Microsoft Power Apps Reviews

We are building many tools, like an audit tool or a dashboard for our operations team, where they input values and store them in some bucket. Instead of doing a web-based application, we are using Microsoft Power Apps as a low-code platform. 

We are also developing a single pane of glass for the operations team that navigates multiple systems in the background through Power Automate Flow, gathers information, and displays it in a grid. This combination of both time-saving, ease-of-use applications, and a single pane of glass provides all the required information to work on.

The most valuable features for us are predominantly on the user interface front. It provides ease of development with many modules. The integration with SharePoint is part of the enterprise package, making it cost-effective. This allows our operations team to use existing functionalities without incurring extra costs. We utilize Microsoft Office licensing to take advantage of PowerApps for sixty to seventy percent of its potential, which is very beneficial.

We are creating a contractor app to allow us to track contractor-related data in an app rather than using Excel emails. Power BI is mainly for the reporting side for dashboard creations and analytics. This is used in a government, specifically a state agency, for managing contractors.

The ability to build our application is valuable. While it is marketed as low-code, no-code, learning how to use the system takes some development skills. However, the solutions are easily integrated with other Microsoft products. If we are using Outlook or Power BI for our reports, the integration is easier because it is within the Microsoft ecosystem. It eliminates different spreadsheets that people use to track the same information. By standardizing the process, it becomes more efficient.

I have encountered numerous challenging use cases with Microsoft Power Apps, primarily in HR or operations and management. Most of the projects rely on document uploads and approval levels. I have implemented all these logics using Microsoft Power Apps.

Two essential features of Microsoft Power Apps are the user experience and the development area. It is easy to build an application within a few hours or a few days, even with complex requirements. With Microsoft Power Apps, there are three different areas: Canvas, Model Driven, and Power Pages. Power Pages, previously known as Power Portal, has been moved into a separate module. Canvas Apps provide complete user design flexibility with many connectors to integrate into Microsoft Power Apps, making it efficient to fetch and update information from various data sources such as Dataverse, Excel, SharePoint, and Azure. This helps in building applications with less effort, as it offers plenty of connectors. It is compatible with Outlook, Gmail, and Office 365 users.

I work with Microsoft Power Apps for multiple solutions. The first one is automating the process by emailing our users. In our company, we receive some Excel files with the email addresses of our users. With Microsoft Power Apps, I create a data flow and define what type of user we have, like if the user is premium or if the user has to pay some charges or not, and based on that, I send different emails to the users. That is one process. The other process we use is Microsoft Power Apps, mostly with Microsoft Power Pages platform, to create a UX.

The tool's most valuable feature stems from the fact that in our company, we spend a lot of time sending emails and get involved in identifying what type of users we have. The most valuable feature of the tool is that, with the budget, we can reduce the time we invest in our various processes.

The one that we currently have is only to SharePoint Online as we want to be able to have analysts be able to maintain data, and we want a graphical user interface, a GUI front end, to do that. Especially if it's interfaced with PowerBI, it allows analysts to have a research tool to identify what data needs to be updated right there, and to then be able to do that through PowerApps is a huge benefit. Right now, we're only able to write back to SharePoint Online.

Right now, it's only write-back to a SharePoint Online list, however, I have proof of concepts. I've got a business case that I'm currently trying to get pushed through. I've got other services within our organization that I need to get buy-in from so that we can get this business case approved and get the funding.

Initially, we used it mainly to wrap up Power BI reports for BetterView, creating straightforwardapps. About a year ago, it evolved into more robust apps for collecting information, particularly for logistics. We developed apps to streamline workflow and gather data for specific operations.

We then built a more advanced app that allowed us to communicate with customers—connecting workflow issues, creating problem reports, and sharing shipment updates via SharePoint, which integrates easily with Microsoft Power Apps.

Power Apps is used mostly locally, within one or two departments. Each app is developed locally, and it’s not used for enterprise-wide purposes. In our organization of about a thousand people, around six developers work with Power Apps. There are likely a couple of hundred users across all apps.

Over time, it became a key part of our operations, and we've developed around three or four apps in total. However, the main use case remains to display Power BI reports. By wrapping reports within Power Apps, we can present them in different formats to create better dashboards, making the process more efficient

PowerApps is currently the best low-code platform because of Microsoft's investments—not just in low-code development but also in generative AI in order to accelerate development. The Power Platform integrates really well with all the new technologies, including AI. It's maturing fast, though I haven't had the chance to fully compare it with others like Mendix, which has been around for a while. To make a completely informed and unbiased decision on which is better, I'd need more experience with other platforms. But from my perspective, for most customers, it ticks a lot of boxes, especially in terms of rapid development.

Power Platform also supports developers when they hit the limits of drag-and-drop features. If you want to build something more native, that’s doable too. Our use cases vary depending on the customer.

Because we're a company that helps customers automate processes using Power Platform. Power Platform has a very industry-agnostic nature, meaning it can be applied across various sectors—whether it's healthcare, banking, construction, automotive, or manufacturing. Wherever there are processes still relying on paper, currency, or Excel that need automation, PowerApps is a good fit.

Power Platform has a range of products—apps, CloudFlows, Power BI, Pages, and now the Copilot edition. But the ones I use most often, especially with our customers, are apps combined with CloudFlows running in the background. We're also seeing a rise in conversations about Copilot.

In apps, we tend to jump in when things get critical in context, especially when building enterprise applications for our customers. We often have to go the extra mile in terms of design and user experience. We don’t usually rely solely on out-of-the-box features. Instead, we bring our own designs and improvements in that area. Of course, we start with what Power Platform provides out of the box, but in some cases, we have to build our own components and create custom experiences.

The favorite feature among most makers is the PowerApps Studio, where they can get started and create. For myself, my role is a bit different—I’m more involved in presales, selling the platform to customers, showing demos, and focusing on governance and the security aspects of the platform as a whole. So I have fewer hands-on tasks with Power Apps, and I don’t really have a specific favorite feature. However, I do enjoy the overall experience of creating applications.

We mainly use Power Apps for small applications. Ninety-nine percent of the work is on Internet or intranet solutions, specifically E2E and B2E. These solutions are designed to be developed quickly without being overly complex or requiring high performance or extensive handling of large datasets. In addition to these scenarios, integrating with other platform tools like Power BI and SharePoint enhances the solution. We generally avoid developing for B2C or B2B scenarios due to licensing issues and the nature of those markets.

Power Apps facilitates form creation, application planning, and automation. We have encountered scenarios where automation was crucial, such as managing emails according to SOPs and handling basic ERP tasks like user password changes and role assignments. Power Apps and Power Automate have automated these processes efficiently.