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Power Apps and External Users

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Posted on by Phineas

5,325 Super User 2025 Season 2

Scenario:
There is a one-page document

The document sent to 300 of our external clients daily.

The document is filled out returned and saved to each client's folder in SharePoint.

Upon receipt the document is emailed to several office staff for signatures or notes and then be saved back to the client's folder.

Is there a way to achieve this using Power Apps?

I'm pretty sure all the other tasks are doable; however, how do/can the 300 external clients get access to the document?

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Building Power Apps

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Pstork1 68,697 Most Valuable Professional on at

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You could write an interface to the monitor the process in Power Apps, but I would use Power Automate to control the process you've described rather than Power Apps.

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Phineas 5,325 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Understood. Thank you for the reply.

My question is more about access.

How are 300 external clients (not employees) going to add/update data through a Power App that is on a company server; a company they don't work for?

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Pstork1 68,697 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Your scenario had clients filling out a document. Assuming uses a standard format Power Apps could process the documents using AI builder to get the information out of the documents. External users work with documents and email. Its only after the document is recieved taht Power Apps/Power Automate would get involved. So no need for external licensing or direct access to a Power app.

Another way to do this would be to provide the external users with an MS form which can be filled out anonymously. Power Automate can then retrieve the answers and add them to a data source.

Power Apps portals provides another way to do this without external users needing licenses.

In short there are lots of ways to do this depending on the format and amount of data that is being retrieved from the customers.

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Phineas 5,325 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Again, thank you for your reply.

Let me clarify, one scenario is where the Power App (and form) is on in my company environment.

Acknowledging Power Portals as one, what is the resolution using Power Portals?

How would the external uses best access the App/Form?

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PowerRanger 3,458 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@Phineas if you do want external users to use your standalone powerapp they must be added as guest users in your Tenant and they have to have a license assigned. There is no "Bring your own license" for Powerapps yet... Might come in the near future from what I have heared 😁

But you could also create a custom SharePoint Form with Powerapps and give the external users access to sharepoint. Custom Forms can be used by guest users.

Or you go with MS Forms/Portals as @Pstork1 suggested... Many possibilities here..

Please click Accept as solution if my post helped you solve your issue. This will help others find it more readily. It also closes the item. If the content was useful in other ways, please consider giving it Thumbs Up.

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Phineas 5,325 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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OMG! The following is a revelation.

"But you could also create a custom SharePoint Form with Powerapps and give the external users access to sharepoint. Custom Forms can be used by guest users."

So, what you are saying is:
1. I can create a SharePoint site in my company Microsoft O365 environment.
2. I can create an App (form) in Power Apps
3. I can use SharePoint site setting to redirect the SharePoint form view to the Power App
4. All 300 external clients can be sent an invitation to the SharePoint site, and when they
click they will see the Power App form?

No need for log-in, premium licenses, pixie dust?

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PowerRanger 3,458 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@Phineas almost.
Guest users would still need to login with a Microsoft or Work/School Account. So Login is required! But when this is Setup and they have access to your SharePoint Site they could run your custom form (no standalone powerapp) created with powerapps. For this purpose there is no powerapp license required.

Please click Accept as solution if my post helped you solve your issue. This will help others find it more readily. It also closes the item. If the content was useful in other ways, please consider giving it Thumbs Up.

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PowerRanger 3,458 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@Phineas ofcourse this requires that external sharing is available in your Tenant.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/share-app-guests#what-license-must-be-assigned-to-my-guest-so-they-can-run-an-app-shared-with-them

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Pstork1 68,697 Most Valuable Professional on at

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@PowerRanger One correction on your statement. Yes, external users need to be added to your AAD to access a Power App in your tenant. But there definitely is a "Bring your own license". External users must have a Power Apps license, but that license can either come from the tenant where they are a guest of their home tenant. That's not a future feature. That's the way it works today.

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Pstork1 68,697 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Again, one correction. Guest users in SharePoint can use the SharePoint integrated custom form without additional licensing. But its a custom form, not a Power Apps app. There are differences between how the form works and a standalone Power App.

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