Microsoft Power Apps: six real-world use cases for your business

Organisations are constantly searching for ways to streamline their processes, increase productivity, and improve overall efficiency. Enter Microsoft Power Apps, a powerful suite of low-code development tools that empowers organisations to create custom business applications without the need for extensive coding knowledge.

With Microsoft Power Apps, businesses can transform their ideas into reality, building tailored solutions to address specific challenges and drive growth. In this blog, we will explore six real-world use cases which will demonstrate how this cutting-edge technology can be harnessed to make a tangible impact to your operations.

Below are some of the key benefits of Power Apps which apply to each of the use cases we'll cover through the blog:

1. User interface design: Power Apps provides a drag-and-drop interface, enabling businesses to design visually appealing and user-friendly app interfaces. Customisable layouts, colours, fonts, and icons allow businesses to align the app with their brand identity and create a seamless user experience.
2. Data integration: Power Apps allows businesses to integrate various data sources, such as SharePoint, Excel, or external APIs. This enables the app to retrieve and display real-time data, ensuring that users have access to up-to-date information.
3. Form creation: Power Apps enables businesses to create dynamic forms for data entry and capture. Forms can include fields, dropdown menus, checkboxes, and attachments, providing users with an intuitive way to input information and interact with the app.
4. Workflow automation: Power Apps seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Power Automate (formerly known as Flow), allowing businesses to automate workflows and processes. For example, an app could notify stakeholders when certain conditions are met, trigger actions based on user inputs, or generate automated emails.
5. Mobile accessibility: Power Apps supports responsive design, ensuring that apps can be accessed on mobile devices. This allows employees to use the app on smartphones or tablets, providing flexibility and accessibility, even when they are on the go or working remotely.
6. Reporting and analytics: Power Apps integrates with Microsoft Power BI, enabling businesses to generate reports and dashboards with interactive visualisations. This helps organisations gain insights into data trends, track key performance indicators, and make informed decisions based on data-driven analysis.

By leveraging the capabilities of Microsoft Power Apps, businesses can build personalised apps that address specific challenges, automate processes, improve user experience, and drive operational efficiency.

Timesheet app

Timesheets are a critical tool for many organisations, however they can be complicated to build, manage, and for employees to use.

With Power Apps , businesses can easily build a personalised and user-friendly interface that allows employees to track their working hours, submit timesheets, and manage their time-related tasks efficiently.?Managers can then receive the data in real time and approve, reject, or edit information for their direct reports.

A great example is April Dunnam’s open-source Power Apps Timesheet , a timesheet that lets you easily and elegantly keep track of employee hours with no frills and easy setup . All you’ll need to do is hook up your SharePoint data source and two SharePoint lists with the specified fields, and your timesheet is ready to go.

You can also spend time making your own timesheet application , which can be done in a matter of minutes rather than developing your own from scratch.?

Furthermore, you can use your timesheet app in conjunction with Power BI to be able to draw conclusions and analyse trends from your timesheet data, meaning that you can use that information to make decisions and optimise your organisation to ensure that you’re as efficient as possible.

Expense request apps

Another popular use case for Power Apps is an expense request app. Businesses can create an efficient interface for employees to submit and manage expense requests seamlessly. It enables integration with receipt capture services and can incorporate approval workflows, integrating with Power Automate to streamline the process. Power Apps also integrates with data sources to generate reports and provide real-time analytics.

Microsoft already has a sample template that can help you get a solution up and running quickly.?

Or, you can build a customised app yourself:

To get started with the template, simply select ‘Start From Template’ in Power Apps and find the expenses template.

Hot desk booking app

Hot desking is an important part of many hybrid working environments, making sure that you’re optimising your working spaces. However, it can be difficult to manage bookable desks, and this often leads to underutilised resources and unhappy team members.

With Power Apps, companies can design a visually appealing app with features such as desk availability status, floor plans, and booking calendars. Power Apps enables integration with data sources like SharePoint or Excel, allowing real-time updates on desk availability. Employees can use the app to view and select available desks, specify booking durations, and even personalise their preferences for amenities or desk locations. The app can also incorporate notifications and reminders to ensure smooth desk utilisation.

April Dunnam’s open-source desk reservation app template can help you get set up quickly, or make your own with just a few simple steps.

Employee feedback capture app

Using Power Apps, you can create an app that lets you capture employee feedback with ease, all with a custom front end to look professional and appealing.

Power Apps makes it simple to do so, as the no-code console is easy to use for this kind of application and can be done in a matter of minutes. All of that feedback will be stored within a SharePoint data repository, meaning that it’s easily accessible to whoever needs it. The app can include features such as notifications to remind employees to submit feedback, progress tracking for action items, and analytics to identify trends or areas of improvement.

Using this, you can make surveys and other regular ways for employees to submit feedback from within the app, rather than having to send out new requests for feedback each time, and then sift through all of that data.

Service request app

A service request app will help your organisation fluidly deal with technical issues and ensure that requests for services are handled promptly. Power Apps enables you to build a personalised service request app that streamlines the process of receiving and addressing customer or employee service requests.

Businesses can design custom forms to capture relevant details such as the type of service needed, contact information, and any accompanying documentation, and integration with data sources enables real-time updates and tracking of service requests. The app can include features like automated notifications to keep people informed about the status of their requests and integration with workflows to streamline the resolution process.

Use a pre-built template by going to?Create within Power Apps and click ‘Start From Template’, or get started with your own.

Meeting notes app

Taking meeting notes is vital to ensure that the feedback and conversation within the meeting are recorded, and Power Apps makes this easier than ever.

A personalised app could have functionality including centralised note storage, real-time collaboration and automated workflows such as sending meeting summaries or creating tasks based on action items identified during the meeting.

A wider meeting scheduling app like Meeting Capture will let you capture notes and track actions in a very simple manner, meaning that everything is in one place and is organised, as well as being able to be exported to OneNote and Outlook.

Using AI Builder, you can create an AI model that uses speech-to-text to transcribe meeting notes, meaning that you don’t have to write or type them and that they can easily be transcribed within your application.

How we can help

Power Apps is a powerful tool that lets you create and deploy apps for your organisation with ease. These are just some of the many uses that Power Apps can have within your organisation, the use cases are numerous.

If you’re looking to get started with the Power Platform but don’t know where to start, reach out to us today. Advanced have over 60 in-house Microsoft Certified?Professionals, with years of experience designing?and implementing workplace services . We are a Microsoft AI Cloud Partner and hold?several Microsoft designations including: Modern?Work Solution Partner, Infrastructure Solution?Partner, Digital & App Innovation Solution Partner?and Azure Virtual Desktop Advanced Specialisation.

Get in touch at [email protected] today and see how we can help.