Microsoft Power Apps for Beginners From Idea to App!
Summary
TLDRThis tutorial introduces Microsoft Power Apps, a tool for building custom organizational apps without coding expertise. It guides beginners through accessing Power Apps, uploading an Excel file to create a data table, and customizing the app interface. The video covers app sharing, editing permissions, and integrating with Microsoft Teams, emphasizing a hands-on approach in a developer environment for practice.
Takeaways
- 📚 This tutorial introduces Microsoft Power Apps, a tool for building custom apps without extensive technical knowledge.
- 🚀 The video is a beginner's guide, starting from the basics and walking through the process step by step.
- 🔗 Microsoft Power Apps can be accessed via a Microsoft 365 account, and it's possible to start for free.
- 💡 Power Apps is likened to an 'app factory', simplifying the creation of apps for various organizational tasks.
- 🖥️ Apps created can be for the web or mobile, and the tutorial covers how to share them in different ways.
- 🔑 The video demonstrates accessing Power Apps through the Microsoft 365 app launcher or via a direct link.
- 📈 The process of uploading an Excel file to create a table in Power Apps is shown, which can then be used to build an app.
- 🛠️ Customizing the app involves selecting and formatting various components, such as changing colors and adding images.
- 🔍 The tutorial covers how to add search functionality and how to manipulate data fields, like turning text fields into dropdowns.
- 🔄 The importance of saving and publishing changes in the app for others to see is highlighted.
- 📲 The video concludes with sharing the app, adding it to Microsoft Teams, and exploring starter templates for app creation.
Q & A
What is the purpose of Microsoft Power Apps?
-Microsoft Power Apps is a tool that allows users to build custom apps for their organization without needing extensive technical knowledge. It can be used for organizing data, automating routine tasks, or managing events.
Who is the target audience for this beginner's tutorial on Microsoft Power Apps?
-The target audience for this tutorial is beginners who have never used Microsoft Power Apps before and want to learn how to build custom apps for their organization.
How can one access Microsoft Power Apps?
-One can access Microsoft Power Apps by logging into their Microsoft 365 account, going to office.com, or using the app launcher. It can also be accessed through a provided link in the description of the tutorial.
What are the different options to start creating an app in Microsoft Power Apps?
-Users can start creating an app in Microsoft Power Apps by uploading an Excel file, starting with a blank canvas, or using an existing table.
What is the significance of the 'Start with data' option in Microsoft Power Apps?
-The 'Start with data' option allows users to upload an Excel file which then creates a table in the app. This table can be used as the foundation for the app's data structure.
How can the app created in Microsoft Power Apps be shared with others?
-The app can be shared by going to the 'Share' option in Power Apps. Users can add individuals or groups, set permissions, and even send a message with the app link.
What is the difference between the developer environment and a production environment in Microsoft Power Apps?
-The developer environment is meant for building and testing apps, while the production environment is where fully functional apps are deployed for use. The developer environment does not require a subscription.
How can the layout and design of an app created in Microsoft Power Apps be customized?
-The layout and design can be customized by selecting different components of the app, such as the background color, font size, and image backgrounds, and adjusting their properties.
What is the maximum file size for uploading an Excel file to create a table in Microsoft Power Apps?
-The maximum file size for uploading an Excel file to create a table in Microsoft Power Apps is 5 Megabytes.
How can users ensure that data entered into the app is valid and follows specific formats?
-Users can set allowed values for certain fields, such as a dropdown menu for genres, and define the data type for each field, ensuring that only valid data is entered.
Can the apps created in the developer environment of Microsoft Power Apps be used on mobile devices?
-Yes, apps created in the developer environment can be used on mobile devices. Users can download the Power Apps mobile app and connect to the same account to access and run the apps.
Outlines
🛠️ Introduction to Microsoft Power Apps
Jamie introduces a beginner's tutorial on Microsoft Power Apps, emphasizing its ease of use for building custom organizational apps without the need for a computer science degree. The tutorial starts with accessing Power Apps through a Microsoft 365 account and navigating the app's interface. Jamie explains the basic concept of Power Apps as an 'app factory' and guides viewers on how to create apps for the web or mobile, promising to show how to share the apps later in the tutorial.
