How to Build Your First Canvas App with Copilot (No Code Required)
- kaitlinweiss
- Nov 24
- 4 min read
By Sydlortech
Technology shouldn’t slow your team down — it should support the way you already work. But for many businesses, building custom tools or automating daily tasks feels out of reach without a developer or IT department.
That’s where Microsoft Power Apps and Copilot change the game.
With Copilot built into Power Apps, you can describe what you need in plain language, and Power Apps will generate a working app for you — including data tables and screens — in just a few minutes. From there, you can tweak, refine, and grow it into something your whole team can use.
In this article, we’ll walk through a simple example: a ‘Team Hub’ canvas app with three core sections:
Contacts – who you’re working with
Tasks – what needs to get done
Activities – calls, emails, and touchpoints
Step 1: Describe Your Business Problem to Copilot
Instead of starting from a blank screen, you’ll begin by telling Copilot what you want.
From the Power Apps home page, select the option to create an app with Copilot. Copilot will prompt you to “Describe your app.”
You might use a prompt like: "Create a canvas app called Team Hub to help my team manage contacts, tasks, and activities. I need:
A Contacts area with basic contact details (name, email, phone).
A Tasks area for assigning and tracking work.
An activities area to log calls, emails, and notes. Make it simple and easy to use as a daily checklist.”
Copilot uses this description to generate data tables and screens that align with what you asked for.
Step 2: Let Copilot Generate Your Initial App
After you submit your prompt, Copilot will:
Propose one or more tables (for example: Contacts, Tasks, Activities).
Suggest fields/columns for each table.
Build a basic canvas app with screens connected to those tables.
You’ll see a preview of your app in the designer, with a left-hand tree view showing your screens and data.
At this point, you already have a working starter app — no code required.
Step 3: Customize the “Team Hub” Welcome Screen
Next, customize a welcome screen so your users have a clear starting point.
On the first screen, add:
A title, such as “Team Hub” or “Welcome to Team Hub”
A short subtitle describing the app’s purpose
Three navigation icons/buttons for:
Contacts
Tasks
Activities
Short example descriptions you can use on the welcome page:
Contacts: “Quick access to your key customers and stakeholders.”
Tasks: “Stay on top of today’s priorities and action items.”
Activities: “Log calls, emails, and follow-ups to track engagement.”
Step 4: Build Out the Contacts Screen
From the welcome screen, your first navigation button takes users to the Contacts page.
On the Contacts screen, you can:
Display a gallery/list of contacts
Show information such as Name, Email, Phone
Add a form for creating or editing contact records
This becomes your team’s quick reference for “who we’re working with today.”
Step 5: Design the Tasks Screen for Daily Work
Next, create a Tasks screen where your team can see and update what needs to be done.
Typical fields for the Tasks table might include:
Task Name / Subject – what the task is
Assigned To – who owns it
Due Date – when it should be completed
Status – Not Started, In Progress, Completed
(Optional) Related Contact – link to a person from the Contacts table
On the screen, you can show:
A gallery of open tasks
A filter or dropdown for status
A form to add or update tasks
Short description example for the Tasks tab: "Use this tab to track daily responsibilities, follow-ups, and deadlines so nothing falls through the cracks.”
Step 6: Log Activities on the Activities Screen
The Activities screen helps your team track every touchpoint—including calls, emails, meetings, and notes—in one centralized place.
Activities might include fields like:
Activity Type – Call, Email, Meeting, Note
Subject / Description – what the interaction was about
Activity Date – when it occurred
Related Contact or Task – who or what the activity connects to
This creates a clean, chronological timeline of interactions that supports better collaboration, follow-ups, and handoffs across your team.
Step 7: Test, Publish, and Share Your Copilot-Built App
Once your core screens are in place, it’s time to review and launch your app.
Test your app using the play button in the Power Apps designer.
Add sample contacts, tasks, and activities to verify that forms, galleries, filters, and navigation work as expected.
When everything looks good, go to File → Save → Publish to make the app available to others in your organization.
After publishing, your “Team Hub” app is officially live and ready for your team to start using.
Why Start with Copilot and Power Apps?
Using Copilot to generate your first app gives you:
A faster starting point — the structure and data tables are created for you.
A no-code experience — you describe what you need in plain language.
A safe place to learn — you can experiment with a simple demo before building something more advanced.
But a Copilot-generated app is only the beginning.
To make an app truly business-ready, organizations typically need:
Refined data models and relationships
Role-based security
Integration with other systems (Dynamics 365, Dataverse, SharePoint, SQL, etc.)
Governance, documentation, and long-term support
That’s where we come in.
Ready for a Professional, Business-Ready Solution?
Creating a Copilot demo is an excellent way to explore Power Apps and spark ideas for smarter workflows. It’s perfect for learning, prototyping, and visualizing what your team could accomplish.
But when it’s time to build a production-ready app your business can depend on every day, you don’t have to do it alone.
Our Services at Sydlortech
At Sydlortech, we:
Collaborate with you to define your processes and requirements
Create robust data models and secure, scalable environments
Build maintainable Power Apps and Power Platform solutions
Support your transition from “simple demo” to fully operational business application
Ready to Transform Your App?
If you're ready to go beyond a basic Copilot-generated app and create something powerful and fully aligned with your business needs, we’re here to help.
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