Creating a Simple Model Driven Application

July 23, 2019

PowerApps can range from being very simplistic to more complicated. The application does not require coding, allowing developers to pick the “technical” skills up very quickly. There are two types of PowerApps: Model Driven Applications and Canvas Driven Applications. For now, we will focus on Model Driven Applications. 

Starting out with PowerApps, I found it very complex and overwhelming at first. I struggled with where to start, what to change, where to find information etc. I will break down PowerApps into, in my opinion, the most basic and important functions to be familiar with when starting out. 

Create a simple Model Driven App with PowerApps

In PowerApps on the most basic level, there are 5 key concepts I found very helpful in becoming familiar with. 

Entities

An entity defines information that you want to track in the form of records. If we look at an example of a scheduling system for a school, the entities would consist of Student, Class, Donor, Contact and more. 

Fields

A field is an individual data item that can store information. Fields branch off entities; basically, information the user wants to know about the entity. For example; branching from the Class entity, we would be curious what the subject of the class was, the level of the class, and a class description.  

Forms 

You can think of a form as a place to enter data (fields) on an entity. With PowerApps, you can customize what fields you choose to show in your entity form. 

Views

Views are lists of multiple records like rows in an excel list. With PowerApps, each entity will have a view, and fields can be shown or hidden in the view. 

Relationships

One to One: Entity A can only have one Entity B and vice versa. 
For example: Person and SSN
A Person can only have one SSN and a SSN can only have one Person.

Many to Many: Entity A can have many of Entity B, and vice versa. 
For example: Student and Class
A Student can have many Classes and a Class can have many Students.

One to Many:  Entity A can have many of Entity B, but Entity B can only have one Entity A. 
For example: Project Manager and Project
A Project Manager can have many Projects, but a Project can have only one Project Manager. 




Navigate to my added document to create your first PowerApp based off the above ERD!

I created this post to observe the basics of PowerApps, helping complete beginners get used to PowerApps navigation and creation.

 

Derek Poggemann
About the Author

Derek Poggemann
Engineer Associate Intern

Derek joined Heartland Business Systems as an intern in applications. He is currently a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, and has enjoyed working with and building software for many years.

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