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Turn complex Excel spreadsheet to app

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Posted on 25 Jan 2024 23:44:16 by Julien8

Hi, totally new to power apps and to app development overall, I have been making complex Excel spreadsheets over the past 10 years, using many Excel functions such as vlookup, sumif and so on, combined with VBA macros and connections with distant MySQL databases (with ODBC connectors), let's take one example out of many: I developed a sales software in Excel where several people could simultaneously add new customers and articles, create quotations and invoices, edit them in nice looking Excel spreadsheets, save quotations or invoices with a macro which records everything into a distant MySQL table, and even print invoices as pdf (via Word mail merge)... It can basically do what any good sales software can do.

Now let's get to my question: can I use Power Apps to turn such complex Excel spreadsheets into apps that I could upload to Google Play as any app? Can I use the real power of Excel and my knowledge of it, while bypassing my lack of knowledge of app development, to make apps where the frontend would basically show on a nice smartphone app some editable fields which would correspond to cells in the Excel sheet, then my complex Excel file would do all the complex work in the background and the frontend would display result values corresponding to some other cells in the Excel sheet?

For now, when looking at videos about Power Apps, it looks like it can simply use very basic Excel sheets with static data... Otherwise, is there any other way to use the power of Excel to turn it to some app?

And One last question, let's forget about my complex question above and consider I turn a simple Excel table to a power app, can such app be exported to a usual apk or only users of Power Apps can use it within Power Apps? Thank you very much!

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Julien8 4 on 26 Jan 2024 at 00:47:12

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Re: Turn complex Excel spreadsheet to app

Thank you for your detailed reply, indeed my example of Excel spreadsheet for sales was something I did in the past to share internally with the team while my new need would be an app for some customers (mainly professional customers but possibly individual consumers as well).

If I understand your message well, I cannot simply upload a complex Excel sheet directly but, as a Excel user, I should feel rather comfortable replicating in Power Apps what I would usually do in Excel as it uses quite similar features, which means with my good knowledge of Excel and bad knowledge of app development, Power Apps could be a good solution for me to do either apps for internal use (to share within Power Apps directly) or to export to Google Play (with some extra cost).
Julien8 4 on 26 Jan 2024 at 00:32:31

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Re: Turn complex Excel spreadsheet to app

Thank you for your reply, I am sure it would be a huge success if Microsoft could manage to develop such a tool! There are many applications I would be able to make with Excel in one week almost for free, while the same takes 3 months and 20000 USD to all app developers I ask (yes, for the exact same thing I would do in a week for less than 25 USD in Excel!), and the only reason I would need it as a smartphone app rather than an Excel spreadsheet is just that it would not sound "sexy" to tell my customers "ok I can do exactly what you need... but you will need to open Excel" 😅 so sad there is no solution for that, it would simply require keeping what works in Excel while displaying the values of some cells in a nice template fitting in a smartphone screen, Microsoft if you read this, you will become the World leader of app development if you can just do that! 😅
Bartelli 75 on 26 Jan 2024 at 00:24:34

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Re: Turn complex Excel spreadsheet to app

The short answer is YES....but let me tackle each question individually.

First, as far as Google play - that's creating an app to be available to people outside of your organization. There's a cost associated with having apps sourced through Google and/or Apple. See: Overview of wrap - Power Apps | Microsoft Learn

If you are creating this app for your organization, you create the app and share within your tenant.
See: Share a canvas app with your organization - Power Apps | Microsoft Learn and for external users: https://youtu.be/suk4eLS4A-E?si=luSGhArXQPMc8zT9

Using your complex workbook, consider each tab as a screen within your app. Each screen will accomplish something: add new customers and articles, create quotations and invoices; while recording/saving back to your SQL table. You'll need to build each of these screens in Power Apps and you can mirror them to look like your excel workbook.

Much of the same capabilities are found in power apps: lookups, calculations, search, printing, etc.

I'd recommend taking "App in a Day" to get a feel for what Power Apps can do as well as give you chance to get your feet wet. Power Platform In a Day Workshops | Microsoft Power Platform

Organization and planning are key. Also, don't be afraid to start small.

You've got this!
timl 34,951 Super User 2025 Season 1 on 26 Jan 2024 at 00:13:19

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Re: Turn complex Excel spreadsheet to app

Hi @Julien8

A Power App that's connected to an Excel sheet can read and write to the spreadsheet, and not much more. It isn't possible to retrieve the result of a calculated cell in Excel so the answer to your question is no, it isn't possible to implement the calculations and logic at the Excel level.

In answer to your second question, you can create an APK via a Wrap project. There are more details in the documentation here.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/common/wrap/wrap-how-to