As one of the four components in Microsoft’s Power Platform, Power Apps allows you to build customized apps for your business. There’s nothing new in building applications- but what makes Power Apps unique is the fact that you don’t necessarily need any technical experience to develop your app. It’s the perfect tool for business to modernize and digitize your solutions to everyday challenges.

One of the major buzzwords of 2022 is “agility”, which is usually easier said than done. However, Microsoft’s Power Platform could take you a few steps in the right direction. Overall, it’s a toolbox of four components:

• Power BI
• Power Automate
• Power Virtual Agents
• Power Apps

In combination, these four components can help you analyze and visualize data, automate processes and workflows, and build tailormade solutions and applications.

But let’s focus on Power Apps for now.

In short, Microsoft’s Power Apps is a platform where you can develop mobile and web apps, knowing minimal code. You can get started today with pre-built templates and drag-and-drop simplicity in your development. You can always improve and make your application more sophisticated later, if you need to.
This way, you will be able to adapt to challenges, optimize workflows, and innovate new ways of collaborating at an unseen pace and without much risk.

Case story: What if Power Apps could optimize your time-spend with just five minutes?

Here is an example. Let’s say you work in the housing industry, where you sell a given number of homes each year. Once the building is sold, and before it’s handed over to the buyers, you need to conduct an inspection to make sure everything is as it should be. Electrical, plumbing, insulation, and the list goes on.

Usually, the inspection information is written on a piece of paper and a clipboard. If there’s a running toilet or missing foot panels, it’s noted with a good old-fashioned pen and paper for the relevant contractors. Once they have received the notes and fixed the potential shortcomings, they then report back. This is a hands-on, but time-consuming and error-prone process, even with the best of intentions. So, how can we fix that?

In this case, Power Apps might be the obvious answer. Without unnecessarily over-complicating the process, you just convert it onto a digital platform. Now, the inspectors can create a specific case for each defect that they find, and then assign it to the relevant craftsman. At the same time, the case would be added to a platform in the app, where the craftsmen can see the full list of their tasks and report on the progress in their work.

Of course, you will need to invest time to build the app, but once it is up and running, you will optimize your time-spend. Let’s do the math.

Imagine you’re a business with around 300 employees who conduct the inspections. If each one of them creates five cases in a day – that is 1,500 cases in total every day.

If we then assume they work about 220 days every year, that adds up to 330,000 cases on an annual basis.

Now let’s say that, with your new digital workflow, you can save up to five minutes on each case. That would be 1,650,000 minutes saved- the same as 27,500 hours, or 1,146 days.

So, basically, Power Apps “buy you more time” to focus on other things. But, that’s not even the best part…

Making this process run more smoothly and efficiently would not only improve the time-spend, but could also streamline the collaboration and communication between inspectors, craftsmen, and buyers. With a tailormade app, you would be able to document defects with images and avoid unnecessary rework and misunderstandings- which is always a good thing to eliminate.

How to get started with Power Apps

You’ll find that the Power Platform is incredibly easy to work with and new ideas quickly emerge- along with the desire to try them out! In recognition of this, AlfaPeople offers an App In A Day workshop to test your ideas in the Power Platform

Request information on App In A Day workshops here: northamerica.dynamics365team@alfapeople.com