Are you the Excel guru in your office? The one who knows how to use pivot tables or macros? The person who knows most of the formulas, or knows how to find a new formula to solve a problem? Are you constantly trying to find ways to use business systems to improve processes and productivity?
If you answered yes to any of the above, then PowerApps is a technology designed to enable someone just like you to build custom business applications with no code. If you know your way around Excel-type formulas, you can build a mobile app – from something as simple as a form to collect data (replacing paper or a spreadsheet), through to a multi-screen app connected to your CRM or other business systems, that takes advantage of your device camera and location services, includes a barcode scanner, or brings in artificial intelligence such as reading text from an image. I’m not a developer – I don’t write code – and I’ve built all these things myself in the past few months.
You can also use PowerApps to build a fully responsive, modern cloud business application based on your data model, with guided process flows, charts, business rules and more. Still no code.
If you’re interested in learning more about PowerApps and how they can help your business, then the “App in a Day” program is a great way to get started. “App in a Day” is a full day program where you bring your laptop and learn by doing – by the end of the day you will have built your own app (and if you’re anything like me, you will be showing everyone you know – “look what I did!” for days afterwards). You work through clear, easy to follow, step by step lab workshops, so no prior experience or knowledge is necessary.
The program takes you through building out an end to end process for a fictional company where the lucky employees can browse, select and request a new laptop. You build a mobile app which allows the user to browse a list of available devices, select and compare devices, and then submit their request for approval. You also build the corresponding back office process – a database to receive and display the requests, a guided business process flow for the requisition process, and an automated approvals process (using Microsoft Flow) to enable the manager to approve or decline the request. All this in a day, with no code. There is an additional lab which you can take away with you to complete the story using Power BI to visualise the data from the process you’ve built.
Here’s what you come away with from App in a Day (in addition to that app you’ll be showing off to your colleagues and friends!):
- Enough experience with PowerApps and Microsoft Flow to go back to work (or, if you’re like some of us who get completely hooked, to go home on the weekend) and start building your own apps
- A path for learning more about PowerApps and the opportunity to become part of the PowerApps community. (Samit Saini’s story is incredible inspiration for how this technology can transform your organisation, and your career).
- The knowledge and opportunity to become an advocate / champion for digital transformation in your organisation
App in a Day is offered in Microsoft offices around the world. I’m a trainer for the programs in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane (look for the Barhead logo in the listing), and I also facilitate “App in a Day” training in house for our customers. I love seeing what people do when they experiment beyond the lab to make the app their own, and talking through business challenges and ideas to help people understand how and where PowerApps can make a difference.
If you’re interested in learning more about PowerApps, you can register for App in a Day near you (you’ll find a full list at https://aka.ms/AIADEvent), or if you’d like to bring PowerApps to your organisation, please get in touch.