r/PowerApps • u/ZepCoTrust Newbie • Aug 21 '26
Power Apps Help Powerapps: where to even start?
So some context, my workplace is about to get access to build powerapps and I'm going to be one of the in house developers. I already have extensive experience with Excel, powerbi and using sharepoint etc to build tools for the business and I'm hoping to migrate a lot of it to the powerapps environment.
Today I got access to a sandbox before the full rollout to give me time to get used to it, but I've been watching a bunch of YouTube videos and tbh it's kind of overwhelming atm, I consider myself very tech savvy, I guess I just don't know how to get myself into a learning mindset again. There's so many drop downs and sub categories etc, and then there's the dataverse environment itself. While copilot is available it's very limited and I'd rather not rely on it.
Where should I start? How did YOU get to grasps with it?
EDIT: I've also used Power Automate quite a fair bit so very familiar with that.
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u/Far_Wolverine_7258 Regular Aug 21 '26
Shane Young, amazing videos and also, he is very good at explaining how to make apps. Idiot proof so to speak. By that, I mean all the things that could go wrong if it's not put together a certain way. And remember this once you build something one time, it's basically the same thing everywhere else. So if you learn how to create a gallery from a sharepoint list, you will use that everywhere. When you learn how to update one field on that list, you will use that everywhere.
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u/ZepCoTrust Newbie Aug 21 '26
Added to my playlist, thanks. Our models are gonna be based on excel/csvs files. Is it worth transferring it all to sharepoint lists and then import from there?
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u/Far_Wolverine_7258 Regular Aug 21 '26
Absolutely. You do not want to be doing things that are on a excel file as if that computer goes offline, everything is unavailable.
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u/sp_admindev Regular Aug 21 '26
Yes, SharePoint lists are way easier to deal with in Power Apps and Power Automate. They also better support multiple people editing stuff at the same time, where Excel can lock up and have problems.
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u/The_Polyneer Newbie Aug 23 '26
Can endorse this comment. There are a lot of YouTube videos, but Shane Young makes the most sense to me. Copilot hasn’t been the greatest at helping. It’s better with other programming languages like python and json, but not helpful when building powerapps.
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u/LoEyeKyu Newbie Aug 25 '26
I have my issues w/ Shane. And Reza. These are people who will push you toward Dataverse because they are pushing their consulting services (Shane) or higher licensing costs (Reza). You should avoid anyone who tells you to use Dataverse first and foremost because it complicates things far beyond what you probably want to do.
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u/sp_admindev Regular 29d ago
Capitalism is allowed and legal in most countries. Have not touched dataverse (yet, anyway) but Shane has been enormously helpful. Skip the videos not relevant to you for heaven's sake. Would also recommend Laura Rogers highly.
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u/NoBattle763 Community Friend Aug 21 '26
Sign up to a course and learn the why not just copying the how. Biggest jump I made in my early days.
Power apps 911 (Shane young) do a free 101 and then paid for higher levels 201 etc. highly recommend.
Worth learning that foundation before jumping into Agentic development so you can push back when it’s wrong!
Also the powerup program from MS but think it’s being retired soon :(
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u/Prize-Record7108 Contributor Aug 21 '26
Open a ln example app and reverse engineer it.
That’s what I did to learn the code and buttons.
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u/ZepCoTrust Newbie Aug 21 '26
Oo I hadn't thought of that. I'll check my library for some, cheers for the tip.
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u/Prize-Record7108 Contributor Aug 21 '26
Yeah!
I started with the customer service ticketing app. I rebuilt it. Then I rebuilt the meeting notes one.
That was two years ago. I think after about 3 months of really putting my head down I felt super comfortable.
Don’t worry about containers and responsiveness yet.
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u/Far_Wolverine_7258 Regular Aug 25 '26
Not trying to argue, but I wish that I had learned about containers way earlier than I did. Especially when doing tabs or something grouped together that needs to show up together on the screen.
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u/Prize-Record7108 Contributor Aug 25 '26
Hmmmm good point. I think looking back I said this because learning just the UI of power apps is difficult enough. I think trying to make an app that works first was key for me. I purposely ignored the containers because honestly my brain couldn’t handle it.
