Microsoft Power Apps and Power Automate

PART 1 - Power Platform Overview

Introduction to the Power Platform

The Microsoft Power Platform consists of Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Virtual Agents and Power Pages. These applications are powerful alone, yet together, they can be used to create end-to-end business solutions. In this module we will see how Power Apps and Power Automate fit within this Platform.

Topics:

• Overview of the Microsoft Power Platform
• Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Virtual Agents & Power Pages
• Microsoft Dataverse
• Real world use case of the Power Platform

Power Platform Licensing Guide

The licensing for the Power Platform is not easy to grasp at first. This chapter will provide a nice overview of the licensing system and provide you with all the information you need to calculate any costs.

Topics:

• Licensing Overview
• What is included with existing licensing models?
• Connectors and connections overview
• Standard vs Premium connectors
• extra Add-ons

PART 2 - Power Apps

Introduction to Power Apps

In the world of the information worker, you will handle information that is probably stored across different software suites, like SharePoint, Salesforce, Excel files, Access databases, and so on. Typically, you would like your end-users to be able to browse and/or modify this data in a general user-friendly, and preferably mobile, way. Microsoft Power Apps allows people, without any development skills, to build applications that are mobile friendly on top of their data. Other people can then be allowed to use the built application to browse the data and maybe even modify it.

Topics:

• What is Power Apps?
• What are environments?
• Canvas Apps vs. Model-Driven Apps
• Getting started with Canvas Apps using templates
• Power Apps on mobile
• LAB - Getting started with Canvas Apps

Building Canvas Apps with Power Apps

In this module, we'll explore the capabilities when building a canvas app using Power Apps Studio. It also introduces students to PowerFX, an open-source formula language that allows app makers to add logic to Power Apps. The participants will get familiar with connecting to data sources, creating screens, adding controls, bindings, behavior, ...

Topics:

• Creating Canvas Apps with Power Apps Studio
• Working with connections
• Generating Canvas Apps from your data
• Adding Screens and Screen Controls
• Working with Galleries
• Introduction to Forms
• Working with PowerFX
• LAB - Customizing a Canvas App

Working with Forms in Canvas Apps

In Applications, we often want to view data from some kind of table or list, or add new data to it. In Microsoft Power Apps, this is done using Forms. In this module, we will have a detailed look at the different types of forms that we can use in Power Apps.

Topics:

• Customizing Edit- and Detail Forms
• How do data cards work?
• Data card templates and customization
• Input validation
• Dynamic controls: use formulas to make fields required, hidden, etc.
• LAB - Working with Forms

Data sources and local data in Canvas Apps

When creating Power Apps, you will always use data. Sometimes you will need to integrate multiple data sources. In this module we will have a detailed look at local data and data sources and how to modify this data using functions. You will also learn how to integrate a second data source into your forms.

Topics:

• Configuring data sources
• Using variables and collections
• Data source manipulations
• Manually patching data sources
• Handling and preventing errors
• Refreshing data and searching
• Data source delegation
• LAB - Take control of data sources

Configuring and Publishing Canvas Apps

There are several options to configure Power Apps. Think about the screen size and orientation, or about implementing a responsive design. In this chapter, we will have a look at those options. We will also see the possibilities for sharing and embedding Power Apps.

Topics:

• Configuring Canvas Apps
• Saving, sharing and publishing Apps
• Sharing and permissions
• Use your Power App from SharePoint pages
• Embed your Power App as a Teams app
• App analytics
• LAB - Publishing and Sharing a Power App

PART 3 - Power Automate

Introduction to Power Automate

Power Automate allows you to create automatic processes, called flows. A process can start automatically when something happens - for instance 'a new mail arrives' - but also at the click of a button or on a schedule. We can use the context information from that trigger to perform one or more actions, connecting to any data source we would like - Outlook, SharePoint, Twitter, Dynamics 365, ...). All this can be done without having to write a single line of code.

Topics:

• What is Power Automate?
• Flow types
• Flow building blocks
• Using Connections in Flows
• Trigger types
• Basic Actions
• The Power Automate Mobile App

Building Basic Flows

In this module, the participants will learn how to build and customize basic flows, either starting from a template or from scratch. We will see how to use Teams, SharePoint, Exchange and other types of connectors in a Flow.

Topics:

• Building flows from Templates or from Blank
• Start a flow when something happens with Automatic triggers
• Start a flow with the push of a button or for a selected item with Manual triggers
• Run a flow on a schedule with a Scheduled trigger
• Flow action connection basics
• Adding a simple condition
• Monitoring Flows and fixing errors
• LAB - Building Custom Flows

Popular connections and actions

This chapter will provide you with an overview of interesting connectors and utilities you can use with Power Automate.

Topics:

• list data and document management in SharePoint
• File management in OneDrive
• File manipulation in Word and Excel
• User and Group manipulation in Office 365 and Azure AD
• Connecting to relational databases

Modern Approvals with Power Automate

This module will show you how to approve content with Power Automate. You will also learn how to use the approval outcome to then publish, move or alter the approved item as you see fit. Approvals can be used to publish SharePoint documents, to allow Teams messages to be posted or to finally get an approval for that well-deserved holiday.

Topics:

• Approval with Power Automate
• Approval types
• Approving and Rejecting
• Processing the approval outcome
• LAB - Modern Approval Processes

Power Automate Patterns

With basic Flow knowledge and coding available to us, we can take our Flows to the next level. This chapter will show you some practical scenarios and advanced patterns when designing your Flow.

Topics:

• Advanced trigger and action configurations
• Using HTTP connectors to call APIs or trigger other flows
• Variables and Data operations
• Actions, Conditions, Parallelism and Loops
• Flow error handling
• Limits of flows and connections

Workflow Definition Language

You can build great flows through the UI of Microsoft Power Automate. This UI is built on top of the Workflow Definition Language. In this module, we will see the basics of this language, and explore some possibilities to enrich flows with it.

Topics:

• Introduction to the Workflow Definition Language
• Expressions, Operators and Functions
• Using Expressions in Flows
• LAB - Using Patterns and the Workflow Definition Language

Sharing Flows and Flow Permissions

In this module you will see best practices for sharing and permissions for Flows that have been created in your company. You will learn about the impact that sharing has and the different sharing permissions that are available.

• Sharing a Flow
• Co-Ownership and Team Flows
• Flow permissions
• Connections and credentials
• Run only users and connections

PART 4 - Power Platform Integration and Management

SharePoint Form Customization

SharePoint will often be a data source used in Power Apps. Just like InfoPath was used to customize SharePoint forms on SharePoint Server, we can use Power Apps for this purpose in SharePoint Online. This chapter will show you how to customize the SharePoint list or library forms.

Topics:

• Customizing a SharePoint Form
• SharePoint Integration Control
• Differentiate your Form based on the mode: view, edit, new
• Adding dynamic behavior
• Wide screen SharePoint Forms
• LAB - Customizing a SharePoint List Form

Power Platform Integrations

Power Apps and Power Automate can be seen as individual products, but they can also be integrated in one another. This module will illustrate how you can use Flows to augment your Power Apps and vice versa. We will also explore other integration possibilities with the Power Platform and see how we can bundle Apps and Flows together in Solutions.

Topics:

• Start a Flow from Power Apps
• Open a Power App with a push notification from Power Automate
• Trigger Flows from Power BI
• Embed a Power BI report into your Power App
• Embed a Power App in Power BI and integrate with your data
• Bundling Apps and Flows in Solutions
• LAB - Combining a Canvas App with a Power Automate Flow