Introducing Model-Driven Apps

In the previous chapters of this book, we used several data sources that are external to the Power Platform. We are now going to explore how we can use Microsoft Dataverse as a data source that underpins the Power Platform applications and provides a robust, yet simple, method for storing data in a way that feels very similar to creating tables within a database.

We have already learned about canvas apps as we’ve progressed through this book; now, it is time to introduce another kind of Power Apps application: model-driven apps, which have a different look, feel, and editing experience to what we have covered so far. The emphasis switches from the design aspect to the data, meaning that much more work takes place around the data structures before the actual app build begins.

Within this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Understanding Dataverse
• Understanding the Common Data Model (CDM)
• Modeling data
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