Microsoft Power Apps Beginner: Creating Model-Driven Apps

Name: Microsoft Power Apps Beginner: Creating Model-Driven Apps
Author: Devan Walton

Learn how to automatically generate feature-rich apps from your data sources with Power Apps’ model-driven app development

Preview the first lesson free — get full access to all 4 lessons.

Request a demo Sign in

Course: On-Demand

Hello, my name is Devin, and in these lessons, we will cover the essentials of designing a model-driven app. You will learn some of the affordances of designing a model-driven app over a power page or a Canvas app. You will additionally learn how to prep a data source so that when power apps intakes it in as a model-driven app, it designs an interface that is useful and intuitive to use for your end user. You also learn how to fine-tune an automatically generated model-driven app such that it can support different end user groups, so you learn how to design it for administrators, editors, as well as users that can use a view data. Finally, you will learn how to save and share your power apps so that other users within your environment can access it. In this lesson, we will cover why you might choose to develop a model-driven app over a Canvas app and a power page. One of the crucial differences between a model-driven app and a Canvas app is development time. Canvas apps take a lot more time to develop? You will have to design specific button placement. You have to design how the data gallery will be displaying all the data columns from your data source. You have to design how the buttons are going to fit together, how the navigation is going to work. Whereas in a model-driven app, all that is handled by the application. All that is done by power apps. All you do is give power apps your data source, whether it be a SharePoint list or a Dataverse table or an Excel spreadsheet or even a SQL table. Power Apps will look at that data set and it will automatically generate an interface that it thinks will meet the needs of your users. And the great thing about this and another potential benefit over doing a Canvas app is that it will design the interface in a consistent way, so both in styling and also in functionality. You will get the same button layouts, the same color schemes, and this can be a real benefit if you are looking to design a suite of applications for a variety of different data sources and you want consistency across all of these data sources and the company applications. One of the benefits a model-driven app has over a power page is that it strikes a good balance between functionality. So power page has relatively low functionality in terms of the amount of data sources it has access to. Power pages can only use data from the dataverse, whereas Canvas-driven apps can take in data from a variety of different data sources. And this is why, a key reason why model-driven apps strike a sweet spot between the complexity of a Canvas app in the simplicity of a power page. And in many cases it can be the ideal application design to be sufficient for a variety of end user use cases. Stay tuned for the next lesson where you will learn how to properly plan and design a dataset so that it can be utilized in a model-driven app. Thanks for watching.

Beginner Provider : Devan Walton 4 Lessons · 21m in English

Course Description

In these lessons, we’ll provide a detailed overview of how to develop model-driven apps in Power Apps. We’ll go over some key advantages model-driven apps have over canvas apps and Power Pages, specifically their faster development time and automatic generation of app interfaces. We’ll also demonstrate how to properly structure data sources for use in model-driven apps by setting column data types like choice, number and time/date. Setting data types allows Power Apps to build suitable controls like dropdowns, date pickers, and number inputs.

We’ll also show you how to tailor the automatically generated app interface for different user roles by removing certain controls and features like delete buttons to restrict permissions. Finally, we’ll discuss user permissions and how to share apps with specific groups. By the end of these lessons, you will have a strong foundation for leveraging Power Apps to quickly build functional model-driven apps tailored to different users right from existing data sources.

What You'll Learn

Develop model-driven apps in Power Apps from existing data sources
Compare the benefits of model-driven apps versus canvas apps and Power Pages
Structure data sources by setting column data types like choice, number, and time/date
Customize automatically generated app interfaces, forms, and views for different user roles
Restrict permissions by removing controls and features such as delete buttons
Share and publish apps with specific user groups

Key Takeaways

Model-driven apps offer advantages over canvas apps and Power Pages, including faster development time and automatic generation of app interfaces.
Setting column data types such as choice, number, and time/date allows Power Apps to build suitable controls like dropdowns, date pickers, and number inputs.
The automatically generated app interface can be tailored for different user roles by removing certain controls and features, such as delete buttons, to restrict permissions.
Apps can be shared with specific groups through user permission settings.
Completing the lessons provides a strong foundation for quickly building functional model-driven apps tailored to different users from existing data sources.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn in this course?

You will learn how to develop model-driven apps in Power Apps, including the advantages over canvas apps and Power Pages, how to structure data sources by setting column data types, how to tailor generated app interfaces for different user roles, and how to manage user permissions and share apps with specific groups.

Who is this course for?

This is a beginner course for those who want to build functional model-driven apps in Power Apps from existing data sources, tailored to different users.

What topics do the lessons cover?

The lessons cover Introduction to Model-Driven Apps, Planning and Creating a Model-Driven App, Customizing Forms and Views, and Sharing and Publishing Model-Driven Apps.

How are model-driven apps different from canvas apps?

Model-driven apps have key advantages over canvas apps and Power Pages, specifically faster development time and automatic generation of app interfaces.

What will I be able to do after completing the course?

You will have a strong foundation for leveraging Power Apps to quickly build functional model-driven apps tailored to different users right from existing data sources.