Introduction

Canvas apps in Microsoft Power Apps give you a flexible starting point. You can connect to a data source, drop in a gallery to browse records, and add a form to edit data in just a few steps. But a working app and a polished app are two different things.

This module is about taking an app further. Maybe you built yours from a template, generated it with Copilot, or assembled it screen by screen. Either way, you've got something functional, and now you want to shape how it looks, how it behaves, and how it handles real-world complexity. That's where customization comes in.

In this module, you customize and extend a canvas app, refining its layout and navigation, writing Power Fx formulas that respond to user actions, adding AI capabilities, and building reusable components that scale across your solution.

Scenario

Imagine you're a maker at Contoso, a company that sells commercial and home coffee machines. You built a canvas app that lets the sales team browse the machine catalog and update product details. Now your manager wants the app to surface machine information more clearly, navigate smoothly between screens, respond intelligently to user actions, and eventually serve as a foundation for other apps in the organization.

That's exactly what this module helps you do.

What you learn

In this module, you'll:

• Change the layout of a gallery and the data it displays.
• Modify a form control to show the right fields in the right order.
• Add screens and build navigation between them using formulas.
• Use Power Fx formulas for data operations, variables, and error handling.
• Add AI capabilities to your app using Copilot controls.
• Build reusable named formulas, user-defined functions, and component libraries.

Prerequisites

To get the most out of this module, you should have a basic canvas app already set up—one that connects to a data source and has at least a gallery and a form. If you need help with getting to that point, Get started with Power Apps canvas apps covers the essentials.