Power Apps Types | Canvas Vs Model Driven Vs Portals | Beginner Tutorial

hello everyone reza here in this video we will look at the different types of power apps canvas model and portals it's important to pick the right app type for your specific scenario we will do a feature comparison of all the three app types look at when to use what and i will also create an app for each of these three types so let's check it out in action [Music] the power platform is the one low code platform that spans across microsoft 365 dynamics 365 azure and beyond we have the four key pillars of this platform power apps for app development power bi for visualizing or analyzing our data power automate for workflow automation scenarios and power virtual agents for creating intelligent chatbots the data service that this platform exposes is known as microsoft dataverse you can connect to any other data source of your choice on premises or in the cloud through the available data connectors and there is also native ai capabilities baked in you can leverage ai builder our focus for this video is specifically on power apps with power apps you can easily build apps for the web and mobile experiences with the fully featured low code no code development experience catered towards power users citizen developers business users you can create these apps and easily publish them to ios android windows and on the web sharing apps is just like sharing documents and from an application lifecycle management perspective these apps can be created and shared across environments now there are three types of power apps that we can create the first one are canvas apps you begin with the user experience in mind you can build pixel perfect apps here you have full control over the app design experience you can build task and role based apps and you can mix and match data from multiple data sources through the data connectors there are over 600 plus data connectors available as of today you can even build your own custom connectors and connect to your data no matter where it lives on premises or in the cloud the second type of app is known as model driven apps these apps are built on the data service of the power platform known as microsoft dataverse dataverse is a rich and smart data service that provides a relational database system with sophisticated security scalability maintainability and a lot more in model driven apps you start with the data model in mind you create your tables build relationships use the rich data types that are provided for us you can build end-to-end business applications immersive and responsive the third type of apps are known as powerapps portals these are web-based apps predominantly catered towards creating responsive websites for external users these could be externally authenticated users or they could be anonymous users powerapps portals is also backed by microsoft dataverse so all the powerful feature set of dataverse is provided for us right in portals now let's look at each of these types of apps in detail canvas apps canvas apps help business users to create and use custom business applications across platforms by using excel and powerpoint based skills you can start with a blank app or create an app from a data source we start with the user experience in mind we can connect to our data then build our apps our forms our workflows and once we are ready we just hit the magic publish button and our app is available both on the web and mobile devices the anatomy of a canvas app any platform support plus you can leverage all the native capabilities on mobile or tablet devices like the camera control gps pen input control and a lot more sharing apps is just like sharing documents seamless integration with other microsoft 365 services and other power platform services extensibility model no limits if you are a professional developer you can create your own controls create your own custom connectors and a lot more what you say is what you get kind of a design experience full control over the design is the feature of canvas apps very similar to powerpoint you can just simply select your controls drag and move them around the canvas position them and design your apps data connectivity there are over 600 plus data connectors available as of today you can also leverage the built-in data platform which is microsoft dataverse and the app logic is very similar to excel the key about canvas apps is you can mix and match data from multiple data sources and the way you connect to your data sources is through the connectors these connectors are classified as standard premium or preview standard connectors are connectors that are covered under most of the office licenses examples of standard connectors are outlook sharepoint planner teams and more the premium connectors are connectors that require additional premium licensing for every user that is running the canvas app examples of premium connectors are sql microsoft dataverse salesforce and more preview connectors are connectors that are currently in preview you should not be using preview connectors in production scenarios you can also connect to your data sources on premises via the data gateway this is also a premium feature and you also have the ability for creating your own custom connectors this once again is a premium feature remember the licensing of your canvas app depends upon the connectors that you're leveraging in the power app if the app leverages standard connectors then the standard office license that includes the powerapps plan would suffice if your app uses a premium connector then all the users accessing the app will require a premium license a canvas app also has multiple flavors i've highlighted four of them here the first one is known as standalone canvas apps these apps are available on the web to access these canvas apps through mobile or tablet devices you need the powerapps mobile app canvas apps are not responsive by design if you would like to incorporate responsive