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Microsoft Promotes PowerApps Public Preview, Introduces Flow for Ad Hoc Automation

by Jason Gumpert
Editor, MSDynamicsWorld.com

Microsoft PowerApps browser and app interfaces 

Microsoft today announced a public preview for the latest version of PowerApps and a preview of its new workflow automation service, Microsoft Flow.

PowerApps is Microsoft's SaaS platform for building business applications that connect various cloud services and data sources. It was announced in December and emerged from (roughly) the same team that had worked on the app building platform Project Siena earlier.

PowerApps has been in private preview, explains Microsoft group program manager Darshan Desai, and the new preview is now available publicly. People who get started with it will see a set of sample apps like a budget tracker, cost estimator, and service desk app. PowerApps Studio allows users to create new apps in one of three ways - from data via a connection to a source like Dynamics CRM, Salesforce, Dropbox, and others; from a pre-built template; or from a blank canvas that offers more freedom to use pre-built connectors and custom APIs.

PowerApps can be shared with invididuals, a security groups in an organization, or an entire organization. Desai says that apps "respect data source permissions at all times," and things like re-sharing and modifying apps is controlled.

PowerApps can be run from a web browser or using the platform specific PowerApps apps. And Desai advises that his team will continue to advance the product:

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About Jason Gumpert

As the editor of MSDynamicsWorld.com, Jason oversees all editorial content on the site and at our events, as well as providing site management and strategy. He can be reached at jgumpert@msdynamicsworld.com.

Prior to co-founding MSDynamicsWorld.com, Jason was a Principal Software Consultant at Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC), where he implemented solutions, trained customers, managed software development, and spent some time in the pre-sales engineering organization. He has also held consulting positions at CSC Consulting and Monitor Group.

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