Microsoft PowerApps has exploded in popularity amongst enterprise development teams looking to build custom line-of-business apps faster.
PowerApps delivered over $10 billion worth productivity benefits to Microsoft customers already. Over 500K custom apps have been built leveraging it.
94% of the Fortune 500 companies use PowerApps demonstrating the tremendous value it provides for app innovation without overhauling existing systems.
With its low-code application development capabilities, PowerApps empowers anyone to create enterprise grade apps connecting data across platforms like Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Azure and more!
For developers early in their careers, mastering PowerApps can unlock tremendous opportunities to improve productivity, collaborate better in teams, deliver solutions faster satisfying growing business app demand.
Let‘s explore core building blocks of Microsoft PowerApps as platform for modern app development:
PowerApps Key Components and Capabilities
1. Canvas Apps
Visually build mobile and web apps tailored to business goals leveraging an intuitive, **drag-and-drop interface** in Microsoft PowerApps without writing code.
Over 300+ prebuilt connectors make it easy to connect data from services like Microsoft SQL Server, Azure Storage, Office 365 amongst hundreds of other data sources.
2. Model-Driven Apps
When more tailored, structured apps with complex business logic are required, leverage Common Data Service entities with **Model-driven apps in PowerApps**.
They provide standard UI controls through model-driven forms to ensure consistency and reuse.
3. Common Data Service
The Common Data Service allows you to store and manage **cloud entities within Microsoft Dataverse** used by PowerApps providing structured database capabilities.
With its business application platform capabilities like security, analytics, APIs and workflows, it enables building enterprise level apps and even custom SaaS applications!
4. Power Automate
Streamline workflows from within apps built on PowerApps Studio by integrating it with **Microsoft Power Automate**.
It provides a consistent way to trigger business logic across various services and data sources through automated flows without writing code.
Now that you understand PowerApps key components let‘s explore the most valuable online courses and training options available to master it…
1. PowerApps Tutorial for Beginners
Mike Van Niekerk’s PowerApps course on Udemy is the top-rated tutorial covering beginner to advanced skills in app development with 137 lectures spanning 11.5 hours of video content.
Mike is a Microsoft MVP award winner who has delivered over 500 PowerApps enterprise deployments making him unmatched in real world expertise!
In his bestselling PowerApps beginners course, he teaches:
- Setting up PowerApps studio
- Connecting to data sources
- Designing user interfaces faster leveraging templates
- Testing and debugging apps before deployment
- Publishing and sharing apps securely with teams
- Creating multi-table, enterprise grade, model-driven apps
- Integrating Microsoft Flow for workflow automation
The course format includes over 50+ hands-on exercises to apply concepts allowing you to build fully functional apps solving real business problems!
With 24,000+ ratings and an average 4.7 star review rating, it comes highly recommended by enterprise dev teams globally making this amongst the top PowerApps tutorials for beginners.
2. The Complete Guide to Microsoft PowerApps
Neil Morris‘s 38 hour comprehensive course available on Udemy dives deep into all aspects – from core concepts to developing feature-rich enterprise apps with PowerApps aligned to security and scalability best practices.
Neil brings an impressive enterprise PowerApps portfolio with 500+ app development and implementation experiences globally.
In his highest rated PowerApps course, he shares hard-won insights into:
- Step-by-step environment configuration
- Architecting solutions across canvas and model driven apps
- Integrating 100+ platform and cloud data sources
- Building automated flows with Microsoft Power Automate
- Implementing ALM using Solutions and Source Control tools like Github
- Managing enterprise governance requirements
With over 500 lectures organized through 38 chapters and real world examples, this course is invaluable for preparing PowerApps certifications and exploring its full capability!
