Microsoft PowerApps is a collection of online services and controls that allow users to build their own applications to suit their business needs. Applications are built using the PowerApps Studio, which is an intuitive drag-and-drop environment that makes it possible for non-developers to easily create solutions.

PowerApps applications can be consumed directly in a web browser, and on mobile devices, they can be run via the Microsoft PowerApps mobile app, which is free to download from the relevant device store.

In order to create a PowerApps application for Business Central, you first need to create a connection. At the time of writing this book, you can create a connection to an online Business Central (non-sandbox) environment or to an on-premises one. As with the other Power Platform solutions, you are not limited to just one data source in PowerApps. By creating multiple connections, you can combine data from multiple systems into a single PowerApps application!

Once the connection is in place, PowerApps has access to the web services that are published within that environment, meaning any custom web services you publish will also be available. 

With PowerApps Studio, you can create a new application from one of the existing templates or start from a blank one; the choice is yours. From there, you can perform tasks such as dragging new controls, moving around existing ones, and adding new screens until the application performs the tasks you need it to.

In addition to being able to use data-bound controls, you can also add other types of controls, including ones that are able to make use of device hardware. Examples of such controls are as follows:

• Images
• Barcode scanners
• Power BI
• Charts
• Audio/video
• Microphones
• PDF Viewer

Once your application has been created, you can save it for yourself, or share it among other users in your organization.