Understand Power Apps Studio in Dataverse in a Teams environment

When you create a canvas app by using any method, you're taken to the canvas app builder called Power Apps Studio. You can use Power Apps Studio to design, build, and manage your canvas app.

Overview of Power Apps Studio

1. Build hub – select different pages in the Power Apps app.

2. Power Apps Studio options – options relevant to the settings in a Power Apps Studio session.

3. App actions - options to rename, save, preview, or publish the app.

4. Properties list - list of properties for the selected object.

5. Formula bar - compose or edit a formula for the selected property with one or more functions.

6. Power Apps app – Power Apps app in Microsoft Teams.

7. App authoring menu - selection pane to switch between data sources and insert options.

8. App authoring options - details pane with options relevant to the selected menu item for authoring the app.

9. Canvas/screen - primary canvas for composing the app structure.

10. Properties pane - properties list for the selected object in UI format.

11. Screen selector - switch between different screens in an app.

12. Change canvas screen size - change the size of the canvas during an authoring experience in Power Apps Studio.

Let's understand each option in Power Apps Studio in detail.

1 - Build hub

Opening Power Apps Studio from the build hub opens an app authoring experience that inherits the Teams interface and options. The Home, Build, and About tabs are described in Overview of the Power Apps app.

2 – Power Apps Studio options

Power Apps Studio options are available on the menu in the upper-left corner. The options are relevant to the current session and app-related settings.

Back

Takes you back to the build hub, closing the current Power Apps Studio session.

Undo and redo

• Undo – undo the last action.
• Redo – repeat the last action.

Cut, copy, and paste

• Cut – Cut the selection, and store it in the clipboard.
• Copy – Copy the selection, and store it in the clipboard.
• Paste - Paste the last cut, or copied selection from the clipboard.

Add data

• Create a new table by selecting Create new table.
• Select any other existing tables from the current environment.
• Search and select a connector, such as SharePoint or SQL Server.

New screen

Add screens based on the available layouts.

Layouts

Select a new screen to add to the app based on the layout of the screen.

Select a screen type based on the available scenarios, such as Blank, Scrollable, List, Success, Tutorial, Email, People, Meeting, or Calendar.

App checker

Runs the App checker with available rules and shows the results.

Settings

Configure the app's general settings.

General

Shows app name, and allows changing the app icon. To update the icon, select a new icon or background color. To add or update description, enter text in the text box. You can also upload a custom icon for the app using the Browse option.

Display

Shows the screen size and orientation. To change, select the radio buttons for Orientation and Size.

Advanced settings allow you to further customize the app screen configuration.

• Scale to it: Scales the app to fit available space.
• Lock aspect ratio: Locks the height and width ratio.
• Lock orientation: Maintains app orientation when device rotates.

To change the setting, toggle the switch.

More information: Change screen size and orientation

Upcoming features

Allows you to configure advanced settings for the app that include features under preview, experimental or retired features.

More information: Understand experimental, preview, and deprecated features in Power Apps

Support

Shows current Power Apps Studio session details, version, and other information useful when working with Microsoft support.

Power Automate

Create a new flow with Power Automate, or select any available flow.

More information: Create flows using the Power Apps app in Teams

Collections

A collection is a group of items that are similar, such as products in a product list. This section lists the collections used by the current app. More information: Collections in canvas apps used by the app.

Variables

You can save data such as the result values from a data set into temporary storage by using variables. This section lists variables used by the current app. More information: Variables in canvas apps used by the app.

3 – App actions

Use the options in the upper-right corner of Power Apps Studio to work with app-specific actions.

App name editor

Select the name of the app to edit it.

Save

Save allows you to perform the following actions:

• Save - Saves recent and unsaved changes you made to the app in Power Apps Studio. Each time you save changes, a new version is created.
• Save as - Duplicate the app by saving the app with a different name.
• Save and publish - Allows you to both save the app, and publish it at the same time.

Preview

This will show a preview version of the app in Microsoft Teams that you can interact with.

Publish to Teams

Publishes the app’s current version to a channel within Microsoft Teams. For more information about publishing an app, go to Publish an app.