design capabilities there are specific responsive container controls that you can leverage to make them responsive the way you create the standalone power apps is you begin from make.powerapps.com and the license of these apps is based upon the license of the connectors that you leverage the second flavor are sharepoint customized list forms with power apps this is the successor to info path form customizations you can customize both modern lists and library form experiences by leveraging power apps since it's a power app you also have the ability to connect to other lists or other data sources these are not responsive by design they are tied with the sharepoint list or library experience and these cannot be made responsive the third flavor are dataverse for teams based apps these apps run directly in the context of microsoft teams to create these apps you have to go to microsoft teams and install the powerapps app for teams here we are provided with a limited feature set of microsoft dataverse inside the contacts of microsoft teams at no additional licensing cost the database per team is limited to a 2gb storage capacity these apps are also not responsive by design however you can leverage the responsive container controls to create responsive database for teams based power apps the fourth flavor are power bi connected power apps to create the power app you will head over to the power bi report and add a power app visual you can pass data from the power bi data set to the power app so the power app is contextually aware of the data in power bi filtering or refining the data in power bi will refine the data in power apps as well additionally if the data set in power bi is in direct query mode the power app also has the capability to refresh the power bi visuals thereby creating a live refresh experience power bi data is read only however by adding a power app inside the context of power bi users can act on the data live inside the power bi report the licensing of the power app inside the power bi report will be based upon the connectors that that app is leveraging the power bi license is separate the integration powers of canvas apps is with sharepoint you can customize list forms create standalone apps you can even add the power app as a web part in sharepoint you can add these canvas apps inside the context of power bi you can add canvas apps and microsoft teams as a tab or you can also run canvas apps inside the context of microsoft teams meetings you can have a canvas app light up inside microsoft search and you also have the ability to embed a canvas app inside a model driven app or create something known as a custom page inside a mall driven app that has the feature set of canvas apps so when do we start with a canvas app firstly canvas app is low code so with basic excel and powerpoint skills you can quickly get started with creating canvas apps when you run into scenarios wherein you need to build pixel perfect apps you need full control over the app design you can create tasks and role based apps if you have scenarios wherein you want to pull in data from multiple data sources it has rich integration features you can leverage all the native mobile capabilities through canvas apps from a licensing standpoint as long as you are leveraging standard connectors your office licensing that includes power apps will have you covered when your data source is not microsoft dataverse for example if you are already heavily invested in sharepoint as a data source then you can simply create these canvas apps and connected to sharepoint now let's look at a demo of canvas apps to create a power app you can straight away head over to make.powerapps.com here we have the ability to create a blank app we have the option here for blank canvas app i will click on create i can give my app a name canvas apps are not responsive by design that's why you have to pick the format of your app to start with tablet or mobile experience i'll pick tablet and click create this will launch the powerapps studio experience here is my blank canvas where i can start with i can simply start inserting controls onto my canvas change the properties of my control and design pixel perfect apps here we can bring in data from multiple data sources by heading over to the data tab going to add data and connecting to our data sources microsoft dataverse is the native data service of this platform so if i would like to bring in data from there i already have my tables connected in my environment i will pick my expenses table and connect to it directly from my canvas app to show the data from this table i will insert a gallery control and the data source for this will be my expenses table i can preview the app live and i can see all the data coming in from my microsoft database table it can also connect to other data sources by heading over to connectors 600 plus connectors available for example if i search for sharepoint i can connect to sharepoint by adding a connection plugging in the url of my sharepoint site and then selecting a list or a library and just like that i have my sharepoint list connected in my powered app and here is another gallery this one connected to my sharepoint list and to publish these apps and simply go and save the app in the cloud and once ready to publish i can click on the publish button and this app now will be available both on the web and mobile devices here are some examples of canvas power apps in action a leave request powerapp an inspection power app a desk reservation based power app a timesheet powerapp a sharepoint list form customized powered app next we have model driven apps focused approach to app development without writing any code this is built on top of microsoft dataverse you start with the data model in mind you can create your tables create your relationships between those tables build your business processes build end-to-end responsive and immersive business applications component-focused approach you can