We have a partnership with Microsoft.
Practice Lead at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
User-friendly with good flows but the UI needs to be improved
Pros and Cons
- "The flows are good because they can be used in a variety of situations."
- "The portal and canvas apps need to be improved and brought up to speed."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The flows are good and probably the best component of this product because they can be used in a variety of situations and we're using it all the time. We're also using a lot of portal and canvas too. This is a simple solution and user friendly.
What needs improvement?
The product has a few issues. The portal and canvas apps are the main things that need to be improved. Bringing the UI of a model-driven app to something closer to what Salesforce has will definitely be a game changer.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for three years.
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January 2025
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable if the load is not too high. If it is, then we have issues and need Microsoft to help us sort things out. In the low to medium load, it's very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Our implementation wasn't huge but the solution is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support was good. They provided us with first-rate architects and good support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was relatively straightforward.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend this solution because of the type of connectors that they have, the cost is reasonable, and it's easy to learn.
I rate this solution seven out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Vice President, Information System & Technology at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Easy to set up and low-code allows for fast development, but the navigation needs to be simplified
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features are low-code and fast development."
- "PowerApps is still a bit new compared to a slightly more mature product such as OutSystems."
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are low-code and fast development.
Microsoft is evolving constantly.
What needs improvement?
PowerApps is still a bit new compared to a slightly more mature product such as OutSystems.
OutSystems has many features that are still not available in Power Apps.
Simple things like navigation are better with Outsystem without much coding.
The key is the licensing; the fees could be reduced, especially at the enterprise level.
I would like to have more usability, with more fanciful navigation. More like what you would find in Outsystems BI. They offer more drag and drop navigation, and more advanced navigational options around the drag and drop lists and hierarchical navigation out of the box is literally a drag and a drop.
It can be done in Power Apps, but you need to do a bit of coding to achieve the same thing. It's lacking in features.
For how long have I used the solution?
We are in the evaluation phase and have been using PowerApps for three months.
We are using the latest version of this solution.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
To be fair, we are relatively new to this solution. It's stable but at the moment in terms of stability, the enterprise version is more sustainable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The version that I am using is not at an enterprise level. If you want to increase in size you have to purchase more licenses. It's scalable as long as you purchase the license.
We have more than 100 users in our organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not contacted technical support. We haven't had the need to.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I am currently working with Microsoft Power BI and Power Automate, which goes hand in hand with Microsoft Power Apps.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is quite easy, it's as simple as turning it on.
It took us two weeks to deploy it and to come out with the first prototype.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing fee at the enterprise level is expensive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are currently doing a proof of concept with Microsoft, we are evaluating some of their products.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend Microsoft Power Apps to anyone who is interested in using it.
As of recent Microsoft has been evolving the Power Platform rather aggressively.
For example, I'm using Power BI, and every month they have a rollout of new features, and with Power Apps, when you compare to one year ago has evolved quite a bit, and so has Power Automate.
Microsoft is on a journey of evolving.
It's a good tool now, but it will be a great tool soon.
I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Microsoft Power Apps
January 2025
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Developer at Australian College of Kuwait
Data integrates easily on all Microsoft apps but the solution is limited
Pros and Cons
- "It's a very workable solution because it's an automated way of making applications. You have a template, you have the application know-how,"
- "The product could be improved by making it a production application and enabling the export of apps."
What is our primary use case?
I'm a developer and we use the product for in-house development and finding in-house solutions. We have a developer relationship with Microsoft. I'm currently working on a smart parking app for a college here in Kuwait. It would be a big time saver and enable drivers to know where there are available parking spots when it's a busy time and would maximize free space usage. It would make things easier for everyone.
What is most valuable?
The common data point would be the most valuable feature. PowerApps is also usable for data mining, it can be used with Power BI or SQL. All the data integrates easily on all Microsoft apps. And it comes with most of the subscriptions and extras.
What needs improvement?
The product could be improved by making it a production application and enabling the export of apps. If you want to set up a site for home rentals, for example, just a basic outline as a starting point, this can be done. The issue is that it cannot be exported. It can be applied in-house, for demonstration purposes for your employees, for example, but you can't really make use of it otherwise. It's a problem.
