Power Apps Interview Questions

Power Apps Interview Questions and Answers

In the current era of living, we see that most companies are looking for professionals having skills in Microsoft PowerApps & Power Automate. Low-code applications have become very popular because of the ease of development and it purely does not require serious programming skills. If you are new and would like to know more about the PowerApps & Power Automate you can quickly get started with this tutorial. This tutorial includes the frequently asked PowerApps interview questions that are curated by the experts. Let’s get started!

Q1) What is Power Apps?

Ans: PowerApps at its core is referred to as a Platform as a Service. It allows you to create Mobile Apps that are capable of running on different platforms like Android, iOS, Windows (Modern Apps) – and with almost any Internet browser. Power Apps includes a suite of apps, services, connectors and data platforms that is helping in providing a rapid application development environment to build custom applications as per the business needs. With Power Apps, you will be able to build custom business apps quickly which will be connecting to your business data that are stored either in the underlying data platform (Common Data Service) or in various online and on-premises data sources (SharePoint, Excel, Office 365, Dynamics 365, SQL Server, and so on).

Q2) What is meant by a collection? What is the process involved in the creation of a collection?

Ans: Collection is referred to as a special kind of data source, that is said to be local to the app and will not be connected to the cloud service. A collection data is said to be local to the device and is not allowed to be shared across devices for the same user or different users. Collections can be either saved and retrieved locally from the device. There are some functions that can be used to manipulate the collections like Collect, ClearCollect, and Clear.

Q3) Briefly explain the process of defining and using a local or global variable in power apps?

Ans: you will need to use the Set function to set the value of a global variable, this will temporarily hold a piece of information, like the number of times the user will select a button or the result of the data operation.

You will need to use the UpdateContext function that helps in creating a context variable, this will temporarily hold a piece of information, like the number of times the user will select a button or the result of the data operation.

Q4) What is Common Data Service?

Ans: Common Data Service will allow you to securely store and manage data that is used by business applications. The Data that is present within Common Data Service is stored in the form of a set of entities. An entity is referred to as a set of records that are used for storing the data, which is similar to how a table stores data within a database. Common Data Service also contains a base set of standard entities that will be covering the typical scenarios, but you can also create custom entities that are specific to your organization and populate the same with data using Power Query. App makers will make use of PowerApps to build rich applications using this data.

Q5) Illustrate the major differences between Canvas App and Model-driven App?

Ans:

Canvas Apps: Canvas App are those apps that start with your user experience, allowing you to craft a highly tailored interface with the power of a blank canvas and connecting it to at least 200 data sources. You are also allowed to build canvas apps for web, mobile, and tablet applications. Canvas apps provide you with the flexibility to arrange the user experience and interface in the way you would need. It also allows your creativity and business sense to engage and guide you on how you want your apps to be represented.

Model-driven Apps: Model-driven Apps are those apps that start with your data model which will be building up from the shape of your core business data and processes in the CDS to model forms, views, and many other components. Model-driven apps will automatically generate great user interfaces that are responsive across devices. Whenever you create a model-driven app, you are allowed to make use of all of the power of the Common Data Service to rapidly configure your forms, business rules, and process flows. You are also allowed to model-driven apps from the Power Apps site.

Q6) Does Flow depend on Power Apps or vice versa?

Ans: No, and that’s actually very easy to get confused. PowerApps is the new form of the solution, the quick and easy web-based or device-agnostic way which helps in creating an application that is oriented towards mobile being routed to SharePoint for forms. It also makes use of the Flow heavily, but it does not need Flow. And vice versa, Flow can make use of Power Apps, and is often using Power Apps as a frontend for what it does but it does not require Power Apps. 

Q7) What is Action and Trigger in MS-Flow?

Ans:

Actions: Actions refer to the changes directed by a User. For Ex. you can use an action to perform the operations like lookup, update, delete data in SQL Database. All actions will be directly mapped to operations defined in Swagger.

Triggers: Several connectors provide triggers that will help in notifying your app when specific events take place. Let us consider an example of an FTP connector that has the OnUpdatedFile trigger. You can build either a Logic App or a flow that listens to this trigger and performs action whenever the trigger fires.

There are two types of triggers. 

Polling Triggers: These triggers are capable of calling your service at a particular frequency to check for new data. Whenever there is new data is available, it will cause a new run of your workflow instance with the data as input.

Push Triggers: These triggers are capable of listening for data on an endpoint, which means that they will wait for an event to occur. Whenever the event occurs, it causes a new run of your workflow instance.

Q8) How to make use of the components in the canvas apps?

Ans: Components are referred to as the reusable building blocks for canvas apps so that app makers will be allowed to create the custom controls and use them across apps. Components can either be exported and imported in different apps across organizations. The Components are helpful and allow you to build larger apps that have the same control patterns. For example, we can build a navigation control and use it across our app on different screens. Once a component is updated, all instances in the app will be reflecting your changes. Components make sure that the performance is enhanced or improved and will also help in standardizing the look and feel of PowerApps applications in an organization. A component also consists of the input properties that are capable of receiving values from the app, and the component can make use of these internally. Components also include the output properties that are capable of providing output values to the app.

Q9) List out the different ways in which you can submit the data from the power apps?

Ans: Data can be submitted using Patch() and Submitform() function. You can do a partial data update using Patch() function.

Q10) How is it possible to create a different user environment in the Power Apps?

Ans: An environment is referred to as a space that is used for storing, managing, and sharing your organization's business data, apps, and flows. It is also considered as a container that is capable of separating the apps that might contain different roles, security requirements, or target audiences. The usage of the environments depends upon your organization and the apps that you are trying to build.

Q11) Is it possible to use multiple data sources in a single canvas app?

Ans: Yes. Power Apps allows you to create any number of connections, once the connections are created using an account, any number of data sources can be used in a single app.

Q12) How do you use the media files in the canvas app?

Ans: You can upload up to 200 MB of media per app in PowerApps. However, the most suggested approach is to use blob/media storage services. Few examples are Azure Storage or Azure Media Service and you can then embed your media URL to the app.

Conclusion: 

As you know that is a high demand for developing the applications as the customers are expecting new evolvements and enhancements. Business organizations are keeping up their efforts by ensuring that they are choosing the right language for the implementation of their projects or developments. Hence, looking for individuals who are expertized or knowledgeable has become common these days. And I know you are trying to crack the interview and grab one of the positions. These interview questions will definitely help you in cracking the interview. I wish you all the best for the interview and also for your future endeavours.