Item: Power Apps
Rating: 8
Author: Scott Byrge, MBA

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We take advantage of the low-code features to enable business partners and junior developers' participation in the creation of enterprise-level business solutions. PowerApps is mostly used in relation to content in SharePoint Online Lists and Dataverse tables -- providing quick multi-screen apps for data entry, display, and manipulation. Since PowerApps is the out-of-the-box way to enhance SharePoint forms, it is an easy step to go further and add business logic. We extend the effectiveness of the solutions by integrationg with Power Automate to provide complete user-interactive logic and "back-end" business process automation.

Pros and Cons

Tight integration with other technologies such as Power Automate, Teams, and SharePoint - as well as many non-Microsoft technologies.
Low-code\No-code that can produce enterprise-level solutions
Vast number of sample and example Apps are available to kick-start a solution.

Sometimes the cost of solutions is greater than the benefit. Licensing is expensive relative to the scope of some business user-created personal or team-level solutions.
While there is a starter-kit for Governance, it is complicated to stand up and requires dedicated resources to provide on-going governance operations. Many organizations are not going to be able to dedicate resources to governance and this causes the sprawl, solution duplication, silos, unneeded and unplanned licensing expenses, and a general "wild wild west" environment.
There needs to be better direction and best practices given around Power Platform Environment utilization and optimization.
The accessibility to the platform and ease for business partners to independantly create solutions is both a benefit and a negative. When the business outcome needed is a good fit for PowerApps it is a quick win, but when not a good fit it becomes a frustration for the business partner attempting to make the platform do something it is not well-suited for. The business partner entangles tech teams in the effort which drains resources and provides a lack-luster solution. All of this to say, it would be beneficial to have some tools that business partners could leverage to determine\understand if the type of business outcome they need is well suited to PowerApps or not.

Most Important Features

Ease of use
Integration with other technologies
An abundance of examples, samples, and resources

Return on Investment

PRO: Increased number of business outcome solutions fielded
PRO: Faster time to market, including faster revisions, enhancements, and bug-fixes
CON: More siloed solutions and duplications
CON: Unexpected Licensing Costs\Issues

Key Insights

Do you think Power Apps delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Power Apps's feature set?

Yes

Did Power Apps live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Power Apps go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Power Apps again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Microsoft 365, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Nintex Automation Cloud, Google Analytics

Likelihood to Recommend

PowerApps is well suited for "quick-wins" and fast prototypes of business solutions. It also is beneficial for situations where business partners and developers work together - it allows the business folks to provide a "quick-and-dirty" prototype which is then fleshed-out by developers that are trained experts on the platform. The interactive and easy to understand representation of the solution allows business partners to "see" the solution and add, remove, or correct aspects of it themselves. It provides a common view and understanding of the actual solution across business units and tech teams.

PowerApps, being a low-code\no-code platform is not well suited for business processes that require many complex computations or large amounts of custom code - such as solutions that are better architected as Web Site or "full-blown" desktop solutions. There are solutions that are just not easy or quick to accomplish in a low-code\no-code platform. Enterprise Architects should know the difference, however business partners often try to create a solution and only when stuck because it becomes too complex do they engage a tech team for assistance - at which point there are sunk-costs involved and hinderences to re-platforming the solution.

PowerApps is a great platform - If it fits into your development model and unique business outcome needs

Overall Satisfaction with PowerApps