📈 Uploading and Organizing Data in Power Apps
The tutorial continues with the process of uploading an Excel file to Power Apps, which automatically creates a table. Jamie demonstrates how to rename the table for better identification and explains the importance of column headers and data formats. The video shows how to edit column properties, such as changing the format to email or phone number, and how to create an app using the uploaded data. Jamie also discusses the app's interface, including the search function and the ability to add new records, and how to preview the app on different devices.
🎨 Customizing the App's Interface and Data Fields
Jamie delves into customizing the app's interface by changing the background color and adding a background image. The tutorial covers using the tree view for easier navigation and making changes to the app's main screen, such as adjusting the properties of various UI components. The video also addresses modifying the data fields, like adding spaces to column names for clarity and creating a dropdown menu for the 'genre' field to restrict input to predefined values, enhancing data consistency.
🔍 Adjusting Layouts and Preparing for App Sharing
In this section, Jamie focuses on adjusting the layout of the records gallery, changing the display of fields, and reordering elements within the app for better user experience. The tutorial shows how to move and prioritize the 'new record' and 'search' features for easy access. Jamie also touches on the importance of saving and publishing changes for others to see, especially when sharing the app with users who do not have edit access.
🤝 Sharing and Integrating the App with Microsoft Teams
The final part of the tutorial explains how to share the app with others within an organization. Jamie demonstrates adding individuals or groups, assigning roles, and sending notifications about the shared app. The video also covers the process of making the app available on mobile devices and integrating it with Microsoft Teams for easy access. Jamie concludes by encouraging viewers to explore page designs and templates in Power Apps to further customize their apps, emphasizing the use of the developer environment for practice rather than production.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Microsoft Power Apps
💡Beginner's Tutorial
💡Custom Apps
💡Microsoft 365
💡Dataverse
💡Excel Spreadsheet
💡App Factory
💡Environments
💡Data Cards
💡Publish
💡Microsoft Teams
Highlights
Introduction to Microsoft Power Apps, emphasizing its ease of use for beginners to build custom apps without technical expertise.
Comparison of Power Apps to a 'magic tool' for creating app-based solutions for tasks such as data organization and event management.
Explanation of how Power Apps serves as an 'app factory', simplifying the app creation process for non-developers.
Guide on accessing Power Apps through a Microsoft 365 account and the app launcher.
Demonstration of creating an app from an Excel spreadsheet, showcasing the app's adaptability to existing data.
Overview of the Power Apps interface, including navigation and data management features.
Tutorial on uploading an Excel file to create a table within Power Apps, streamlining data integration.
Step-by-step process of customizing app elements such as column headers and data types within the app.
Instructions on how to rename a table for better identification and organization within the app.
Discussion on the app's adaptability to different devices, including mobile and web interfaces.
Explanation of the app's development environment and its distinction from a production environment.
Tutorial on app formatting, including changing backgrounds, fonts, and layout arrangements.
Guide on modifying app functionality, such as creating dropdowns for data input to enforce consistency.
Process of adjusting the app's user interface to display only desired information to users.
Method for reordering and resizing app elements to optimize user experience and interface design.
Directions on sharing the app within an organization and assigning different access levels to users.
Highlight of the importance of publishing changes in the app for all users to see the updates.
Option to add the app to Microsoft Teams for enhanced accessibility and integration.
Encouragement to explore Power Apps templates for time-saving app creation and customization.
