Day 20 - Create a Simple Entry Form Using Power Apps

Almost every organization buy Microsoft 365 bundle but they don't utilize even 50% of its features.

Usually we use Outlook, Skype/Teams , MS-word,excel & PowerPoint. What about other features ?

Are we supposed to pay extra amount to get similar type of services from 3rd party which are already included in Microsoft 365 bundle ? Absolutely No !!!

Naming few of them.

1. POWER BI 
You'll get free access of this tool with Microsoft 365 bundle. Please utilize it for Data Visualization.

2. Forms 
It can be used for questionnaire purpose and you have flexibility to analyse the response.

3. SharePoint
We can create an entire web-page using SharePoint. Usually we use it to store documents but it can do more than that !!!

You can create a SharePoint List which stores data in a tabular format. Moreover you can INSERT/DELETE/UPDATE data online.

4. Power Apps
Build apps in hours—not months—that easily connect to data, use Excel-like expressions to add logic, and run on the web, iOS, and Android devices. You don't need coding experience

You can find my blog on POWER BI & SharePoint. Today I am going to discuss about Power Apps. How can we utilize feature of Power Apps to build a simple Certification Entry Form 

Step 1: Launch https://powerapps.microsoft.com/ and login

Step 2: Start with a blank canvas or template >for Tablet > Create a form

Step 3: Connect it to a data source.  

Let’s create a certification entry form. Whatever value we are entering at certification entry form should get updated in the certification SharePoint list. Here data source is SharePoint List.

Please refer my previous blog on SharePoint List to understand the concept !!! 

Navigate to Connect to data > Connectors > SharePoint > Add a connection > Connect to data > Connect directly (cloud services) > Connect > Enter URL of SharePoint List > Select your List > Click on Connect

Below screen would appear, once you select Data source name from drop-down. A default form will get created with all attributes of the SharePoint List

Step 4:  Click on ‘App Checker’ icon to check its health

In case of error, you’ll get a numeric value against these attributes. There is no error in our case 😊

Step 5: Click on Play button to preview the app.

Step 6: No item is displayed. So there is something wrong. Let’s start from scratch. Delete the frame.

Step 7: Delete the frame and create a new form from scratch

Let’s discuss about each object of the form.

1.       Label – We should give a name to each attribute while designing a form. Technically we call it Label.

Navigate to Insert > Label to add it in the form.

Please follow a naming convention to identify different objects by its name itself. That’s the reason I have added ‘_l’ as a suffix  for label.

2.       Text Input – It’s a free text box where you can enter data of your choice

Navigate to Insert > Text > Text Input

Please follow a naming convention to identify different objects by its name itself. That’s the reason I have added ‘_v’ as a suffix  for a value

3.       Dropdown – Let’s user choose one item from a list of values.

Navigate to Insert > Input > Drop Down

Just want to give a little background about the values which are appearing in the drop-down.

I have created a SharePoint List - 'SkillList' which stores a valid combination of Skill, Area, Module & Certification Name.

Enter details as shown below to create an independent drop-down.

Enter details as shown below to create a dependent drop-down.

4.       Date Picker – It allows you to pick a data from a calendar

5.       Button – Let’s click it to perform an action

I have renamed it to ‘Update’ and updated formula field to insert data into SharePoint List – ‘Certification_List’

You have to enter this formula on Action – ‘OnSelect’

Formula -

(                Patch(Certification_List,Defaults(Certification_List),{EMPId:empId_v.Text,EmpName:emp_name_v.Text,Email:email_v.Text,Skill:dd_skill.Selected.Result,Area:dd_area.Selected.Result,Module:dd_module.Selected.Result,CertificationName:dd_cert_name.Selected.Result,CertificationDate:dd_cert_date.SelectedDate}));Navigate('Thank You Screen',ScreenTransition.None)

It navigates to a new screen – Thank You Screen as soon as you click on ‘Update’ button

Step 8:  We have developed the certification form successfully.

Let’s check whether it’s inserting a record in SharePoint List – ‘Certification_List’ or not

Yippee!!! Data got inserted into SharePoint List – ‘Certification_List’ successfully 😊 😊  

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