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2 min read

Power Apps portals as mobile apps (preview)

We are excited to announce the upcoming capability of portals as a progressive web app, enabling makers to enable portals into apps with native app like look & feel right from portal studio in just few steps!

We are leveraging Progressive web app technology (PWA) to enable portal to multi-platform supported app which works on all platforms (android/iOS/windows) as well as all form factors (mobile/desktop/tablet).

With PWA, end user can pin Power Apps portals as an app to the home screen on a mobile device or install it from the app store

This great new feature is stuffed with following capabilities :

  • Create low code-no code branded app in just few steps from portal studio
  • Manage basic offline experience of your app
  • Distribute your app via browser or app stores

Create low code-no code branded app

You can create your own branded app by customizing your PWA by changing the app name, starting page, color, and more using the customization option.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Sign in to portals Studio, select Progressive web app.
  2. Select Enable PWA to turn on the PWA capability for your portal and select Customize PWA under Customization.
  3. Add title, description, starting page, splash screen color and app icon.

Managing basic offline experience

We are providing support for a smooth navigation experience when the device being used is offline or disconnected from the internet. You can choose the pages within portals that will have this read-only offline capability, and a message page for the rest of the portal capability that isn’t enabled for offline access.

Here’s how it works:

  1. In portals Studio, select Progressive web app.
  2. Under Customize PWA, select Manage offline pages under Offline behavior.
  3. Select the pages that you want to enable for offline access using PWA.
  4. To set up the offline message page:
    1. In portals Studio, under Customization, select Offline message page.
    2. Customize the page like any other portals page.

Distribute your app

You can choose to distribute your app via browser or via app store

  1. Distribute your app using a browser

    Once your portal is enabled as a PWA, your users can pin Power Apps portals as an app to the home screen on a their device.

  2. Distribute your app through an app store

    You can create an app package for your portal’s PWA and publish the package to different app stores such as Microsoft Windows Store and Google Play Android Store.

Here’s how it works:

  1. To create app package, select Create app package under App package in Progressive web app in portals Studio.
  2. You’ll be taken to PWA builder where you can create app package for various app stores such as Microsoft Windows Store and Google Play Android Store and step-by-step document to publish app in respective store.
  3. You can now publish app in respective app store console.

We are looking forward to your feedback

Your feedback will help us continue to build on and improve the capabilities of this feature. We want to hear from you!

For details, see the documentation.

Thank you,
Ankita Vishwakarma

Ankita Vishwakarma
Ankita Vishwakarma