How to build a model-driven app in Power Apps

About this guide

Scenario

Bellows College is an educational organization with multiple campuses and programs. Many of Bellow Colleges instructors and administrators need to attend events, and purchase items. Historically tracking these expenses has been a challenge.

Campus administration would like to modernize their expense reporting system by providing employees with a digital way to report expenses.

Throughout this series, you will build applications and perform automation to enable the Bellows College employees to manage expenses.

High-Level Lab Steps

As part of creating the model-driven app, you will complete the following:

• Create a new model-driven app named Bellows Expense Management.
• Edit the app navigation to reference the required tables.
• Customize the forms and views of the required tables for the app.

You will work with the following components:

• Views: Views allow the user to display the existing data in the form table.
• Forms: This is where the user creates/updates new rows in the tables.

Both will be integrated to the model-driven app for a better user-experience.

Things to consider before you begin:

• What changes should you make to improve the user experience?
• What should you include in a model-driven app based on the data model you have built?
• What customizations can be made on the sitemap of a model-driven app?

Tasks and Job Skills

Exercise 1: Customize views and forms
Objective: In this exercise, you will see how to customize views and forms of the custom created tables that will be used in the model-driven app.

    Task 1: Edit the Expense Report form
    Task 2: Edit the Active Expense Reports view
    Task 3: Create a new view for reports due today

Exercise 2: Create the model-driven app
Objective: In this exercise, you will see how to create a model-driven app, customize the sitemap, and test the app. For simplicity and time’s sake, you will not be addressing all of the Expense Report columns.

    Task 1: Create the app
    Task 2: Test the app

Career Connections

The guides in this series provide foundational Power Platform knowledge, empowering roles such as Business Analyst, Citizen Developer, and Entry-Level Consultant to enhance their job performance by leveraging the platform's capabilities.

As of 2025, average U.S. salaries range from $44,000 to $80,000 for entry-level Business Analysts and $52,000 to $101,000 with five years of experience, while Citizen Developers earn around $129,348 annually. Entry-Level Consultants make approximately $65,224, with experienced consultants at top firms earning significantly higher, starting at $112,000 for undergraduates and $192,000 for MBAs. Please note that these figures are approximate, derived from online sources, and can vary based on factors such as location, industry, qualifications, and company size.