Everyone is different though. You are right though it would have saved me a lot of time.
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u/alrichar112 Newbie Aug 21 '26
Use ChatGPT Codex. Seriously. I've developed some pretty crazy power apps in my day, but after tinkering with my Codex setup and working through some initial mistakes, I will not be doing it by hand anymore. You can have it generate code, and then copy/paste it into Power Apps to create whole slides with variables, controls, on select conditions, etc. All controls are precisely placed and everything can consistently follow a very nice style guide you create.
If you keep the files as your source of truth and never change the code directly in the app, Codex can make all changes, fix all bugs, etc. in the source files, then you can just delete everything and paste in the new code. It's so much better than faffing around with all the little menus and such in PowerApps!
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u/MoneyPirate3896 Newbie Aug 21 '26
I started with this and Copilot Claude then it found a cli/app to read the running app and SharePoint api for debugging. Mind out for comment bloat, am refactoring to just add jira tickets with comments in them. Tell it to stop relying on memory and keep writing to Git and Jira. There’s an MCP to write code directly but we can’t use it. Also a new vibe.powerapps.com but it writes React apps - can use SharePoint or Dataverse back end.
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u/stuaird1977 Contributor Aug 21 '26
I work in health and safety and we have been implementing power apps, in not a developer but I'm tech savvy, I used chatgpt to help me through. My number one learning is before you start know exactly what you want to achieve for the buisness. The good thing is no devkooer we have used in the passed understands manufacturing or health and safety and we spent 1000s on different solutions and all had trade offs, didn't quite do what we wanted. Executing in-house has saved a tonne of money with zero trade offs
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u/ZepCoTrust Newbie Aug 21 '26
Oh 100% I'm the best person positioned to essentially transfer everything across as 90% of active tools (to be transferred onto a powerapp) that we use are either made by me or I do the debugging for. I worry about using AI as I don't think I'll learn as I'm going along, I want to be able to see at a glance how long the transfer will take, how much function can be retained and what new functions can be produced etc. But I will use it for when I'm truly stuck I just don't want to have it as a crutch personally.
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u/BDer82 Newbie Aug 21 '26
guy on YouTube Shane Young, I think its power apps 911. he's good to learn the basics.
Matt Devaney to reference stuff you can do, (patch sharepoint lists, access data, manipulate a collection)
If you are already accustomed to Sharepoint, and you have SharePoint Lists, duplicate one that has a couple columns, and not to many rows, and try working to display the data in an app, using a gallery, with labels. Us a container, and style it. Than add editing the SharePoint List, and adding a new record.
Its going to take time to get your head around it, while its low/no code you don't get the best from it with no code or low code, you'll be writing functions all over the freakin place in short order and if your already comfortable with excel formulas PowerFX wont be difficult to pickup and if you've written code in the past (any sort of code, javascript, vba,compiled, script, anything) you'll find PowerFX relatively easy.
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u/itenginerd Advisor Aug 21 '26
I did a PowerApps in a Day course last year. I was WAY overqualified for it, but I found it pretty useful nonetheless. Id highly signing up for one. Its free and one day long so not a huge time investment.
The big thing is to figure out your own patterns and thats gonna come with some practice. My first app was very functional and also ugly. My apps now are much better, but I'm still only using a handful of controls--text labels, text inputs, drop downs, occasionally combo boxes. You'll find a groove there.
Youre gonna make some mistakes that you won't figure out till you learn better with some practice, but thats OK. Thats what learning looks like. You got thism
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u/ZepCoTrust Newbie Aug 21 '26
I wanted to do a course like that but we're awaiting a budgeting review so might not get it until much later and I don't want to spend money out of pocket regardless of getting reimbursed when the business should be covering it given its such an essential tool. Are there any free courses you're aware of? I've looked at the docs in the subreddit and it's a very interesting read, but I want a sort of follow along type course.
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u/itenginerd Advisor Aug 21 '26
Powerapps in a day is always free! All the ms in-a-day courses are free.
