Building a Custom Canvas App with Power Apps: Step-by-Step Guide (2025)

Published on: August 6, 2025 | Author: TechCraft Dev

Power Apps Canvas Apps offer an intuitive interface for building mobile and desktop applications with drag-and-drop functionality. In this guide, you'll learn how to build a simple employee directory app connected to SharePoint. By the end of this article, you’ll have a fully functional app deployed and ready for testing.

Step 1: Set Up the Data Source

In this example, we’ll use a SharePoint list named “Employees” with the following columns:

• Title (Employee Name)
• Email
• Department
• Photo (Hyperlink or Picture)

Step 2: Create a Canvas App

1. Go to make.powerapps.com.
2. Click Apps > + New app > Canvas app.
3. Name your app EmployeeDirectoryApp and choose either Phone or Tablet layout.

Step 3: Connect to SharePoint

1. In the left pane, select Data (database icon).
2. Click Add data > Search for “SharePoint”.
3. Select your site and choose the “Employees” list.

Step 4: Add a Gallery to Display Data

1. Insert a Vertical Gallery (Insert > Gallery).
2. Set the Items property to:

   SortByColumns(Employees, "Title", Ascending)

3. Customize the layout to display Name, Email, and Department.

Step 5: Add Search Functionality

Insert a Text Input box named txtSearch and update the gallery Items property:

Filter(
  Employees,
  StartsWith(Title, txtSearch.Text)
)

Step 6: Add a Detail Screen

1. Insert a new screen: Insert > New screen > Detail.
2. Use a Display Form and set its DataSource to Employees.
3. Set the Item property to:

   Gallery1.Selected

4. Insert navigation on gallery item click:

   OnSelect = Navigate(DetailScreen, ScreenTransition.Fade)

Step 7: Test and Publish

1. Click Preview (Play icon) to test the app.
2. Go to File > Save > Publish.
3. Share it with your team via Share tab.

Bonus Tips

• Use Coalesce to handle null values.
• Use IsMatch for input validation.
• Add filters like department dropdown using Distinct(Employees, Department).

Conclusion

Power Apps empowers even non-developers to build production-ready apps. With just a SharePoint list and a few formulas, you can digitize processes like employee lookup, asset tracking, or ticket management. Start small, iterate fast, and scale as needed!

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Tags: Power Apps, Canvas App, SharePoint Integration, Power Platform, Microsoft 365, No Code