On the whole, it's a very workable solution because it's an automated way of making applications. You have a template, you have the application know-how, etc. If it could be exported into different languages and could enable different ways of outputting the information, that would be great. For now, it's limited and that's a bit of an issue. Enabling all the applications on internet-based devices to transfer data in and out would make it an excellent product.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the product for six months and we're using the latest version.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It works as intended, it's not going to be a magical solution, but it just does what it's meant to do. That's the beauty of it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I believe the product is very scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer service has been pretty good. Actually I tried contacting them today and they've put up this bot that can get a response for you, but it takes more than a day, I think. I could do with some support. I can't access Azure Maps here, and I need Azure Maps to set up the smart parking system.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used BlinkID but nothing else really has the same power as PowerApps. Google has its Cloud Suite but they've been a bit slack, and Amazon is iffy. They're not really workable here. I live in Kuwait, and there are a lot of contracts with Microsoft - they have the App Center here, but they haven't enabled much of it other than for government contracts, I think.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was very straightforward. I tend to think the documentation and the community forms are more than enough to help improve your setup experience. It's very, very, straightforward. I don't think it took more than five minutes to set up and that's amazing. Previously, it might have taken a week to complete setup - all the code, database, linking.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I have no idea about licensing costs. I tried contacting Microsoft about this because the information isn't easily available and it was unclear where I could search for this. My guess is that the cost is dependent on the company and product needs. I tried to make a calculation and it looks like it's going to be much cheaper to purchase the product than if I were to hire an engineer, get him to develop an app, and have it maintained. This is a much more scalable and less expensive solution.
What other advice do I have?
Previously, we had a whole department using the product. When I lived in Australia, it was used for assembling websites and to upload photos, videos and the like. It worked well because it was for internally-based users.
My suggestion to anyone searching for a product would be to invest in a solution if you know that it works. Don't go for anything high-risk. This product works as it's intended. It's missing a few key features to make it really stand out but I believe it has the potential to be the best app for access to the database.
The product can be easily integrated - with Microsoft Graph, with common data links, and Power BI especially. You can have a dashboard ready, all the information you want, displayed in whatever form you want. It can present your data in whatever way, shape, and form you want it to.
I would rate this product a seven out of 10.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Solution Architect at Avanade
Easily connects to data services and is good for presenting POCs to clients
Pros and Cons
- "I can have a SharePoint list and connect with users through PowerApps to present the information."
- "The editor in the Web browser could be improved because it can be difficult to implement the commands in the buttons."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case of this solution is for developing Proof of concepts and for preparing some use cases to present or to showcase them to the customers. Nothing related to production. It's only for presentations and for showing the merchandise to the customers.
The deployment model we are using is cloud-based.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is easily connecting to data services.
I can have a SharePoint list and connect with users through PowerApps to present the information.
I am also able to connect with Microsoft Flow, which allows me to connect with different people to email and update items in Sharepoint.
What needs improvement?
The editor in the Web browser could be improved because it can be difficult to implement the commands in the buttons.
In the next release, I would like to see Microsoft PowerApps be more integrated with Microsoft Teams or SharePoint and with different applications.
When I configure PowerApps in Sharepoint it appears that it is not integrated with the page.
When it is configured it looks like it is a different application.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is stable.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not contacted technical support because I haven't needed to.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy and straightforward.
It took approximately two days, but it depends on what features have to be implemented.
I maintain this solution myself, and it only requires one person for maintenance.
What about the implementation team?
We did not use a vendor to implement this solution. I did everything myself.
What other advice do I have?
My advice would be to create a master screen for items like layouts and all of the typography that you may have in your application.
Create a master screen widget. The rest of the screen will have, for example, settings for the layout that will refer to these objects in the master screen settings. Mainly for editing.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
Head of Software Engineering Department at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
A good data development and connectivity tool, that would benefit from a longer period of availability for historical data
Pros and Cons
- "We like that this solution allows us to fully define our test environments, and link them using different code. This means we can do different tests, but with one basic structure, and then export the data and use it in other platforms."
- "We would like to see the period for viewing executions within this solution to be extended beyond its current limit of 28 days. We would prefer to be able to offer our customers an infinite amount of history to search."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution to integrate our apps, and send processed data via the different connectors it provides.
How has it helped my organization?
This solution has allowed us to offer our customers to integrate with our platform platform to send documents, and for them to be processed with a digital key network solution, without having to use the platform directly.