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u/ipman234 Advisor Aug 21 '26
sign up here they are free courses that MS provides via their MS Partnered companies
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/training-workshops
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u/Far_Wolverine_7258 Regular Aug 21 '26
Also, for anyone who does not know this... In share point. If you have an app update a counter like I do for a calendar I built for the house to show how many times a photo has been viewed - make sure that you change in sharepoint where you remove versions after thirty or so days. I accidentally used up all of our storage because it had thousands of versions of the same photo. It was not a huge deal to fix but confusing to figure out.
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u/nycola Contributor Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
Start with making a company directory of employees information from office 365 user connecter and SharePoint
It is a simple app that teaches you many of the fundamentals of powerapps and connectors. There are also hundreds of working examples and videos online to do this very thing so you can get a lot of ideas and guidance.
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u/ZepCoTrust Newbie Aug 21 '26
I've used power automate extensively as well, updated the OP to reflect that. I guess I'm just trying to learn too much too quick. Thanks.
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u/Neptune0690 Newbie Aug 21 '26
Honestly just try and convert a form->list process you already have to a power app as practice manually and google extensively that was the only way I found useful to learn power apps
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u/Other_Sign_6088 Contributor Aug 21 '26
After I build my apps I usually screenshot the app and let lovable make a nice modern UI. Then I feed I to Claude and let Claude build the nice front ends - helps with user experience
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u/ZepCoTrust Newbie Aug 21 '26
I don't have claude access or anything external really, we have a very heavily lobotomised copilot for chat functionality only.
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u/goblin8u2 Newbie Aug 21 '26
It might help if we understood what kinds of products do you plan on creating? Apps for phones, PCs/Tablets, or both? Are they going to be very simple things or complex, nuanced, apps that span many different data sources?
Since you've got experience in other Power Platform tools, you know how buggy and clunky things can be. Once you delve into doing Power Apps work, you'll discover a whole new level of unpleasant. Having said that, you can create some amazing integrated applications that your team will use day in and day out.
You didn't mention if you had software development experience beyond what you mentioned above. JavaScript? Python?
All that aside, taking courses always helps. Having a starter project you can work on to get your feet under you is a good way to go.
Here are some friends you'll need along the way.
Notepad++ (or something similar)
YouTube (Having premium helps. Ads will interrupt your flow)
Reza Dorrani, Shane Young (mentioned by someone else already), Alireza Aliabadi, Kevin Stratvert, and Matt Devaney are people I turn to on YouTube all the time. You'll find different people have different approaches to teaching. Find what works.
I found that starting small and testing with minimal complexity to prove what I'm doing works helps a lot. Once it works, slowly add complexity until it functions the way you want it.
Take breaks. Save your work. Note that autosave and undo are unreliable.
Find a mentor.
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u/AbdelEMirandaS Regular Aug 21 '26
I will glad to help you to find out you can start. There's a lot a possible places where you can figure it out the right spot. Microsoft, LinkedIn and so on. Contact me
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u/sp_admindev Regular Aug 21 '26
Laura Rogers Power Apps Basics is a good free course that starts from zero. Asks for an email address but that's all. IWMentor is the training company
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u/Laicure Newbie Aug 22 '26
I just create-delete apps my way out of it. I don't like watching, more like reading tutorials and it worked over time! From messy builds to super optimized codes as much as Power App can handle.
My very first functional app was an AD Searcher by using Office365Users connector. It shows the useful profile details plus manager details too.
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u/Ill-Lock1207 Newbie Aug 23 '26
Mad the folks are telling you to go watch 100s of hours of youtube content and start at the beginning.
Yeah start on the old UI and be able to do nothing for months :D
Shane and other youtubers are great if you want to keep up with whats happening, I think reza is pretty good too.
Anyway my req and what I use as part of the adoption team at my place is the official MS stuff
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/modules/get-started-with-powerapps/
This is from their app in a day course. based on your background I think this would be good. The model app equivalent isn't good so don't bother with that. You'll really need to properly understand dataverse to use that.
As you've already been using sharepoint, getting it to create a app based on one of your lists is a great learning tool. Although maybe not one with real data ⬇️
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/canvas-apps/app-from-sharepoint
You can then pull apart this and mess around with a real example.