easily add business rules and model your business processes through business process flows and model driven apps are responsive by design you can create your model driven app by simply connecting to your tables in microsoft database and leveraging the forms and views that you create inside the data model itself which is your table the beauty of model driven apps is you're focusing on the data model as the data model changes maybe new columns are added the form experiences are updated views are updated all of those apps will automatically respect the data model updates the app designer experience for model driven apps is quite straightforward you can add items to your app and define the sitemap you can build robust and powerful grid and form experiences on top of microsoft database you can connect to multiple database tables you can define the app navigation and you also have the ability to add custom pages which leverages the canvas feature set we also have the ability to customize the command bar experience so when do we start with model driven apps firstly mall driven apps are truly no code all you have to do is create your app connect to your data model which is your tables bring in your forms your views and publish your app model driven apps leverages microsoft dataverse so if you're already leveraging dataverse wall driven apps is a good choice it's the same database that dynamics 365 is built upon when you're looking for a component focused approach when in your focus is purely on your data model these apps are responsive by design out of the box the app adapts to changes in the data and the security model you can leverage a lot of additional capabilities like business process flows business rules forms views charts you also get a lot of common user tooling that's provided to you out of the box importing exporting sorting filtering the data there are also native offline capabilities that are available when working with large data sets specifically with canvas apps you have to be aware of the concept of delegation so the app maker needs to take delegation into perspective when building and designing the canvas app in case of model driven app scenarios the app maker does not have to worry about delegation if you're already invested in premium licensing dynamics 365 wall driven apps is a good choice let's look at a demo of model driven apps to create a model driven power app we need to have our table or tables created in microsoft dataverse here i have an expenses table i've created different columns of different rich data types that are provided by dataverse you can also create relationships between tables can define your business rules you can create views forms dashboards charts and a lot more to create a model driven app i will click on blank app and select the model driven app experience for a blank app based on dataverse i'll click create here i will use the modern app designer interface and click create i'll give my app a name and click create this is the modern model driven app designer experience in action here i can create pages so i'll add a page i can pick a table in dataverse and bring in its views and forms or i can bring in charts from multiple tables or i also have the ability to create my own custom pages which leverage that canvas experience in this case i'll pick a table based viewing form click next this will list out all the tables which are created in microsoft dataverse for my current environment i will pick my expenses table and click add and just like that it brings in my table experience it brings in the form and the views i have the ability to decide which views to bring in i also have the ability to manage my forms and look at the navigation aspect here change the headings if required i can bring in information from other tables as well once i'm done with designing my sitemap i can click publish and once published i can play the app to look at the app live in action here is my view if i select a specific record in my table it will show me the form related to that selected record here is my grid related to my line items table these apps are responsive by design you can see how all the controls are changing their positions and styles depending upon the real estate that's available to make changes to the views of a model driven app we don't have to change the app because our focus is on the data model i will head over to dataverse and to my expenses table go to views here is my active expenses view this will lead me to the view designer experience i can easily go and add additional columns or remove columns adjust the filters adjust the sorting mechanism and once i'm done with updating my view i will click on publish the moment this gets published the model driven app view gets automatically updated if i select a record this takes me to the form experience to customize the form experience once again through the dataverse table experience itself i will head over to forms select the form and start making customizations to the form experience i can drag and drop the columns i can add tabs sections and a lot more once i'm done with customizing my form i can click the publish button and once the form is published all the mall driven apps that are connected to this specific form of this table will get updated and we can see that in action right here here is an example of a model driven app the landing screen of the mall driven app is a custom page the custom page has been built keeping responsive design in mind by leveraging the responsive containers the user can select a specific device and this will lead the user over to the mall driven form experience related to that selected record we can also customize the command bar and open custom pages in different locations here is a custom page that's opening in the site panel it's showcasing the device history can also select a device and go and open the custom page so it will redirect to that custom page and only have that specific device filtered you