What is most valuable?
We like that this solution allows us to fully define our test environments, and link them using different code. This means we can do different tests, but with one basic structure, and then export the data and use it in other platforms.
What needs improvement?
We would like to see the period for viewing executions within this solution to be extended beyond its current limit of 28 days. We would prefer to be able to offer our customers an infinite amount of history to search.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using this solution for nearly a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have found this to be a generally stable solution, and have only experienced issues when there are a large amount of registers involved.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a very scalable solution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not previously have a single solution, but instead we used a component that worked using Java. We switched to this software because it was less complex to maintain.
How was the initial setup?
The initial set up of this solution is fairly straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented this solution using our in-house team.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We would advise organizations that this solution has a high-price point. However, the cost is justified for how comprehensive the package is, and all components of the solution are available under the standard license plan; there are no hidden costs involved.
What other advice do I have?
We would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
Power Platform Consultant at BE-SYNC
Good for automation and creating small apps for Microsoft Office but needs to be more stable
Pros and Cons
- "It is good for using for small apps and automation on Office stuff."
- "The stability of this solution could be better."
What is most valuable?
The performance is showing signs of improvement.
Technical support is okay.
It is good for using for small apps and automation on Microsoft Office items.
What needs improvement?
The stability of this solution could be better. It's getting better, the performance. However, it's not there yet.
We'd like to be able to leverage more reuse of the code we are implementing in the apps.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using PowerApps for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution needs to improve stability and performance. However, they are working on it.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is okay and we are mostly satisfied with it.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
What other advice do I have?
I'm a customer and an end-user.
I would advise other users to try out the product. We've had a largely positive experience. It's good for using for small apps, and automation specifically for Office stuff. If a company needs that kind of specific usability, I'd suggest they use PowerApps.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Enterprise Architect at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
No code, quick drag and drop, and a good user interface, but the data threshold limit needs to increase
Pros and Cons
- "I would say that the most valuable features are the user interface, navigation, and business routes."
- "It has to improve the threshold limit where it can handle data beyond 5000 items."
What is our primary use case?
Microsoft has come at the right time. To come out with a RAD (Rapid Application Development) tool where you can develop your apps on the cloud much faster, and deploy them for multiple devices, whether it is mobile, cloud, laptops, or desktops. It is similar to Oracle APEX or Oracle developer tools where you just drag and drop into your application within minutes.
The primary use case of this solution is case management reporting. If, for example, you have a set of engineers who have been assigned a particular case or project they will need to record all of their activities and their visits. Using the application created in PowerApps, they report everything, then it goes through a workflow.
The workflow goes from recording the daily activities of the team for the specific project. The project then goes through a series of approvals and gets logged, completed, and the report is generated.
Expenses are also being logged.
We have Power BI as well, and it moves the data from the source to the data warehouse then generates a report.
This is quite a short term, six-week engagement. We wanted to create an application and have it up and running within four to six weeks, rather than spending three to six months on bigger projects on the platform. We wanted it to be quick and fast.
PowerApps is best suited for those cases where you have a small scenario and an application to support that project or scenario. You can call these departmental applications, which are needed on the fly. We create a much shorter development lifecycle and then deploy, and then people start using it.
Take an example of the COVID-19 situation. We wanted all of our branches to log their COVID cases or what exactly are they doing daily to manage the COVID cases and to know what the process is. All of those details are logged into the COVID folder and then the reports are generated daily or weekly.
What is most valuable?
Microsoft PowerApps is a no-code solution.
I would say that the most valuable features are the user interface, navigation, and business routes.
It quickly drags and drops. It doesn't take much coding, there is no coding in fact. You drag and drop, select a few things to configure, and then read those applications in the user screens.
With business rules, you can just select and you don't need to elaborate coding or backend code. This way, it's much easier to write or create those applications using their features.
What needs improvement?
When you capture a lot of data, the data becomes enormous. It's one of Microsoft's challenges that there is a threshold limit of 5000 items. It has to improve the threshold limit where it can handle data beyond 5000 items.
I would like to see integration with on-premise business applications, complex business routes, and complex business workflows.
For how long have I used the solution?
We started using Microsoft PowerApps in 2014.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Currently, there is a challenge in scaling up. We can't scale beyond large data.
