They are EASY, so why does it feel like a hike after being locked away for the last six months? 

There is a small, wee bit of learning curve and this is the key. Give yourself the space to learn. 

You can either learn by thinking 100% Canvas or you can start learning by adding a Canvas App to your more traditional model driven Dynamics 365 Power App. 

The first concept. If adding a Canvas App to your Model Driven world. 

Start at http://make.PowerApps.com, The Maker Portal!

The Maker Portal offers a number of options that you might not find in another place. For instance if you have configured Dynamics 365, you can use the maker portal to create and work within a solution. When you work in a solution, you start with a more ALM centric mindset. Also for some of the newer beta features, starting work within a solution is critical. 

So how is a canvas app different?

Well you start with a template or a White Canvas with a specified size. When you start with a white canvas you will want to really understand the numbers behind this canvas. What I mean by numbers, are the position numbers. So where are you in relationship to your canvas.  You are creating everything, so you will want to know where you want to put things such as labels, data, entry boxes, forms, galleries and more. 

The next concept to get your head around is the header on your canvas. The fast way to get your head around a header is to start your canvas with a template and then using the left hand menu, look at how the template header is created. There are key items such as Color, Name, Brand and more.

Now that we have our head around the idea of a Canvas with a header, let's look at our tool chest of awesome. We want to give ourselves a bit of time to think about the tools. 

and how you access these tools. Take a moment to click around a bit. There are some key areas. You want to realize that different menus are available depending on where you are focusing. You also have functions, positioning, colors and the hierarchy of the layouts. Oh and Data, of course. 

 And there are many little helper components. Take for instance the ability to insert a gallery. You insert a vertical or horizontal gallery and tell that gallery where to get it's data. Boom, you have a fully functional feature, but you want to understand what comes with that full function. 

As someone who loves a new software, canvas apps are a whole lot of new. Give yourself the gift of learning with the patience to just put one foot in front of the other. 

Happy Holidays

If you want to see a really cool combination of Power Platform Model Driven Apps and Power Platform Canvas Apps you definitely want to listen to the December Power Platform Community Call. 

The Holiday Themed Apps were so much fun!! 

Power Apps Community call closing out 2020 with amazing holiday themed Apps December 16th | Microsoft Power Apps 

Become Microsoft Certified

As we role into the sometimes slower holiday days I thought a share of the Microsoft Certification Poster might be helpful for those interested in the following: 

One of my favorite ways to learn is to share knowledge. I find that all of the other perspectives I get from this exercise really help me shift and refine what I have learned. 

In the last two years I have been under the fire house learning. It is both exciting, amazing and daunting when we consider how much more there is always to learn. It is also a twist for those of us who have years of experience. The experience makes a huge difference, but it also always has to be continually refined.

One of the first major learning tips is to get your head around the vocabulary quickly. It has served me well to think about the following.

The Power Platform, this is really an evolution to getting closer and closer to using the entire Microsoft Stack of awesome. The long loved deep integration to Office is now 100 times better AND there is also the deep integration to Azure and many of the new Azure functions. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 "Apps" are all Model Driven Power Apps on the Power Platform. 

Power Automate (Flow) The ability to automate, respond and receive responses and an alignment/replacement or stepping stone to both work flows and logic apps and you can learn more here.

Power BI Much loved and amazing reporting and business intelligence and analytics and you can learn more here

Power Virtual Bots, Not only bots, but Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and you can learn more here and here.