4 – Properties list

Shows the list of available properties for the selected object on the canvas. The properties list changes based on your selection. For a complete list of all properties, go to All properties.

5 – Formula bar

Use the formula bar to add, edit, or remove functions relevant to the selected object and the property selected from the properties list. For example, select the screen to update the background by using the RGBA function.

The formula bar is IntelliSense-enabled, and provides tips as you enter text to help you with the function syntax. If a formula returns an error, tips relevant to the syntax error and mitigation steps are displayed. When you start entering text that matches one or more functions, the formula bar shows inline function help and highlights help text relevant to the cursor position.

Similarly, you'll find help when working with complex functions, nested functions, or when correcting a formula syntax.

For a quick and easy function reference, you can also select the formula drop-down menu.

Select an event type from the drop-down menu at the top of the dialog box, such as Action instead of Text.

Select an action that you want to add a function for.

The available functions for the selected event type are dynamically updated depending on the object you select. For example, if you selected a button on the canvas, the available Action functions also include the function ClearCollect().

You can read the description of the selected Action function. Double-clicking a function name adds it into the formula bar.

For a complete list of all canvas app functions, go to Formula reference.

6 – Power Apps app

The Power Apps app in Teams is described in detail in Overview of the Power Apps app.

7 – App authoring menu

Switch between various authoring options while working with the app.

Tip

You can also select the expand button to expand the list to include names instead of just icons.

• Tree view - Shows a tree view of all screens and controls in the current app.
• Insert - Allows you to add different controls to the screen.
• Data - Add or remove data such as tables that the app connects to.
• Media - Insert or remove media from the app.

8 – App authoring options

The options for working with canvas apps change depending on the selection on the left pane.

Tree view

Select the tree view to show the screens available in the app,

Tip

Select App in the tree view to work with app-specific controls or to change app behavior, such as adding a formula on OnStart event of the app.

Switch to the Components tab to work with component library features. You can add new components or reuse those that were already published from published component libraries. More information: Component library

Insert

Insert shows all the popular objects or controls that you can add on the selected screen in your canvas app. You can also expand other choices or use the components option to insert controls from a component library.

To insert controls on the canvas, you can drag the control to the canvas, select the control, or select (...) and then select Add to canvas.

Tip

Dataverse for Teams provides new components built on the Fluent UI framework. More information: Fluent UI controls.

Popular controls

Name	Description
Label	A box that shows data such as text, numbers, dates, or currency.
Edit form	Display, edit, or create a record in a data source.
Text	A box that shows text.
Text box	A box in which the user can enter text, numbers, and other data.
Vertical gallery	A control that contains other controls and shows a set of data.
Add icon	Graphics for which you can configure appearance and behavior properties.
Rectangle	A rectangular shape to configure the canvas appearance.
Date Picker	A control that the user can select to specify a date.
Button	A control that the user can select to interact with the app.

For more information about the controls that you can insert, and their properties and definitions, go to Controls and properties in Power Apps.

Classic controls

Dataverse for Teams uses Fluent UI controls by default. If necessary, you can enable classic controls by using the experimental feature setting. To do this, go to Settings > Upcoming features > Experimental > toggle Classic controls to On.

After you enable classic controls, you'll be able to see and add them from the Classic category.

For example, you may need to enable classic controls when using dependent drop-down lists when using Dataverse for Teams.

Data

Add, refresh, or remove data sources from your canvas app. You can add one or more connections by using data sources.

In addition to data stored within tables, there are many connectors available to interact with data in popular SaaS, services, and systems.

Select Create new table to create a new table in the Dataverse for Teams environment.

To choose other connectors such as SharePoint, OneDrive, or SQL Server, you can enter text in the data source search box or select from the list of connectors.

More information: List of all Power Apps connectors

Visual editor

When you select Create new table and enter a name for the new table, you open visual editor where you can design the table, add columns of different data types, enter data in rows, and save the changes.

To get started with visual editor, select Create a table and enter the table name. You can also expand the Advanced settings to update the table's plural name. For example, a table name can be Shape, and the plural table name can be Shapes.

Watch this video that shows you how to quickly create table and columns.