We have approximately 10,000 users in our organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
There is a challenge in getting support. The support staff is not trained properly in PowerApps.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was not easy, but not exactly complex. There was a lot of research.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There are two licensing costs, one is pay-as-you-go, or you can develop it for one year.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise others to make an informed decision before you implement it. There are a lot of challenges, and the product is going through a lot of changes.
It's promising, so I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Principal at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Great for quickly making apps, with reasonable pricing, but doesn't scale well externally
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is excellent at figuring how to build an application in three months. It makes it very quick and easy."
- "The documentation isn't great. It's only 75% of what you need to know. If you go beyond that and run into issues, it's really not going to help you."
What is our primary use case?
I primarily use the solution for its business application. My business needed an application and so that's what we're using Power Apps for.
How has it helped my organization?
We've been pleased with it. I would say that it has improved the way our organization functions. It makes app-building faster and easier.
What is most valuable?
The solution is excellent at figuring how to build an application in three months. It makes it very quick and easy.
The pricing is very reasonable. it's not overly expensive.
What needs improvement?
I can't recall any missing features. Currently, the solution is doing a good job of meeting my needs.
My target is to have an application that I can use for clients. I don't see Power Apps as being the long-term solution. They get expensive when you start to go to non-internal users. If there were to be external users, the solution would get expensive.
The documentation isn't great. It's only 75% of what you need to know. If you go beyond that and run into issues, it's really not going to help you.
For example, the software is almost guilty of being too powerful. The particular problem I had was that they recommended that I use Azure to do the login, to do the user authentication. Therefore, I set it up. However, it didn't work. I could not find the solution via documentation or online at all. Without knowing I could access technical support, I paid someone a couple of hundred dollars to try and figure it out for me and they couldn't figure it out. Eventually, I was just looking around and I came across one setting hidden away and it was set to false. I instinctively realized that it looked like it might be related and so I set it to true and all of a sudden everything worked. However, that whole issue could have been mitigated if the documentation just took that extra step and got into the nuances of the product.
What I'd love to see them do is to sit down and clean up the interfaces. There are three different ways that you can program. I'm particular to using a Power Apps portal. There are three different ways I can edit my Power Apps portal website. Each of them kind of does a better job of doing some things than the other ones do. Therefore you're kind of in this in-between realm of having to choose between certain things if you decide to go with a specific approach. They really need to clean up the development environment so that t's straightforward and predictable across the different ways to program.
It does things, such as, if you want to delete a particular field or table, you get this message that says you can't due to the fact that it has dependencies. It's really hard to find what those dependencies are. Items like that need to be clarified.
The application is working great now, however, every once in a while it gets complicated and it's hard to navigate.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've recently delved into using the product. I've been using the solution for at least the last seven or eight months or so. It's been less than a year. I haven't used it that long just yet.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. its performance is reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is limited if you want to scale externally. A company needs to keep that in mind.
I only launched my first application sometime around Christmas, or just after. It's still quite new. I have about a dozen or so people that move in and out of it. It's just a small app.
As a company, we are quite small. All of our users would be external. And, due to the fact that the solution gets expensive for external users, it's not a solution we plan to expand upon or use for the long term.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is not easy to find. It's a bit of a well-kept secret. However, once you locate them, they are quite helpful and responsive.
Truthfully, they are hard to find due to the fact that you just don't realize they're there. I had spent a month, six weeks phoning around trying to find internet solutions to problems and resources and paying people to help me, and nobody knew the answer.
This was done without ever realizing that there was a very capable tech support resource available in Power Apps through the subscription. Once we found them, they were able to fix all of the issues we were struggling with very quickly.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is quite straightforward. A company shouldn't have any issues with the setup process. It's not overly complex.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is excellent. It's not too expensive.
However, once you get into adding non-internal users, the solution can get pricey. It's only reasonable if you are trying to create internal team-based apps.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I haven't looked at any other low-code development platform.
What other advice do I have?
We're just customers and end-users.
We are using the latest version of the solution.
From a perspective of me doing a full test of the application and how I want it to run, it just met all of my needs and there are other storage locations for data. That said, the data is sitting in the CDS.
From my perspective, it was a great place to start and a great place to sit and test the waters. I'm looking to migrate it into something else in a little while. I won't stay with it forever. That's not the plan.
I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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