDoS Attack, File Inclusion Exploits, Directory Traversal 

  • Scalability and functional limitations 

When software systems and data sources become too much to handle, CMS is unlikely to integrate well with the workflow of the larger ecosystem so having a good system in place is vital. If you have too many users using the system or are using it for a specific purpose, the software will not be able to keep up with system demands. 

Design Studio
Power-Pages-Templates-Design-Studio

There’s a fantastic new feature that’s added in the latest version of Studio that allows you to edit your page layouts more easily. You can add and change components like text, images, sections, lists, forms and more – so we hope this will help you create even better designs going forward. 

The Power Pages design studio is an intuitive interface that enables low-code makers to build and configure rich business web apps. 

Power Pages Themespower-pages-themes-web-builder-platform

Power Pages delivers mobile-ready templates and a fluid visual experience with a supercharged design studio, along with a new, integrated learning hub that quickly enables you to build sites as unique as your business.  

When creating a site, you might have to create, update, or read business information. Consider a page that’s used for collecting feedback, showing a list of available classes, or rescheduling an appointment. Typically this type of information is stored in a database. Microsoft Power Platform has a powerful cloud-based data service called Dataverse. Dataverse not only stores information like a traditional database, but also provides features for security, analytics, automation, and more. 

Power Pages sites are unique, but they have components that use these model-driven app views and forms as a foundation to build interactive, data-driven webpages. 

Run, Scale, and Monitor all your applications. 

Microsoft Azure offers developers a comprehensive and flexible set of cloud technologies and tools in a robust, global-scale infrastructure to create websites, mobile apps, games, and enterprise solutions. You may need help from experts that can help you make important business decisions that will affect your project’s success whether it be about marketing or finance, for example. Finding a trusted source that lets you consult with them regarding complicated matters is the only way you will be able to overcome those obstacles without crashing your vehicle on the first speed bump you come across along the way. Power-Pages-Share-With-Confidence

Our expertise lets you focus on your business website builder platform. 

When visitors come to your site, allow them to securely access and share information using Microsoft’s Dataverse. This cloud-based platform supports improvements on security when adding a layer of protection for data sources within Microsoft Azure. Additionally, you can use it. 

When we think of Microsoft Power Pages, we think of free resources. We love their comprehensive learning material and after the 5-day trial, many people choose to sign up for Office 365 and keep those tools at their fingertips all year round! People love the full control plan because it allows users to create a fully customized website that everyone can use. 

Where customers are using power pages 

  1. FAQ Pages 
  2. Enterprise Websites 
  3. Community Services related websites 
  4. Customer self-service web applications 
  5. Partner/vendor on-boarding, tracking and support 
  6. Interactive and data driven web site for business partners/vendors