can also open the custom page as a dialog so a device that is assigned to a specific user i can send that user a note this is using that custom page experience click send and this will send an email to that specific user next we have powerapps portals powerapps portals allow you to build responsive websites and it enables external access to your websites anonymous or authenticated it empowers anyone inside or outside of your organization to interact with data in microsoft database since portals is backed by microsoft dataverse data and since it's microsoft database we can leverage all the powerful capabilities that model driven apps can also leverage things like forms views and more the portal designer experience is very straightforward we have a command bar right at the top that allows us to add pages add components sync configuration updates and browse our website the tool belt on the left hand side allows us to view and manage pages add components set themes the canvas section in the center contains the components of the web page and the properties pane on the right hand side displays the properties of the web page or the selected components when to use portals when you want to build responsive websites anonymous and external access needs to websites backed by microsoft dataworks leverages dataverse so you can leverage all those relational database capabilities they are very easy to build and you have a decent amount of control over the ui let's look at a demo of powerapps portals to create powerapps portals we'll head over to a blank app we have the option for creating a blank website that's our portals i'll click create you can give your portal a name give it an address select your language here i'll pick start a portal and click create this will now launch the portal designer experience on the left hand side we can look at the pages and the navigation experience so we are on the home page there is a services page if i select that it will lead me to the services page and show me the components on that specific page i can add sections and various types of portal components i even have the ability to edit the theme of my portal if i was to click on browse website this will open up my portal experience directly in the web browser here you have the ability to make changes you have properties that are specific to the component selected you can click on sync configuration to synchronize the latest changes of your portal and the updates that i made i can see that live right here i'll create a new blank page i'll show how we can bring in data from microsoft database i can show the table data the form of a list or bring the form experiences of database directly into portals i'll select list i'll call this devices info i'll select my devices table and here i can select the views related to my table i'll select active devices the key thing here is to set the table permissions i'll click on manage table permissions and add a new permission here once again i'll select my devices table i'll give it global access i'll give the users read privileges and the role that i will define here is for anonymous users and click save so this has defined a permission on the table of type read for anonymous users if i was to browse this specific page i can see all the data coming in from that table and to prove that this is anonymously accessible i'm running my browser in incognito mode i'm able to access my portal go to my web page and look at all the data coming in from microsoft database there are some preset themes that are provided for us you can also upload your own custom css let's say i picked the dark theme here sync the configuration changes and browse the website i can see the theme of my app has changed portals are also responsive by design and we can see that in action next we will do a feature comparison of all the different app types relational data structure is a yes for canvas apps if you're leveraging a relational database for example microsoft database model driven apps and powerapps portals are only based on microsoft dataverse so relational data structure is a definite yes dataverse for teams is also based on database so it's a yes but you also have the ability there to connect to other data sources responsive design is a yes for canvas apps but it requires a lot of work you will have to leverage the responsive containers remember canvas apps are not responsive out of the box mall driven apps and portals are responsive out of the box no work is required to be done dataverse for teams also requires work to make your app responsive you have to leverage the responsive containers mobile native canvas apps we have the powerapps mobile app model driven apps as well we have the mobile app portals our websites you can straight away access them from mobile or tablet database for teams based apps if you're trying to access them from mobile devices you have to access the microsoft teams app go to the specific team where you have published your power app and then access it from there offline functionality for canvas apps and database for teams is very limited it leverages the storage capacity on your device model driven apps have a richer offline story low code or citizen developer friendly canvas apps fall in the low code realm you do need some excel and powerpoint based skills understanding of power fx understanding of delegation to truly build enterprise grade canvas apps wall driven apps have put it under the no code category because you can simply build a model driven app by connecting to your data model similarly for portals for database for teams they are canvas apps connected to microsoft database inside the team's contacts once again i will put them under the low code category since you do need excel and powerpoint based skills to get those working time to market canvas apps and that was for teams based apps i've plugged them as medium it depends upon the use case at hand there is work that needs to be done because you have