6 min read
What Are Canvas Apps?
In our blog series 'Discover the building blocks of Power Apps', we cover all the parts of Power Apps one by one. In the first blog in the series, we talked about Dataverse. In this blog, we take a closer look at Canvas Apps. Discover what a Canvas App is in Power Apps, what you can do with it, and how it works together with other parts of the Power Platform.
What is a Canvas App in Microsoft Power Apps?
Microsoft Canvas App is part of Microsoft Power Apps. It's a type of application within Power Apps.
A Canvas app can be developed without needing any deep programming knowledge. You start with a blank 'Canvas', onto which various controls can be dragged. Controls are interactive elements such as input fields, buttons, and labels that collect and display data. You can fully customize the app to your organization's specific needs, including the design, which can be adjusted entirely to your liking.
There's a wide range of 'out of the box' controls available. Think of forms, buttons, galleries, shapes, icons, and much more. These can be placed on the blank canvas. By applying custom logic, controls can be personalized and their functionality extended. With a Canvas app, you can use more than 1000 available connectors to connect to various sources within your organization.
What can you do with a Canvas App?
With Canvas Apps, processes can be digitized, streamlined, and sped up. Processes that used to be entered into an Excel file with lots of tabs can be replaced with an intuitive Canvas App. Besides this example, there are many other use cases:
- Replacing legacy systems: Outdated legacy systems no longer meet current needs and are often no longer supported. A Canvas App offers a solution by replacing these legacy systems with a custom-built app. At Atoompool, we replaced an existing Microsoft Access application with a Canvas App. View the full Atoompool case here.
- Digitizing manual processes: Processes currently tracked manually in Excel sheets, forms, or other documents can be digitized and automated with a custom-built Canvas App. At Koninklijke Kuijpers, we standardized and centralized document management and generation with a Canvas App using Power Automate. View the full Kuijpers case here.
- Integrating different applications: An organization's application landscape often includes many applications that generate data. With a Canvas App, it's possible to bring this data together in a single application. This can be handy, for example, when you want to give all employees access to information from every application through one central app.
- Automating approval request processes: Within organizations, leave requests, expense claims, and other approval requests are often submitted verbally or by email. This was also the case at Mimaki. For Mimaki, we standardized and digitized the process using a form in a Canvas App combined with a Power Automate flow.
Role within Power Apps
Canvas Apps are the apps where the developer has complete creative freedom to tailor the app to the user's needs. This type of app gives a developer full flexibility over the user interface design, layout, and functionality of every element on the canvas. This means there's no longer a need to invest in a large, expensive application package with features that aren't relevant to the user.
Canvas apps are the only type that can use the 1000+ available connectors, and they're also ideal for building specific task-oriented applications. Canvas apps are designed for a single specific task or process. Through roles, users are given access only to the tasks they need to carry out.
How do Canvas apps work together with the Power Platform?
Power Apps Canvas Apps work seamlessly with the other parts of the Power Platform. By integrating the various parts of the Power Platform with each other, powerful solutions can be built. Here are a few examples of how Canvas Apps work together with all the parts of the Power Platform:
- Dataverse: Canvas Apps need a data source to retrieve and store data. Dataverse can be used as a data source for Canvas Apps. For example, you could develop an app for creating support tickets and store that data in Dataverse.
- Power Automate: Power Automate can be integrated into a Canvas App to automate processes. A Power Automate flow can be triggered by a button click, an event, or on a schedule. For example, the status of a support ticket can be automatically updated. This can be done with a click of a button in a Canvas App.
- Power BI: A Canvas App can work together with Power BI in two ways. An existing dashboard about support tickets can be added to a screen in a Canvas App. Conversely, a Canvas App can also be added to a Power BI report.
- Power Pages: A Canvas App can be added to a Power Pages site to enrich the site. External customers could, for example, use an integrated Canvas App within the portal to view the status of the support tickets they've submitted.
Limitations of Canvas Apps
Designing a responsive Canvas App has become progressively easier over the years. Still, it remains a time-consuming process that requires a lot of manual adjustment to make the app fully responsive. You could build a large, complex Canvas App for this, but that isn't where the strength of Canvas Apps lies. As a result, performance issues can occur with large and complex Canvas Apps. In such cases, you could also choose to develop a Model-Driven App or Power Pages site instead. These are responsive by default across virtually all mobile devices.
Conclusion
Microsoft Power Apps Canvas Apps offer flexibility in design and functionality. Ideal for digitizing and streamlining processes. They integrate seamlessly with other Power Platform tools such as Dataverse, Power Automate, Power BI, and Power Pages. Even though some effort is needed for responsive design, Canvas Apps let users create fully custom-built solutions that perfectly fit their needs. In short, the possibilities for building apps with Canvas Apps are endless, and that's what makes this part of Power Apps so powerful.
Written by Mathijs van der Ven
Low-Code Consultant