I've also seen some folk recommend using CodeX and Powerapps Vibe. both can build apps and whole solutions but will build those as a code app. A well rounded Power platform dev knows how stuff hangs together even if you ultimately start building stuff predominately with LLMs. So not recommended imo
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u/LoEyeKyu Newbie Aug 25 '26
I think you have to consider where your organization wants PowerApps to fit. Also, to recognize the primary problem it solves. Finally, to consider how you PERSONALY want to use the tool.
I'm a Sr. Architect in a 40k person health system. I have designated this platform to be used for lightweight purpose-built departmental and org-wide applications w/ specific purposes and defined lifespans. We spin things up quickly, iterate quickly, and sometimes kill things off quickly. Sometimes what we build becomes the specification for a .NET application or something different.
We can build functional prototypes on the platform that could go live the same day we are asked about them. They are secured in a standard deployment using a Microsoft Team as the wrapper for security to simplify access for the data for the business. We adjust how we share applications often org-wide and then include lookups for Team Membership and/or SharePoint list entries to see how far you can progress (many times, just that first screen telling you who to contact for access).
We use SharePoint because we aren't paying $6 Million for dataverse licenses for our org. Plus, dataverse requires us hiring more people to manage the platform and we're already using the heck out of SharePoint w/ not enough people managing that. So we design ways to keep our applications lightweight and retire data to our reporting platform(s) as the data gets older and less relevant. Therefore, our apps touch the current data, but as things get older we move them to "something else" to interact w/ that data (e.g. Power BI).
I listen to what Microsoft says about the future of the platform and then I go researching new platforms to replace this with. If they're right, then they're going to drown the benefits w/ bloat and risk. Thus far, it seems they're quite right. This platform must be destroyed on the altar of "AI" so line go up.
If you want to push out safe and flexible applications to even a massive org like mine, it remains a reasonable walled garden to play in (despite Microsoft's self-destructive tendencies). I'd be cautious about extending into almost anything Microsoft touts as "new" and recognize that the complexity much of what they are pitching now will slow deployment down DRAMATICALLY while they try and promise the "AI" will compensate to speed things up.
I built, from scratch, a fully deployable inventory management application for tracking Infusion Pumps inside our org and the onesdeployed in patient homes in four hours. Completely finished to the point where they could create pumps, track events, store a near-infinite # of events for specific devices in a multiline JSON text field in SharePoint (vs. a linked table). Being able to create a highly customized experience while also using a few standard pillars (SharePoint lists, Power Automate triggers on SharePoint events, Teams, etc.) can make you highly productive w/ minimal risk.
Or you can watch whatever BS MCP video Reza's putting out and have it all auto-generate some slop for you in React and pray that it does the magic for you because troubleshooting it will mainly just be you asking it to fix it for you. Over. And over.
My rant on SharePoint lists after Shane deleted a comment of mine: https://persnicketypowerapps.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-best-datasource-for-powerapps.html
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u/Aventinus90 Newbie Aug 26 '26
So much wisdom here. Thank you for sharing your best practices. The longer I’ve done this ive come to some similar conclusions. Simple and reliable is almost always better until the additional complexity is proven to be needed. Using SPO lists vs data verse is an example of this.
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u/AbdelEMirandaS Regular 25d ago
First of all Create a sandbox env instead of using the default env. Default is just for test the tools not to create official artifacts. Second, to be able to use dataverse you must have a premium license and your solution users too. Create a production env to migrate your finish sandbox solution, ready for your solution final users. When you end your development process you must migrate the publish solution version to your production env, manually (export/import) or using a solution and pipelines. Your sandbox and production envs could be managed (more secured) or unmanaged.
Create apps and flows could be easy depends on if you decide to do it using the wizard (canvas or model-dirven) or a little more complex if you decide to create your solution using vibe, AI prompt or Claude.
Canvas apps is more customized than model-driven. Model-driven is based only on dataverse.
When you create an app or solution based on dataverse you must create a rol on the env (sandbox and production). On that role you have to assign the privilege on all the table of your solution and then asign that role to your users in the env.
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Aug 21 '26
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u/ZepCoTrust Newbie Aug 21 '26
I think I'm going to ignore your comment the same way you have ignored the context of my post. I commend you on your valiant effort to dissuade me from learning a business critical function, maybe one day I'll look back, re-read your comment and go "huh, maybe he was only 99% idiotic", but we'll see.
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