Transcripts
hi Jamie here today at teachers Tech today I want to show you how to use
Microsoft power apps this is a beginner's tutorial so I'm going to start right at the
beginning and go through it step by step if you've never heard of Microsoft power
apps this is a great way to build apps for your organization and it is super easy to
use if you're new to the concept of Microsoft power apps it's like having a magic tool that will
help you build your own custom apps without having to be a tech wizard imagine it this way you have a
box of Lego blocks but for building apps that can do all sort of tasks for you like organizing data
automating routine task or even managing events in short Microsoft power apps is like having an
app Factory that's easy to use it will help you at work and you don't need a computer science
degree to start using it the apps that we create with Microsoft power apps are either going to be
for the web web or mobile after we go through and create ours today I'll show you how to share that
out in those different ways as well but let's get started with how do we access Microsoft power apps
so here's a quick way and I'll put this link Down Below in the description you can start from this
page and you can start for free but where I would tend to uh start because I already have
a Microsoft 365 account is if I go ahead and get just logged in to my office.com or my Microsoft
365 and up put a link to this below also I can go ahead and get this app I'm going to go to
the app launcher right up here and if you don't see it here and mine is here because I've opened
it before you can go to explore all apps and I'm just going to go over to here and click all apps
so this is the list of all my Microsoft 365 apps I have available for me as I scroll down here is
power apps they're in alphabetical order as you go across and down so I'm going to just click on
power apps here and when this opens up we're at the SP spot where we can create start creating
our first app in Microsoft power apps let's take a quick look at the layout of Microsoft power apps
if we go over to the left we have the navigation panel here and if you're familiar with Microsoft
power automate you'll recognize the same kind of layout that it has for all these and it even has
the flows I'll put a link to my video about how to use Microsoft power automate Down Below in the
description and up above in card but I want to point out so we're under the homepage right now
and I'm going to be starting with data right here we have three different options to start but I can
go to create here and uh I can select from this option too we have the learn there's lots of good
tutorials that you can pick from then they'll walk you through with exercises on it and once
we create our apps this is where you're going to find them now uh over here when I upload the Excel
spreadsheet that I will in a moment it's going to create a table and our tables are going to
be stored right here I'm going to go back to the home and I'm going to click start with data these
other two I'll talk about at the end of the video so if I click Start with data and we can do a few
different things I'm going to upload an Excel file here but we can start with a blank now notice it
says switch and create so I'm going to have to switch environments to do this so I'm going to
go ahead and do this and now what you're going to to see is that I I have this available and I'm
going to come back to the environment what I just switched to in a moment I'm going to hit back down
here and you can see I can also use an existing table so if I click on it uh right through here
these are some of the ones that already are already in uh with power apps I could select
some of those tables or I could select to external data so I could go from like a SharePoint list on
a page and that works great for this uh you could go from an Excel file in one drive or you could
go from SQL uh I'm not doing it in this tutorial but I'm going to hit back so this is the Excel
file that I'm going to upload so let's say in this organization I always find that we're sharing uh
our favorite picks from movies or maybe streaming services and I like what other people are saying
so we started this Excel file here uh you can see with the employee names and the titles and
streaming service and so on but I want to find an easier way uh to do this so we're going to make
an app so people can just open their phone or they can go on their computer and simply enter in maybe
they've watched something good and uh it shares it with all of us they can enter from the app or
even search what is there so you notice there's no table or anything this is just data uh with
some columns in a Microsoft Excel uh sheet here let's upload our Excel file I'm just clicking on
it and at this point I could drag the Excel file right into here or select from device I'm going
to go go get the file mine is called employee favorites and hit open it uploads that Excel file
and creates a table from that so this is going to be in the dataverse uh uploaded to it I believe
it's a 5 Meg uh Max on the size of the file for these now you can see the uh the different column
headers here that was were created and then the information that was in the file I can actually
clear out the information I can show you how to do that uh in a bit in case you wanted to start from
scratch first of all I don't want this to just be called table I want this to be called staff pick
so I'm just going to go and give this a different name just so it's easier to identify uh later I'm
not going to change any of these options here this is just a beginner's uh tutorial so we'll
keep things pretty basic notice uh over here it took the uh First Column as headers here it's
turned off I can turn this uh I can turn this off it was selected on and I'm going to leave it like
