PowerApps for SharePoint Users What you need to know

Wes Preston – MVP, Consultant @idubbs idubbs.com/blog trecstone.com

Abstract Have you been a user of SharePoint Designer? InfoPath? Access Services? How are you building business solutions today? Microsoft PowerApps is the successor to InfoPath and targets the business user and power user gaps left between SharePoint’s out of the box capabilities and custom development. SharePoint users need to understand how Microsoft PowerApps adds business value by extending SharePoint: from building mobile apps, to custom forms, to powerful business solutions. While PowerApps and SharePoint integration is relatively new, it is rapidly changing and is a tool critical for SharePoint users to understand.

Objective Want you to walk away knowing where PowerApps will fit in your SharePoint environment Not going to get into details on how things work or steps for building PowerApps

Agenda What is PowerApps Scenarios Feature Review

What Is PowerApps? Part of the Business Platform … the ‘Power Suite’ (?) Forms and application platform NOT exclusively for SharePoint

Connectors and Gateways Microsoft Inspire 9/14/2018 4:39 AM Dynamics 365 Office 365 Flow PowerApps Power BI Common Data Service Pro dev extensibility Connectors and Gateways The business application platform includes 3 primary solutions which allow citizen developers the opportunity to Measure, Act, and Automate line of business solutions where their data is located. PowerApps is the SaaS solution that allows the power users to create apps and customize forms without the need to write a single line of code. Microsoft Flow gives us a solutions for Business Process Automation targeted at Business users Three integrated clouds – Office 365, Azure and Dynamics 365 – tied together with PowerApps, Flow and CDS give us a huge advantage over competitors © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

9/14/2018 4:39 AM PowerApps Advantages Part of the cloud deployment approach – constant updates Part of a family of tools (Flow and PowerBI) that add automation and visualization 100+ connectors Modern look and feel Very mobile friendly © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

Design and usage intended for end users If you were comfortable with Excel and Access formulas, you’ll be right at home with PowerApps formulas Literally seconds to tweak layout, fields, and deploy

PowerApps Web Portal Available online only Where you manage apps, connections, etc. This is where you start… after you log in. The site has great documentation to get started… Click on ‘Learn’

PowerApps Studio Windows or Web

PowerApps Mobile Client Apps available on iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile Individual PowerApps can be pinned to the home page Links from SharePoint Mobile App

Why should SharePoint users care about PowerApps?

Use Cases Replace and customize default SharePoint forms Build apps on SharePoint data Take your data mobile Replace SharePoint ‘apps’ and views

Power Users and Citizen Developers The gap between OOB and custom solutions SharePoint Designer Visual page/form designer, conditional formatting, etc. Workflows InfoPath Forms creation Dynamic, business logic Capable of more complex customization Access Services JSLink and Client Side Rendering Didn’t get a lot of traction Code – Tipping towards development SharePoint Designer: 2013 is last release still works with 2016 still used for some workflows InfoPath: 2013 client and forms services are last release Supported for a while 2026?

Demo: Embedded Forms

Embedded in SharePoint 9/14/2018 4:39 AM Embedded in SharePoint Smooth transition between platforms In SharePoint In PowerApps We’ll show this during the demo… © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

Try Again… Deactivate or delete the embedded forms Settings -> Form Settings In PowerApps – Roll back to a previous version of forms

Demo: Build Apps on SharePoint Data Wizard currently defaults to phone layout – take your data mobile

Digital Transformation Rethink and rebuild: InfoPath -> PowerApps SharePoint pages and views -> PowerApps Embedded PowerBI Microsoft Flow provides ‘actions’ Consider talking about: Web-based configuration SharePoint Designer Custom development

Digital Transformation SharePoint solutions: Multiple pages and views Potential customizations (JS Link, code) User-targeted functionality

Feature Review Embedded forms (coming REALLY soon) Web part (coming) Rules Oh yea, Microsoft Flow

Notes: Sharing NOT public-facing - Only tenant users Can be shared and accessed across the organization Can be shared with all, or specific users ‘View’-level security Environments offer additional control For example: audience-targeted apps (users or managers)

Notes: Connections and Gateways Connections: Work with services and data LOTS of connection types available Gateways: Allow access to on-prem data (SQL for now) https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en- us/blog/connect-to-your-on-premises-data- sources-using-on-premises-data-gateway-from- powerapps/ More on gateways later…

Food for Thought: Data Options Continue using SharePoint lists and sites Move data to SQL Use the Common Data Service

Disclaimers PowerApps will continue to change… rapidly Stuff DOES change day to day The rabbit hole is deeeeeeep… Changes day to day, will get more stable but still have updates

PowerApps roadmap - highlights Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2016 9/14/2018 4:39 AM PowerApps roadmap - highlights H2 Calendar 2017 Calendar 2018 Create and use embedded PowerApps as custom list forms in SharePoint Online Utilize attachments, multi-select fields, and images in your SharePoint Online driven PowerApps Easily embed PowerApps in SharePoint Online pages with web parts and within Power BI reports Use the Rules explorer for easier expression authoring Tenant-wide admin resource management, app usage analytics, and package export/import across environments Easily connect to Azure App Services & APIM Use server-side business logic for validation rules and easy defaulting Create model-driven apps Support for GDPR compliance Government cloud deployment SQL - Support for stored procs and views Enhanced application lifecycle management with sandbox environments General data protection regulation (EU privacy rules) Roadmap is for general information purposes only and subject to change © 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

Additional Roadmap Updates Custom forms: Aiming for First Release by end of NEXT WEEK Flow launch panel now in First Release Flow and PowerApps buttons in lists and libraries coming out of under ‘Preview features’ soon Multi-value support and Taxonomy write support coming by end of year Attachments are read-only for now, working on read-write early in 2018

Upcoming webinars Webinar listing: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/tutorials/webinars-listing/ Nov. 9 - Getting Started: Office Graph Templates Nov. 14 - Getting Started: Using Connector Documentation Nove. 28 - Getting Started: PowerApps Community Opportunities

References and Resources https://powerapps.microsoft.com/ Some slide content from my Ignite session - Thanks to Microsoft’s Cathy Dew My Blog http://www.idubbs.com/blog/powerapps-and-flows/