What are Canvas Apps?

In our blog series ‘Discover the building blocks of Power Apps’, we cover all the components of Power Apps one by one. In the first blog of the series, we discussed Dataverse. In this blog, we take a closer look at Canvas Apps. Discover what a Canvas App in Power Apps is, what you can do with it and how it works together with other components of the Power Platform.

What is a Canvas App in Microsoft Power Apps?

Microsoft Canvas App is part of Microsoft Power Apps. It is a type of application within Power Apps.

A Canvas app can be developed without any in-depth programming knowledge. You start with a blank ‘Canvas’, onto which you can drag various controls. Controls are interactive elements such as input fields, buttons and labels that collect and display data. You can fully tailor the app to the specific needs of your organization. The same goes for the design, which can be customized entirely to your liking.

A wide range of ‘out of the box’ controls is available, such as forms, buttons, galleries, shapes, icons and much more. These can be placed on the blank canvas. By applying custom logic, controls can be personalized and their functionality extended. With a Canvas app, you can use more than 1,000 available connectors to connect to various sources within your organization.

What can you do with a Canvas App?

Canvas Apps can be used to digitize, streamline and speed up processes. Processes that used to be entered in an Excel file with many tabs can be replaced by an intuitive Canvas App. Besides this case, there are many other use cases:

• Replacing legacy systems: Outdated legacy systems no longer meet current needs and are often no longer supported. A Canvas App offers a solution by replacing these legacy systems with a custom-built app. At Atoompool, we replaced an existing Microsoft Access application with a Canvas App. View the full Atoompool case here.
• Digitizing manual processes: Processes that are currently tracked manually in Excel sheets, forms or other documents can be digitized and automated with a custom-built Canvas App. At Koninklijke Kuijpers, we used a Canvas App together with Power Automate to standardize and centralize the management and generation of documents. View the full Kuijpers case here.
• Integrating different applications: An organization's application landscape contains many applications that generate data. With a Canvas App, you can bring this data together in a single application. This can be useful, for example, when you want to give all employees access to information from all applications from one central app.
• Automating approval processes for requests: Within organizations, leave requests, expense claims and other approval requests are often submitted verbally or by email. This was also the case at Mimaki. For Mimaki, we standardized and digitized the process using a form in a Canvas App and a Power Automate flow.

Role within Power Apps

Canvas Apps are the apps in which the developer has complete creative freedom to tailor the app to the user's needs. This type of app gives a developer full flexibility in terms of user interface design, layout and the functionality of every element on the canvas. As a result, there is no longer any need to invest in a large, expensive application package with features that are not relevant to the user.

Canvas apps are the only type that can use the 1,000+ available connectors, and they are also ideal for building specific task-oriented applications. Canvas apps are designed for one specific task or process. Through roles, users only get access to the tasks they need to perform.

How do Canvas apps work together with the Power Platform?

Power Apps Canvas Apps work seamlessly with the other components of the Power Platform. By integrating the different components of the Power Platform, you can build powerful solutions. Here are some examples of how Canvas Apps work together with all components of the Power Platform:

• Dataverse: Canvas Apps need a data source to retrieve and store data. Dataverse can be used as a data source for Canvas Apps. For example, you could develop an app for creating support tickets and store this data in Dataverse.
• Power Automate: Power Automate can be integrated into a Canvas App to automate processes. A Power Automate flow can be triggered by a button click, an event or a schedule. For example, the status of a support ticket can be updated automatically with the click of a button in a Canvas App.
• Power BI: A Canvas App can work together with Power BI in two ways. An existing dashboard on support tickets can be added to a screen in a Canvas App. Conversely, a Canvas App can also be added to a Power BI report.
• Power Pages: A Canvas App can be added to a Power Pages site to enrich it. External customers can then, for example, view the status of the support tickets they have submitted in a Canvas App integrated into the portal.

Limitations of Canvas Apps

Designing responsive Canvas Apps has become increasingly easy over the years. Even so, it remains a time-consuming process that requires a lot of manual adjustments to make the app fully responsive. You can build large, complex Canvas Apps, but that is not where the strength of Canvas Apps lies, and performance issues can occur in large and complex Canvas Apps. You can therefore also choose to develop a Model-Driven App or a Power Pages site instead. These are responsive by default on virtually all mobile devices.

Conclusion

Microsoft Power Apps Canvas Apps offer flexibility in design and functionality, making them ideal for digitizing and streamlining processes. They integrate seamlessly with other Power Platform tools such as Dataverse, Power Automate, Power BI and Power Pages. Although responsive design takes some effort, Canvas Apps let users create fully customized solutions that fit their needs perfectly. In short, the possibilities for building apps with Canvas Apps are endless, and that is what makes this part of Power Apps so powerful.

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