Describe portal apps
A portal app is a means of providing users—both internal and external—with access to data stored in the Common Data Service using a website. Organizations can use portal apps to provide customers, partners, and employees with self-service access to business information that eliminates the need for many call center and face-to-face transactions.
Portal apps were at one time a feature of a Dynamics 365 add-on product, but Microsoft has now incorporated them into Power Apps. Users are limited to creating a single portal app in an environment. Because the portal app accesses and stores all of its data in the Common Data Service, there is no need or capacity for establishing connections to outside applications and services.
Selecting the Portal from blank tile on the Create screen of the Power Apps portal prompts the user to confirm the provisioning of the current environment with the components needed to create the portal app. This can include the Common Data Service, if not installed already, appropriate entities and data, and a starter portal template. After the provisioning is complete, the portal app appears on the Apps page. Opening the portal app displays the starter page for the website, as shown in Figure 4-6.
FIGURE 4-6 Starter page for a Power Apps portal app
Exam Tip
Candidates for the PL-900 exam should be aware that Microsoft and other sources use the word portal frequently and with many different definitions. In computing, the term portal is usually defined as a webpage that provides access to other services, applications, or websites. In the context of the Power Platform tools and other Microsoft cloud services, it is common to refer to their management and administration websites as portals. Be sure to avoid confusing these applications for the term with the portal app in Power Apps.
After the portal app has been created, the developer can then edit the website as needed by creating new pages, adding components, and applying templates, using the interface shown in Figure 4-7.
FIGURE 4-7 Editing interface for a portal app