that so what I want to point out on each of these columns now if I drop down if I wanted to edit a
column you can see how it CHS what the format so this is format text and that's fine that's what I
want and this would be format text as well uh the reason why I put some data in here is because it
recognized what was already in there so in the case of if I uh move over here if I drop down
it recognized that this was a a number part right here and this was a phone number and or an email
so what it does if I go and edit the column notice that the format is already an email so that makes
it so if the person clicked on it it would go ahead and uh you know open up the email so you
could email a person and same thing if I go here uh the format this time went text I could change
this to phone number and update it and then uh I can make sure all my columns are uh the way I want
now once you get those all set up you can just go below here and hit create the app and it's going
to go ahead and start creating it for you here's our app it took that Excel file uploaded it to the
data verse and now we have this canvas of this app that it put together I can see they have a search
they have a place where we can add new records in it and we can go through and view what people have
but let's go ahead and run this to begin with if I go here pre the app or F5 it will show me in on
different devices so right now I was on my phone before but depending on what you pick you can see
on browser so if I was going to go to Canvas size here's this uh if I go and change it back to the
phone I can pick a specific phone you can see from the different ones here so if I go and pick the
iPhone 14 pro Max and I can go through and see how everything's working in here so if I was going to
go and click new it even has that already where I could be entering in this information on it so
you can go and play with it right away uh to see maybe even on a tablet what it would look like and
how things would be working already I'm just going to exit out of here because some of these things
might not be exactly the way I wanted to look and I want to make some changes to it before we make
any changes I'm just going to go ahead and hit save up here you can see the shortcut crl s and
after it's saved I'm just going to go and you can see that it's saving as it turns right there and
now that it's saved I'm just going to hit back here and I'm going to hit leave because if you
do have to access your app again I want to show you where it is for quick access to go back into
it I can click it right here for staff picks or I can go to the apps list and select it right here
and it will open it back up I just want to point out with the tables once I uploaded that it if
I scroll down uh this was created right here so this staff pick table is Created from uploading
that file now I just want to show you one more thing so notice it says up here this developer
this is a developer environment and not meant for production so I'm using the data verse right now
when I uploaded uh the way I did I had to switch environments up top right here I'm just going to
click on this and notice that I'm build apps in the data verse now I don't have a subscription
for this part and so but I can still show you how to do everything you can practice building
in here you could do it a different way uh with connecting with your uh business account or your
365 uh through an external like one drive or SharePoint but in this tutorial I am using the
data verse and it is a developer environment but all the things you can still work on just the same
so I just want to make sure that you understood you can switch back and forth by switch to this
one you're not not going to see the apps because that's a different environment but now what I want
to do is just go back and open staff picks and it will get me back into the app so I can start
formatting it so let's do some formatting now of this app and first of all I'm going to open up the
tree view uh because this shows me exactly what I'm clicked on and sometimes it works a little
easier to navigate now we have our app and our main screen so this is our main screen that we
have over here uh you can add more screens we're just working with one screen in this power apps
tuto tutorial but you can add more I could put a button that goes to another screen uh if I drop
this you can see all the different components that make up this main screen so if I select this right
here this screen container notice that went around the whole thing here and I have some options for
properties on the other side so I can expand the properties paint over here and this this is where
I can make some changes here to my screen uh my container so example if I go ahead and select the
color change here and I'll just pick let's say a green you can see how it quickly changed the
background here as well or if I wanted it to be transparent if I had a picture in the background
I'll show you how you can add a picture in a moment now I can select other objects in here
and you'll notice that it changes what's selected so this right here is the Side Bar container and
as I move through here's the search selected or I could click in here so if I go and click once and
move down here this is selected these four things are under the email uh data card so if I click
airor message you can see how it's changing within that area here now if I was just clicking once on
it this gets selected but I can double click to get to what I want and it shows what is selected
so I want to make sure you have the correct things s selected before you make any changes so notice
at this point if I go up to the search here I'm going to click on the search and you can see I
have this search input selected when I have this search input uh selected I have options up here to
