Describe use cases of canvas apps

Organizations have countless scenarios where people need assistance, need to perform some type of task, or have a duty that needs to be completed. For example, a doctor working at a hospital emergency room may need to triage a patient that is coming in for surgery. Another example could be a field technician who is working onsite at a customer location and discovers they don't have a specific part they need. In such a case, the part needs to be ordered. It could also be as simple as an employee who is having an issue connecting to audio/video equipment in a conference room.

Typically, handling these scenarios can require many phone calls, multiple paper forms that need to be completed and passed along, and an extended wait time for processing. For example, the technician working in the field would first need to reach out to an inventory manager to identify if the part is in stock. The inventory manager likely needs to search in their inventory management software for the part. Depending on if they have the part or not, different forms need to be filled out so you can pull the part from inventory or order the part if needed. This process requires lots of environmental resources such as paper, and at a minimum, you have two people working on the issue.

Canvas apps created in Microsoft Power Apps are a great option for organizations to build tailored apps designed to perform specific tasks based on their needs. They provide the app maker with complete control of the entire app, such as the user interface, the data it connects to, and more. Canvas apps can interact with data from a wide variety of Microsoft and third-party data sources into a single application. App designers can easily drag and drop various controls into their application, and then add the desired functionality by writing Power Fx formulas. These Excel-like expressions help specify how to work with the data. Once created, canvas apps can be easily shared with users so they can run them in a browser or on a mobile device. Additionally, to provide greater flexibility, canvas can be embedded into SharePoint sites, Power BI reports, model-driven applications, or even Microsoft Teams.

Canvas apps are easy to build and can be easily created from existing data. For example, canvas applications can be created from Excel spreadsheets, SharePoint sites, and more. By using Copilot, you can simply describe the app you want to build in natural language, and it builds you app with you. If you're unhappy with something, you can describe what you want changed, and it helps adjust your app accordingly. Additionally, organizations that use the design capabilities of Figma to lay out applications, and convert those Figma sites into Power Apps. For more details, please go to Design a Power Apps canvas app by using Figma - Training | Microsoft Learn..

Canvas apps represent the most flexible way of building applications using Power Apps.