Classic Interface PowerApps Training

[mlengenfelder]

I'm looking for either some videos or other good training materials for the classic interface with PowerApps. I don't know when the new interface was released and nothing is labeled so I'm having a very hard time finding good training content using the classic interface. If someone has some suggestions, I'm all ears. 

My organization is using the classic interface and I've been told to not use the new interface for building PowerApps. Thus why I'm looking for good training material/Videos/HowTo's/Whatever on the classic interface.

[GarethPrisk]

It sounds like you're talking about Model-Driven Apps, which leverage Microsoft's Unified Interface (or UCI).

In a nutshell:

• The 'classic' interface varies depending on D365/CRM version; but they all had Site Maps (I assume you are familiar with this concept)
• Either way, you can think of model-driven apps as a way to represent a Site Map in a repeatable manner
• This allows you to leverage multiple Site Maps, as model-driven apps, for different users

Here is MSFT's overview on model-driven apps.

User Experience with Unified Interface (same as above)

Here is a Learning Path for model-driven apps.

[mlengenfelder]

Thanks, I think you're right and we're using model-driven apps. This looks much closer to what I'm actually working with but I think there's another component to it. Perhaps some screenshots will help. I've attached "use this.PNG" and "don't use this.PNG" I was told to use the interface that looks like "use this.PNG" Anything you can tell me about it to help me find tutorials that cover what I was calling the classic interface that looks like "use this.PNG" would be very helpful - thanks!

[Drrickryp · Accepted solution]

Hi @mlengenfelder 

The screenshots that you have provided show a Model Driven App in the first one and a Canvas App in the second.  Both are currently in use and have pros and cons that have been discussed in detail.  In addition, there are ways of including a canvas app inside of a model driven app that combine the advantages of both in a hybrid app.  Model driven apps have a more consistent user interface but the interface imposes more restrictions.  Canvas apps are built from the ground up and include many functions that are not in Model driven apps.  There are some great videos about both and also about how to combine them to achieve maximum flexibility. 

The interesting aspect of all this is that the same CDS entities can be used to build both MDA and Canvas apps, they both are really simply front end user interfaces that use the same back end data table.   In the screenshots below the same exact data is shown using a view and form from a MDA and the third one is the Canvas app using the same backend dataset from NorthWind Traders

I would discourage you from using Classical to describe Canvas apps as the former term has no real meaning in PowerApps.

[mlengenfelder1]

Awesome, thanks so much. If one of my team members hadn't straight off told me that we don't use model driven apps and we use the "classical view" (showing me that page) this confusion could have been avoided. I'm in the know and can refer to them by their proper names now, thanks!