Getting to know PowerApps

Over the last couple of months, I have been creating more apps for my Auckland, New Zealand clients using Microsoft PowerApps. The flexibility and speed of development make PowerApps perfect for the New Zealand market. New Zealand companies typically have smaller budgets and engage in iterative software projects. PowerApps are perfect for allowing companies to improve their software on the move, and with the ability to save content back to a SharePoint list and to produce a Mobile App, make PowerApps applications great value for money.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the latest changes in PowerApps as of January 2018.

Managed Metadata Columns are now supported for SharePoint Lists.

As Managed Metadata is useful for collecting cross-organisation tags it is great to finally see Managed Metadata Columns supported in PowerApps. There is some work to be done yet, but the latest release is showing good progress. You can now add new terms via a PowerApp field and select multiple terms for your Managed Metadata column. The presentation still needs some work, when adding multiple terms however!

Loading Times

The loading times of PowerApps were slow six months ago. With each new realise the loading times are getting faster and faster. When customising a SharePoint list check out the Delayed Load option. Click on File > App Settings > Experimental Features > Delayed Load to see the feature in action.

Customisations

Although coding every element takes a bit to get used to, I am starting to enjoy the expandability of being able to add code to any field, gallery or button you want. After working with InfoPath for years, I learnt to live within the limitations of the product. It seems to me that there just might be a way to do anything within a PowerApp. I like it!

Connectivity between Systems

Sharing data between multiple Enterprise applications or even between different Microsoft applications used to be a notoriously difficult and expensive process. PowerApps connectors are making life easier for all of us. You can easily pull content from multiple Line of Business applications, and display them on the same screen using PowerApps connectors. This to me is the killer feature of PowerApps! There is even a connector for Project Online!

Mobile in Minutes

I spent years putting together mobile apps using Eclipse and PhoneGap. PowerApps lets you get an app published and on to your user's mobiles within minutes. You can save your data back to a SharePoint list and then add workflows via Flow or SharePoint Designer! At the moment it is not dead easy to add images to a SharePoint list from your mobile, but you can do it with some perseverance. And Microsoft are working on improving image functionality in the near future.

Rules

I find the rules functionality to be a little clunky, but it is very useful for giving you code tips to add to your PowerApps fields manually. I use the Rules tab to create a rule, then I copy the code and paste it directly into my own PowerApps fields. I have found it faster to add a snippet of code to multiple fields in a form, then to add multiple rules to the same fields.

Copy Copy Copy

The best way to learn how to create a PowerApp is to start with the demos or samples available on the PowerApps site. Create an App based upon one of the templates, then steal the code from this sample app and apply it to your own blank test App.

Early Days

PowerApps is still in the early stages of development, but the speed at which the improvements are coming is very heartening indeed.