to create the entire user experience wall driven apps and portals are low all you have to do is define your data model and then connect to that data model in case of model driven apps define your sitemap publish the app in case of portals use the portal designer and bring in your forms or your views licensing costs for canvas apps i've put it under the low category however it highly depends upon the connectors that you are leveraging if you are leveraging premium connectors in your canvas app every user that accesses that power app will require a premium license model driven apps licensing costs marked as medium you do need premium licensing plus you would also need storage capacity if your database which is microsoft database grows powerapps portals i've put the licensing costs as high you need premium licensing because you're leveraging microsoft data worse you also need additional licensing for anonymous access it's based upon the number of page views per month plus you need to have the storage capacity as well for microsoft database database for teams have marked that as low from a licensing cost standpoint because inside data was for teams microsoft database for that team's environment is provided to us as a standard connector however you are allowed to make other data connections and if you connect to any premium connector there in that case your database for teams app will be designated as a premium licensed app the data storage capacity from a canvas app standpoint you can connect to any data source of your choice the storage capacity depends upon your data source for example if your data source is microsoft dataverse you will have to ensure you have enough storage capacity in there if you're leveraging sharepoint you have to keep in mind the limitations of sharepoint from a storage and security standpoint model driven apps are dataverse only you have unlimited storage but with additional cost powerapps portals two are dataverse only and dataverse for teams the dataverse database that is provided for us per team has a limit of 2gb storage capacity you also have the ability to upgrade to the full dataverse feature set however once you do that the licensing realm of that app becomes premium external user access authenticated canvas apps you can have guest users using the app guest users will need a license that license depends upon whether your app is using premium connectors or not model driven apps is a yes guest users need the premium license and small driven apps users microsoft database powerapps portals is a yes you need the capacity license there and dataverse for teams is a yes you can have guest users inside microsoft teams here the guest user does not need any specific premium license unless and until your app uses any premium connectors and a standard team's license for the guest user will suffice external access anonymous the only option for creating anonymous scenarios is powerapps portals creating pixel perfect apps wherein you have full control over the app design experience canvas apps has that feature model driven apps does not but if you create custom pages inside model driven apps you will have full control on the ui of those custom pages since custom pages leverages the canvas infrastructure powerapps portals is a yes however there is limited control database for teams are canvas apps you do have full control once again over the app design experience customizing sharepoint list forms the only option you have is canvas apps running an app in the context of power bi and being contextually aware of the data in power bi that's again only canvas apps the application life cycle management story canvas model and power as portals can be created across environments so the alm story there is rich and growing for dataverse for teams since they are single environment based the alm story there is not so strong delegation working with large data sources you don't have to worry about that in model driven apps and powerapps portals in case of canvas apps and database for teams the responsibility of handling delegation is of the app maker it is a super important concept if you truly want to build enterprise grade apps that handle large data templates canvas apps there are a set of templates that are provided for us however those templates are now outdated some of the design mechanisms that it leverages are very old model driven apps and portals have templates so does dataworks for teams there are ready to use solutions there dataverse for teams has a storage capacity of 2gb some of those out-of-the-box templates or solutions do consume a decent amount of capacity and finally from a security and sharing standpoint in a canvas app since you're connecting to your data source the app maker has two responsibilities one they will have to share the app with users who need to run those apps plus they need to also ensure that those users have the necessary security to act on the data to which they are connecting to in case of mall driven apps and powerapps portals the access to app and security is through security rules and in case of database for teams you are limited to teams owners members and guest users the security in case of dataverse for teams is defined at the table level if you enjoyed this video then do like comment and subscribe to my youtube channel and thank you so much for watching

Channel: Reza Dorrani

Views: 95,006

Keywords: power apps, powerapps, microsoft, microsoft power apps, power app, tutorial, how to, reza dorrani, powerapps types, model driven powerapps, powerapps tutorial for beginners, canvas apps, model-driven apps, power apps portals, powerapps canvas vs model, canvas vs model driven powerapps, microsoft power apps overview, microsoft powerapps tutorial, canvas app vs model driven app vs portal, microsoft powerapps, learn powerapps, powerapps for beginners, get started with power apps

Id: erMcjDUeRNM

Length: 38min 0sec (2280 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 07 2022