change color so I could quickly this is the font this first one this is the border the background
you'll see if I change this orange it makes that quick change I can undo or use contrl Z to go back
back a step now if I have a container so if I pick body container notice that those options aren't
there but if I have that body container selected I do have the options for the properties here
where I can uh make some changes so just to show you what I'm changing if I turn this to Blue you
can see how that body container one changes so I'm just going to go undo that step now if I wanted to
let's say change the background image that's going to be under the main main screen here and notice
I have a background image or image position I can go and add an image so I could upload uh let's say
this movie night one and hit open and I'm going to just replace because I already uploaded it at once
and how do I want it to fit the background so I could have it go fit or stretch uh so depending on
the proportions of the picture you can play around with different ones but now you see there is I can
see a little bit of the popcorn and everything I've put an image to the back background so I
could go through do I want things like this to be transparent do I want to uh change the font size
so notice as I change the font size this becomes larger so really it's about selecting what you
want to change and then looking uh if it's not a container you're going to see the options up here
but you always have the properties over here to make all these different changes to it so we can
go through and change the app how you would like notice that I have things without spaces so like
employee name show title streaming service uh when I uploaded it those were the column names
and I should have actually put spaces in it but I want to show you how you can go back and make
these changes so I'm going to go to the data here and when I do that this is going to be my
staff pick I'm just going to click on the ellipses here and edit the data now at this point I can go
to these different column rows I'm going to edit the column and I'm going to go ahead and just put
spaces on each of these here so on the ones that I need I'm going to go through and adjust them so
now I've made all those changes to the uh columns that I have here and if I wanted to delete any of
these I can go and just pick the records that I want gone and hit delete so those three will be
out of the list I have I'm going to go ahead now and hit close so notice when I come back to this
now I have less records and I've had those spaces added uh to the different titles so let's say we
don't want the people just typing in something like sci-fi or Drama We want to make sure that
they can pick from a list so I'm thinking a drop down would work really well for here to force them
to pick one of the options so what we're going to do I have this selected here you can see if
I scroll down I have this one I'm going to go and open up my cards here I'm going to go from to the
field and select edit when I select edit you can see all the different fields that we have on here
and notice if you wanted to change the order notice how email is here if I I can drag them
around and put them in different places and this will change so if I wanted genre first now that's
first I'm going to go and just drop down on the genre and it's edit text is the control type but
I don't want that I want to have allowed values so I'm going to force them the values that I want so
once I I've done that I'm just going to hit the X here so you can see there's a grade in area I
need to make sure I have that selected that area because this is where I'm going to add the values
too now go over in the properties over here to the Advance you're going to need to make sure that
it's unlocked to change the property so I'm going to click unlock there once it's unlocked locked
you can just move down to where it says items and we're going to just go ahead we can delete this
we're going to start with the square bracket and then we're going to use our quotation mark so the
first thing I want them to be able to pick from is drama and then you end your quotation marks
hit comma and then what's the next thing that I want well let's do comedy and you can change the
the list depending on how you want and make sure you put your quotation marks after every one and
let's add just a couple more I'm going to go and add sci-fi here I'll do a hyphen here and uh we'll
just do one more and we can adjust this come back and you can adjust this if you want at a later uh
point so I'll just call this one Thriller and you got to make sure you end your square bracket uh
just like this notice that I can see Sci-Fi over here uh let's see how it works right now I'm going
to go up to the preview here and when I go and hit new notice I have a drop- down and I have
the four different ones that I've added so if I was creating a new one a new entry I could create
drama so I forc them into this and I can do this with other items too as well here's something else
I want to change notice how they put email and then the genre and the telephone number I don't
really want that information there so I'm just going to click on this and open up actually the
tree and I want the records Gallery here I'm going to go over and open up the properties for that and
right here with the fields you can see what they have selected the phone number the genre and the
email now if I drop down I could pick something else I could pick employee name and I'll just
close this back up and you'll see now that it's just the employee name so I can make all those
changes uh depending on which ones I want there now I can also change the layout of this so if you
look over here for the records Gallery there's a layout if I drop down I have some different
