Introduction
Microsoft Power Platform is a suite of apps, services, connectors, and a data platform that provides you with an opportunity to build custom apps for your business needs. Microsoft Power Platform consists of five key products: Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Pages and Microsoft Copilot Studio.
This module focuses on Microsoft Power Apps and how you can use it together with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service. This module doesn't provide an in-depth explanation of how to create tables or build apps, but it does explain how you can use Power Apps with Dynamics 365 Customer Service. The summary unit of this module provides links to other learning modules for the building of apps.
Power Apps provides a rapid, low-code development environment for building custom apps for business needs. It has services, connectors, and a scalable data service and app platform, Microsoft Dataverse, to allow simple integration and interaction with existing data. Power Apps enables you to create web and mobile applications that run on all devices.
People use apps in their daily lives, and the business context should be no exception. Most out-of-the-box solutions don't meet all business needs or integrate effortlessly with other business programs. Power Apps eases users into app development with a simple interface so that every business user or pro developer can build custom apps.
Microsoft Dataverse
Microsoft Dataverse is a cloud-based, low-code data service and app platform that allows you to use the security and connectivity of Microsoft services. Dataverse connects to all aspects of Microsoft Power Platform so that you can fully control, automate, and strengthen your business. With standard tables and columns, including the ability to define relationships between your data, Dataverse was built for powerful, scalable solutions.
Dataverse is designed to be your central data repository for business data, and you might even be using it already. Behind the scenes, it powers many Microsoft Dynamics 365 solutions such as Customer Service, Marketing, Field Service, and Sales. It is also available as part of Power Apps and Power Automate, with native connectivity built in.
The following diagram shows how the many offerings of Microsoft Dataverse are connected.
Microsoft Dataverse offers substantial functionality, including the following features:
Security - Dataverse handles authentication with Microsoft Entra ID To allow for conditional access and multifactor authentication. It supports authorization, down to the row and column level, and provides rich auditing capabilities.
Logic - Dataverse allows you to apply business logic at the data level. Regardless of how a user interacts with the data, the same rules apply. These rules could be related to duplicate detection, business rules, workflows, or more.
Data - Dataverse offers you the control to shape your data, allowing you to discover, model, validate, and report on your data. This control ensures that your data looks the way that you want, regardless of how you use it.
Storage - Dataverse stores your physical data in the Azure cloud. This cloud-based storage removes the concern about where your data lives or how it scales. These concerns are handled for you.
Integration - Dataverse connects in different ways to support your business needs. APIs, webhooks, eventing, and data exports give you flexibility to get data in and out.
Connectors
Microsoft Power Platform uses data across many platforms. To do so, the components of Microsoft Power Platform use connectors. Consider connectors as a bridge from your data source to an app or workflow that allows information to be conveyed back and forth. Connectors allow you to extend your business solutions across platforms and add functionality for your users.
Microsoft Dataverse is one such connector. Through the Dataverse connector, Power Apps can access the data that is used in Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
Power Apps and Dynamics 365 Customer Service
By using the Microsoft Dataverse connector, you can connect apps from Power Apps to Dynamics 365 applications, including Dynamics 365 Customer Service apps.
The tables and columns that are used to store Customer Service data are created automatically in Dataverse when you deploy Dynamics 365 Customer Service. You can use these tables and columns in Power Apps. Additionally, you can create your own custom tables and columns in Dataverse to meet specific requirements that are not met by Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
With the native functionality of Dynamics 365 Customer Service apps, you can embed apps from Power Apps. This functionality allows organizations to use Customer Service apps, combined with apps from Power Apps, to fit the needs of the business without major customization. This feature also allows you to connect to other services and data sources without needing development experience.
Different types of apps from Power Apps
Microsoft Power Apps Studio includes two types of apps: canvas and model-driven. You can use both types to build apps from Power Apps that solve business problems for task and role-specific scenarios.
Canvas apps begin with the user experience, where you can craft a highly tailored interface with the power of a blank canvas and then connect it to your choice of more than 500 data sources. One of those data sources is Microsoft Dataverse, and you can build apps that are connected on Dynamics 365 data.
You can build canvas apps for web, mobile, and tablet applications. You can design the app by dragging and dropping elements onto a canvas, as you would design a slide in PowerPoint. Canvas apps are not replacements for all customizations in Dynamics 365, but they do extend your possibilities, especially when you want to create task-oriented apps.
Model-driven apps begin with your data model. Model-driven apps build up from the shape of your core business data and processes in Microsoft Dataverse to model forms, views, and other components.
Unlike canvas app development where the designer has complete control over the app layout, with model-driven apps, much of the layout is determined for you and designated by the components that you add to the app. By using model-driven apps, you can automatically generate UI that is responsive across devices and is used by Dynamics 365 Customer Service apps. Model-driven app design is a component-focused approach to app development and its design doesn't require code. Model-driven apps can be simple or complex.
Note
Dynamics 365 Customer Service apps are model-driven apps that use Microsoft Dataverse for its data store.
Portal apps are external-facing web applications that allow users who are outside their organizations to sign in with various identities and then view and create data in Dataverse.
Portal apps can help provide internal and external users with more secure access to your data, whether it's anonymously or through commercial authentication providers such as LinkedIn, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google, or enterprise providers such as Microsoft Entra ID B2C. Portal apps also allow you to set authentication requirements and customize data for each user, and users can submit their information privately with straightforward admin controls.
Portal apps use Microsoft Dataverse to hold its configuration, and you can add webpages and change content of the portal website without needing a web developer.
Templates are available for different scenarios, including a customer self-service portal that you can use with Dynamics 365 Customer Service. The target audience for Power Pages can be customers, employees, or donors.