Integrate finance and operations apps with external applications by using Power Apps

  • 4 minutes

Finance and operations apps integrate with Microsoft Power Apps, which is a service for developers and non-technical users to build custom business apps for mobile devices, tablets, and the web without writing code. You can embed Power Apps apps in finance and operations apps to modify the product's functionality. You can embed Power Apps apps from within the user interface by selecting the Power Apps logo on the page you wish to embed a Power Apps app.

For example, you can build a Power Apps app to supplement finance and operations apps with information that is pulled from another system.

When using finance and operations apps as the data source for a Power Apps app, you will select from a list of your data entities. As with all other integration scenarios, the Power Apps integration uses data entities to access your finance and operations apps data. Many data sources exist outside of finance and operations apps, which you can also use for Power Apps apps.

Examples of other data sources are:

  • Microsoft Dataverse
  • Azure
  • SharePoint
  • SQL Server
  • Other Dynamics 365 apps

The two ways that you can access a Power Apps app on a page are:

  • Select the Power Apps button in the right-corner of the Action Pane. When you embed a Power Apps app to be launched by using the Power Apps button, a menu item for the Power Apps app appears, and the app will open in a side pane.

  • Display a Power Apps app on a page as a new tab, FastTab, blade, or new section in a workspace. The following screenshot is from the All vendors page in the finance and operations apps user interface that shows the Power Apps button. Because there is no Power Apps app on the All vendors page, you are prompted to insert one.

    All vendors page that highlights the PowerApp button. When selected, this button opens to a menu option to "Insert a PowerApp".

As a developer, you're able to control where a Power Apps app can be embedded. By default, any user can embed a Power Apps app on a page. You can configure the Power Apps feature to only allow embedding on certain pages by implementing two methods:

  • isPowerAppPersonalizationEnabled - If this method returns false for a page, then the Power Apps menu button won't be shown and users won't be able to embed Power Apps apps anywhere on that page.
  • isPowerAppTabPersonalizationEnabled - If this method returns false for a page, then a user can't embed Power Apps as a tab, FastTab, or panorama section. However, a user can still embed a Power Apps through the Power Apps menu button.

Data integration

You can connect to your data from finance and operations apps seamlessly within Microsoft Power Platform to build canvas and model-driven apps. As a System Administrator, you can access finance and operations apps data that is exposed through Data entities. These entities must be enabled for public API in the development environment to be exposed.

If you are using finance and operations apps and wish to create model-driven Power Apps, OData entities are all available as virtual entities in Microsoft Dataverse and Microsoft Power Platform. You can build experiences in applications such as Sales, Marketing, Customer Engagement using data directly from finance and operations apps. By doing this, you can use Create, Read, Update, and Delete capabilities from the Dataverse and Microsoft Power Platform. You can also use this capability to create Power Pages.