Skip to main content

Replacing Microsoft InfoPath with Power Apps

Source: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/infopath/

by James Townsend

Microsoft has offered a number of forms automation products over the years, and the most long running was InfoPath which was released as part of Office 2003.  InfoPath is a powerful and flexible product that stores user data in XML while offering form features such as rules, data validation, scripting, and integration with SharePoint.  The popularity of SharePoint resulted in many organizations standardizing on InfoPath for forms, especially internal forms which are hosted on an intranet such as employee reviews, leave and payment requests, and human resources forms.

Microsoft has discontinued InfoPath, with mainstream support ending July 13th, 2021, and extended support ending July 14th, 2026.

Microsoft has named Power Apps as the successor to InfoPath.  Power Apps has much in common with InfoPath.  Both products include integration with SharePoint.  Both are geared toward the citizen developer and do not require advanced developer skills in order to accomplish many functions.  Both may be used to implement form-based solutions on your intranet.

There is no automated migration path from InfoPath to Power Apps.  You will have to start from scratch and create Power Apps using your InfoPath forms to represent requirements such as the form layout, validation and business rules which should be handled by the form.

 Power Apps is based on Dynamics 365 and is available only as a cloud service, not for deployment as standalone apps on a PC or running on a network server.  This is different from InfoPath which could be run on premises or even standalone.

Power Apps does not seem to be designed with a goal of emulating paper forms or producing pixel-perfect renditions of standard forms such as government tax or employment forms.  Instead, Power Apps is a modern web app, with excellent support for connected mobile devices.

Customers who are interested in a more paper-based approach which is closer to InfoPath may consider third party products such as Nintext Forms or creating SharePoint forms without InfoPath using custom .NET pages, Excel, or Word.

For more information, see my related posts:

Popular posts from this blog

Key Concepts for Microsoft Dynamics 365: Tenant, Instance, App and Solution

Updated 8/15/2022 To understand Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Dynamics CRM) and Power Apps, you need to learn some new terms and concepts that may be a bit different from what you know from databases and solutions that are hosted on premises.  These concepts also apply to Power Apps.  The main difference is that with Power Apps you are not starting with a Microsoft app but more of a blank canvas for your custom apps.  This post introduces some key terms and how these concepts are important for planning your implementation. While Dynamics 365 is still available on premises, it is most commonly deployed on the Microsoft cloud.  This blog post discusses only cloud implementations. Microsoft has multiple clouds such as commercial and government community clouds in several countries. We start with a Microsoft tenant .  A tenant is the account you create in the Microsoft Online Services environment (such as Office 365) when you sign up for a subscription. A tenant contains uni

Understanding Dynamics 365 and Office 365 Admin Roles

Managing Dynamics 365 instances If you run Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Dynamics CRM) in the Microsoft cloud, you need to understand how your Dynamics instances relate to Office 365 and choose which of your administrators receives which roles and permissions to manage Dynamics 365. In on premises deployments, your network administrator would create and delete user accounts.  The Dynamics 365 admin would then assign permissions to users in Dynamics 365. This post explains three administrator roles: Office 365 Global Administrator Dynamics 365 System Administrator Dynamics 365 Service Administrator You may think that the Dynamics 365 system administrator would have power to do all the actions needed to manage Dynamics 365, but this is not the case. What's different in Microsoft cloud deployments is that licenses and user accounts are managed in Office 365 by an Office 365 Global Administrator.  This role is analogous to a network administrator for an on premises

My Favorite Microsoft Power Apps Bloggers and their Blogs

  by James Townsend Updated 7/5/2022 Microsoft Power Apps is one of my favorite subjects, and I enjoy reading blog posts from members of this thriving technical community.  Here are some of my favorite bloggers and their blogs: The Official Microsoft Power Apps Blog   I have to start with the official Microsoft Power Apps blog.  It has many contributors, largely Microsoft program manager, including frequent posters Denise Moran ,  Greg Lindhorst , Kartik Kanakasabesan , and  Adrian Orth .  This is the place to go for product announcements, updates and technical how-to for a broad range of Power Apps topics.  April Dunnam April Dunnam was formerly focused on SharePoint and now devoting herself to Power Platform.  April offers highly understandable explanations of Power Platform, Dataverse and other top Power Apps topics. She joined Microsoft in late 2019 and has a thriving YouTube channel .  Carl De Souza Power Apps Blog and eBook This is one of the most extensive and best organized blo