Building Your Own Solution with Power Apps and Flow

Steve Knutson

2017

About me

Managing Director of Stratos Technology Partners

Microsoft MVP for Office Servers & Services

25+ years IT industry experience

Mountain biker and climber

One-eyed Cantabrian

@nztechtweet

www.stp.co.nz

Agenda

Overview of Flow

Security and Policies

Flow Demo

Overview of PowerApps

PowerApps Demo

Advanced features

Coming soon

Q&A

Forms and Workflow

SharePoint Designer 2013 & InfoPath 2013

Supported until 2026, but no new versions will be released

Poor mobile support

Limited integration

Still has some life left…

• Microsoft PowerApps, Flow

and Office 365

• Cloud and mobile first

• Extensive Integration

• Not just for SharePoint

• Not just Microsoft

• New capabilities coming (fast)

Office 365

Microsoft Flow

Connector Trigger Action

Service Connectors

Security

All actions are performed in the context of the logged in user

Users can only see items they already have permission to see in SharePoint (security trimmed)

Permissions are managed by the system being integrated with e.g. SharePoint, Dynamics 365, Facebook, Wordpress etc

[?] Question: Can you use impersonation (like SPD)?

Policies

Policies can be added to control where your data flows to.

You can configure ‘compliance boundaries’. For example:‒ Prevent users creating Flows that Tweet, Instagram or Facebook

‒ Prevent updates to Slack (but allow Teams)

Managed via the Flow and PowerApps Admin Portals in Office 365

[#] TIP: Check the default policy makes sense!

Building a Tweet Catcher

Document Email Notifications

Dynamics 365 to SharePoint

When a new record is created in

Dynamics 365 (CRM), create a new

item in a SharePoint list and

populate with fields from the new

record

Flow possibilities (a few examples)

Generate a PDF version of a document

Pull timesheet data from Harvest into a SharePoint list for project management

Capture Twitter data to listen to the community

Copy files from OneDrive or Dropbox to SharePoint (or vice versa)

Send an email when new items are added to a list

Create a SharePoint list item when a new entity is created in CRM

Create a SharePoint list item when someone subscribes to Mailchimp

[#] TIP: Check the SharePoint Templates list for new actions

• Generate a PDF version of a document

• Capture Twitter data to listen to the community

• Copy files from OneDrive or Dropbox to SharePoint (or vice versa)

• Create a SharePoint list item when a new entity is created in Dynamics 365

• Create a SharePoint list item when someone subscribes to Mailchimp

• Pull timesheet data from Harvest into a SharePoint list

• Draft blog posts in SharePoint and post to Wordpress

• FTP documents to a web site

• Approvals

PowerApps turn your expertise into custom applications

Use PowerApps when

You have time consuming manual processes

You can’t find off the shelf apps or services to meet you needs

You don’t have the budget to develop a custom mobile app

You have a short timeframe to create a solution

PowerApps help you solve your unique business problem, without needing a huge developer budget and long lead times.

PowerApps and SharePoint

Connect to your data:‒ SharePoint Lists‒ Dynamics 365‒ SQL‒ Excel‒ And more…

Build Apps for the Web and Mobile devices.

Use your devices features including camera and GPS

No Code Required!

Building a simple mobile app with PowerApps

Demo appCreate a list Create an app

PowerApp Designer

From here you can

• Change field order and

properties

• Add controls

• Add images

• Add data sources

• etc

Advanced feature:Sometime you do need a rocket scientist

Advanced capabilities

Common Data Service‒ A prebuild data model and service provided by Microsoft

‒ Saves time and provides consistency

‒ Supported by PowerApps, Flow and PowerBI

Entity Control Form (preview)‒ View, navigate and edit relational data from the Common Data Service

Azure Functions for Common Data Service (preview)‒ Combine data across services

‒ Add more advanced logic

‒ Pay as you go usage

SharePoint Virtual Summit Announcements

Rich Forms embedded in SharePoint lists‒ Conditional field display

‒ Display additional info from other data sources e.g. maps, weather, Dynamics365, etc

‒ Different control types e.g. sliders, drop downs

‒ Connect Flows to buttons (actions)

Embed PowerApps in SharePoint pages ‒ Provide seamless access to your PowerApps

‒ Mix with other web-parts and page content (Modern pages)

Bringing it all together

Feature Pack 2 for SharePoint 2016 includes support for Flow and PowerApps

Available later this year

Summary

InfoPath and SharePoint Designer are now legacy technologies

Flow and PowerApps are the next generation

Build integrated web and mobile without code

SharePoint integration for cloud and on-premise

Policies and security trimming are baked in

You’ll need to think different

New features coming. Fast!

Questions and Answers

Steve Knutson

Microsoft MVP for Office Servers and Services

SharePoint Consultant

@nztechtweet

steve@stp.co.nz

www.stp.co.nz

Resources

https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/build-advanced-flows/

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/guided-learning/learning-common-data-service/

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/hr-hr/blog/preview-of-azure-functions-for-the-common-data-service/

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/new-entity-form-control-experimental-feature-for-common-data-service/

Thank

you

to our

sponsors!