options uh I could even do image and title if I have an image there so if I went just title and
changed it like that you can see now there's just the email coming up and then I could go and do the
selection and change it to just the employee name so now if I was running it when I click uh and see
different ones here I would be able to just see their names here and then see the more information
on this side so notice when I made the changes to the names here I have my search down here but my
new records isn't showing up but if I look over in my tree menu over here I have new records here
so I'm looking uh for the container this one right here so you can see it's kind of highlighted what
I want to do is actually move this up to the top I'm just going to right click on this and notice
that uh there's different options that we can do I'm going to move this to the top now we have the
new record right at the top with the search so if I went to the search container now and let's say
I'm going to change the order on this one and I'm going to move this to the top so now I have my new
record and my search right there so if I go and play this again now I have the option to search
and I can create my new record in here so I can go ahead and add new things right here uh to fill up
the different records if I just go ahead and try running it and then hitting the check mark let's
talk about how we can share this app now before we go ahead and hit share here you got to make
sure this is saved up and I want to point out this right here this is publish now if whoever I share
this with who has edit access when I hit save they're automatically going to see the updates
but if I come back here and make some more changes I'm going to have to make sure I republish this
again for everybody else that just kind of has shared access but not edit access so I just want
to make sure uh if you make the changes make sure you go ahead to P publish it uh for those people
that don't have edit access but I'm going to go right here and hit share and I'm going to leave
this and you're going to see some options that come up on how we can share this there's just a
few steps to do we could put individual people in here right here so if I go and start typing
somebody in my organization that information is going to come up here now if you didn't want to
type it Name by name and it's for everyone you can see just type the word everyone and at that point
everyone in the organization would have access you can send a message with this you can even include
an image I'm just going to uncheck everyone here and notice now I have some options I'm going to
make Ashton a co-owner so he can uh edit and share this app but not delete or change owner on this
one and the other thing is I'm going to assign a sec role to the D database cuz if you are using
these databases you need to uh make sure that you share them I'm going to just say as a basic
user on this and hit share so if you're using a Microsoft Excel file through one drive that would
have to be shared with the correct permission so that people could make changes uh to the
database so here's the email of the person I just shared it with and they got the message that this
was shared with them they can go on and click the app and run the app from right here but remember
we are in the developer environment so it's not a fully functional app it's only for test purposes
of building it and then testing it from over there if you want to use it on your phone just download
the app and when you open it up and connect to the same account you're going to see that you
have your recent apps right there and you can go ahead and open it up so notice that a new version
of my app is available tap to update now and remember again any changes that you make inside
of your uh app to make sure that you republish it so everybody has access to the newest one now I'm
just back on the apps page at the power apps page here and you can see here is the staff top picks
that we've created here I can edit like I showed you before I can hit play from here to run the app
again remember this is for development purpose test only but the other thing I want to show
you you can quickly add this to Microsoft teams so if I just click the ellipses here I want to point
out share so if I go share I can go add to teams then we're going to have some options here to go
through an ad so you can see the advanced settings and different ones I'm just going to go ahead and
hit add the teams I have the option of downloading and teams would let you upload too I'm going
to just click add to teams here uh I'm going to use just stay with teams online I'm going to hit
open now this is the staff top picks if I drop down you notice I can add to a team or to a chat
here I'll just click add and you can see on the side we have our app right here staff toop picks
if I rightclick on this we can open in a new window we can pin it or uninstall it from this
point too now that you know how to customize your app from scratch when we started with data do take
a look at these two options here so you can start with a page design and it gives you an idea of
the page designs how they're set up or you could start with a template and take a look at some of
the templates that you could start with that can save you a lot of time and now that you know how
to customize these you can go ahead and select a template and still make the changes you want to
color or different changes that I showed you when we went through the tutorial here today so I hope
you like this uh how to use Microsoft power apps beginners tutorial again we're using the
developer uh playground here in order to practice but not to put things into production use thanks
for watching this time on teachers Tech I'll see you next time with more Tech tips and tutorials
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