# PowerApps workshop

This workshop was ran by Bruce Sithole, who has been using 365 for over 10 years. He started building Power Apps to demonstrate the usefulness of CRM software to sales teams where he saw the potential of the platform after building multiple applications.

![](https://681604449-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2F-M7jTbah9cZ_Vj6Y5Rjj%2F-MCA7b8d66n2vVQwSPGP%2F-MCA7iU2plqeUPKdRfO6%2Fimage.png?alt=media\&token=3628a803-7358-4abe-9ded-0102ad5431e1)

## About Power Apps

### Problems with building solutions

The traditional model with building solutions poses problems that stem from the **Time to Market** being relatively large. This large amount of time can be attributed to things like:

* Restrictions on **time (deadlines) and resource constraints**
  * As many business have a limited budget for different teams and projects, companies are restricted to how much time and resources they can invest into building an application. This deters teams from even attempting to improve their current processes despite the benefit applications can give to productivity due to the difficulty in designing and developing apps.\

  * Moreover, developing applications have a high perceived difficulty; requiring technical expertise and extensive use of design and algorithms. As a result,  businesses disregard using technology to improve their processes as a possibility.\

* **Paper processes**
  * With many businesses built off paper-based processes, there has been a growing dependency on this model. However, this reliance on paper heavily restricts how teams can operate within the business and creates problems for backups, mobility, efficiency and more. While these problems could be easily resolved through technology, the amount of effort required to switch to a modern process can discourage teams from doing so.\

* **Complex processes**
  * As the world changes over time, business processes have to adapt on the fly - often resulting in a build-up of more and more dependencies, which in turn create more complex processes. As a result, employees have become comfortable and reliant on the systems their work is built upon, despite them being slow or clunky.

![](https://681604449-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2F-M7jTbah9cZ_Vj6Y5Rjj%2F-MCA7b8d66n2vVQwSPGP%2F-MCA8rcA7R374NXnt5WZ%2Fimage.png?alt=media\&token=af99caa0-bc01-4c00-99b2-ae52a8e9668c)

### The Power Platform

The Microsoft Power Platform brings together functions from **Office 365, Azure and Dynamics 365** as well as **internal and external standalone applications** (like SQL) within its products.

![The Power Platform](https://681604449-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2F-M7jTbah9cZ_Vj6Y5Rjj%2F-MCA7b8d66n2vVQwSPGP%2F-MCA8hTtdCy1dIoZa2uq%2Fimage.png?alt=media\&token=73a14e29-16f8-46c8-819e-8bff28c2e9c9)

### Over 300 connectors available

Whether you want to connect to a data source like Excel, or an external infrastructure like Instagram, the Power Platform provides over 300 connectors to connect your applications and processes. Moreover, if your data source is not supported, you are also able to use external or custom APIs to do so.

### Types of Power Apps

| Canvas Apps                   | Model-driven Apps                        | Power Apps Portals                                 |
| ----------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- |
| For task-specific experiences | Data driven apps                         | If your app will have expore to customer faces     |
| Your general mobile/web app   | More complex experiences like dashboards | Users will have their own unique profile generally |
|                               |                                          | Like a banking website                             |

## Translate Application

This uses the **`MicrosoftTranslator`** API, providing functionality to `Detect` and translate text from the `Textbox1` and read the audio stored in `varAudio`.

![Translator canvas app built](https://681604449-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2F-M7jTbah9cZ_Vj6Y5Rjj%2F-MCA7b8d66n2vVQwSPGP%2F-MCAHww5-RCRSl6KTZjZ%2Fimage.png?alt=media\&token=9f1b10f0-12c8-4116-a319-32254c0408bf)

{% hint style="info" %}
**Contact:** bruce@365mechanix.com
{% endhint %}
