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App used only for external users

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Posted on by JBC777

I am doing research on a lo code platform for a company that want to use an app to communicate with its customers about regulatory complaince. this means that all the users are external to my organization.

I really like the power platform but i am worried that all the documentation and licencing seems to focus around the external users licence status WRT o365 and power apps. I can't get involved in understanding an external users relationship with MSFT, i just need to register them and get going, in the same way we do in something like Wordpress or any of the 'standalone' locode solutions (e.g. Outsystems).

My questions are

1) Any good / bad points on using the power platform for only external users? looking for people that have done this before.

2) does anyone have any advice on a simple signup 'widget' for external users? i am not using SharePoint and i don't care if the process uses AAD in the back end but i need something that focuses on what the external user does, rather than 'requesting access' and 'determining if they have an o365 licence. i would spend more time doing that than their entire interaction with the app.

3) any experience on how this looks like in licence cost terms? Outsystems has an eye watering costs of 'from' $36k BUT oddly, when you do the business planning on this, becuase its a relatively fixed costs, as we scale, the ROI gets better. user based licencing never gets any cheaper as you grow.

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Building Power Apps

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mmbr1606 14,605 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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hey

you would need to include them in the organization with guest accounts.

maybe this video helps:

Sharing PowerApps with External Users

in that case maybe power pages would be a better fit for it, you might want to look at this too.

if it helped please mark as verified answer,

cheers

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JBC777 65 on at

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thanks mmbr1606 for your reponse. The video you suggested is the reason for the post!

I understand the process(s) outlined in the post but thinking about that process from a User Acceptance perspective, its a total non-starter. there is zero way that one of my suppliers will be able to understand the multiple emails they have received. also, the video works for a single user, but what about 50 or 100 hundred. all of a sudden you have 1000 emails and a total nightmare.

I understand the need for consent and authentication, but i am going to look and see if there are tools that can help / customize the process outlined. ideally, the user would get one, customizable message, that tells them what to do, and then a guest user is created for them.

thanks for your reply though.

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JBC777 65 on at

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still researching this but i think the answer is Microsoft Entra. This allows you to customize the sign-in process and hopefully make it easier for the creation of external users. But i will see where i get to.

Putting this in case anyone else is struggling with Power Apps with prodomiantly external users

https://entra.microsoft.com/

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JBC777 65 on at

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Spent days looking at this but mmbr1606 is correct. If you like me were using Power Apps but have a large number of external users, then you will find that authentication, leading to licencing, is a 'show stopper' issue. Microsoft have solved this with power pages becuase they have introduced many other authentication options, including local, google and facebook. Power Pages is replacing Power Apps Portal.

At the time of writing it feels a little like Microsoft are 'saling the ship while they are building it' with Power Pages and its a bit of pitty that its more like the sharepoint designer than Power Apps.

Not sure why they didn't just add the authentication extenstions to Power Apps, then we only have one platform, but that may become clear over time.

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