Note

You can use visual editor in Power Apps Studio to quickly create a table while authoring an app. However, you can also use the Build tab to edit or delete the tables you create by using Power Apps Studio. Go to Create tables in Microsoft Teams for more information about creating tables by using the Build tab.

Understand visual editor

Visual editor allows you to work with table rows, columns, and data.

Table name

Select Edit to edit the name of the table.

Add row

Select Add row to add a new row to the table.

Add columns

Select Add columns to add new columns of the available column types supported by visual editor.

Supported column types

Visual editor supports specific data types as columns. The following options are available when creating a new column using visual editor inside Power Apps Studio:

• Text
• Email
• URL
• Phone
• Auto number
• Number
• Date (Only dates without the user locale (time zone) settings are supported.)
• Decimal
• Lookup
• Choice
• Yes/No

Important

To add columns of types that aren't supported by visual editor, such as file or image, create a table by using the solution explorer instead.

Advanced options

The advanced options for columns change depending on the type of column. For example, a Text column type has an advanced option for Max length. By contrast, an Auto number column type has options such as the type of autonumbering, prefixes, and maximum number of digits. More information: Types of fields

Show/hide columns

Use the Show/hide columns option to show or hide available columns, including columns automatically created as part of the table metadata.

For example, you can add an Owner column created by default to the existing table.

Refresh

Refreshes the current table with data.

Save

To save changes to a table, select Save. When you change a table and try to close it without saving changes, you're prompted to discard changes.

To ensure that changes to the table are saved, you can select the next row inside the table, or select any other cell after editing a cell to trigger the auto save functionality.

After you close a saved table, you'll see the table added to the list of available data sources in Data on the left pane.

Visual editor view

Select from the options of Compact, Default, or Comfortable layouts to switch the view with columns and rows spacing to change visual editor layout.

Row count

Shows the row counts in the table.

Column options

Select the drop-down menu next to the column heading to view column-related options.

Option	Description
Edit column	Edit the column name or advanced options. After it's created, you can't change the name of the column.
Hide	Hide or unhide the column.
Insert column	Insert a new column at the selected column location.
A to Z	Sort records in ascending order.
Z to A	Sort records in descending order.
Filter by	Filter column data based on the filter criteria you define.
Move left	Move the column to the left from the current position.
Move right	Move the column to the right from the current position.
Pin left	Pin the column to the left side of the table.
Pin right	Pin the column to the right side of the table.
Delete column	Delete the column.

Edit existing table

After you add rows and columns, and add data, you can close the table and use it as the data source in your app. To edit content in the table, you can use the app controls or go back to visual editor.

To edit the table, select the table data source, and then select Edit data to open the table in visual editor.

After you close visual editor, the data source is automatically refreshed to reflect the updated data in Power Apps Studio. You can also select Refresh to manually refresh Power Apps Studio to reflect the data in the controls you added on the canvas.

Media

Select Media to add images, video, or audio files to your app. Adding media directly to your app uploads the files to the app and uses the app storage. Each file uploaded to the app as media must be 64 MB or smaller, and the size of all media files uploaded to an app can't exceed 200 MB.

If you want to reference more media, consider using audio and video controls with URLs, using media from Azure Media Services, or from Microsoft Stream. More information: Using multimedia files in Power Apps

9 – Canvas/screen

The canvas shows the currently selected screen from the left pane.

10 – Properties pane

The properties pane shows properties and options available for the currently selected object on the canvas. The Properties tab shows generic options such as the name, color, size, or position. The Advanced tab shows more options for advanced customization. The advanced properties might sometimes be locked for editing, such as when working with data cards. You can select Unlock to change properties in such situations.

11 – Screen selector

Use the screen selector to switch between screens when your canvas app has multiple screens. You can also select a screen from the left pane by selecting the tree view. If the current selection is inside a container, or inside an individual cell in a gallery, the selector shows the breadcrumbs for the parent elements at each level.

12 – Change canvas screen size

You can zoom in or zoom out while authoring the canvas app. Select Ctrl+0 Fit to window to fit the screen size based on the current authoring window size. The zoom percentage or screen size you use while authoring a canvas app has no impact on the aspect ratio configured for the app when you preview your app or play a published app.

See also

Use the Fluent UI controls
Overview of the Power Apps app