Say Hello to the New PowerApps Portal: Building Robust low-code website for external users!

In today’s digital-first world, businesses need to connect with external users—customers, partners, or clients—in seamless and interactive ways. That’s where the new PowerApps Portal comes in. Microsoft’s latest offering allows you to build powerful, low-code websites specifically designed for external users, unlocking new possibilities for engagement, data collection, and collaboration. Whether you’re creating customer portals, support sites, or partner-facing platforms, the PowerApps Portal simplifies the process, enabling rapid development without needing deep technical expertise. In this blog, we’ll explore how to leverage the new PowerApps Portal to create robust, scalable, and user-friendly websites that provide real-time solutions for your business needs.

How can people outside of the company make use of PowerApps?

Well, there soon be a way to use apps with PowerApps portals. Yes, you heard it correctly.

So far, using PowerApps requires a login in the organization accounts. In the real scenario, there are use cases where the provisions of the PowerApps application make sense for suppliers, customers, and partners. This leads to arise in the demand for sharing PowerApps with external users.

Charles Lamanna, the General Manager of PowerApps, decided to introduce a new way to distribute an app with the PowerApps portal.

He exclaimed in bold letters:

Today we’re excited to announce PowerApps Portals, the ability to build low-code, responsive websites which allow external users to interact with the data stored in the Common Data Service.

Since then, “PowerApps- Portals” is the buzzword in the community. Now all the PowerApps makers can create powerful low-code and responsive portals. It further allows external users of their organizations to interact with CDS data.

They are now eligible to create a powerful experience with external-facing websites. It allows users outside their organizations to sign in using multiple options and identities and browse the data.

Previously, Dynamics 365 Portal’s full capabilities were only offered as an add-on for Customer Engagement applications. But now it is available completely standalone inside of PowerApps. Just like Dynamics 365 Portals, PowerApps Portals also provides to its user’s liquid templates to begin their Portal Customizations.

Below are some of the key capabilities of the PowerApps portals:

1. Engage with your customers and partners

Now organizations can engage with their partners and customers. By allowing them to create websites that can be further shared with users external to their organization. anonymously or through the login provider of their choice, like Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft account providers, etc. You can even integrate enterprise login providers with multiple standard protocols such as SAML2, WS-Fed, and OpenId Connect. You can even create websites for employees suing their corporate user id.

2. Build a website with ease with a dedicated portal designer

Now use a powerful no-code portal designer and create and manage multiple website contents, webpages, templates, sitemaps, etc. With the help of bootstrap themes, you can even brand your website and make them responsive.

You can even use familiar CDS components like views, model-driven forms, and dashboards. to surface data stored in CDS in just a few clicks.

3. Integrate with Microsoft service for enriched content

Now enhance your portal with rich content and leverage personalized user experience to your customers. By integrating it with Microsoft services like Azure Blob Storage, Azure AD B2C, Power BI embed Microsoft Flow and Microsoft SharePoint.

4. A complex business process with pro dev extensibility

Conclusion

PowerApps Portal just changed the game for building external websites—and honestly, it’s about time. Now you can spin up secure, polished portals for customers, partners, or public forms in hours, not months. No more waiting on developers or drowning in code. Need a client self-service hub? A login area for vendors? A public contact form that actually works? Drag, drop, and done. It scales with your needs, plays nice with Microsoft tools you already use, and lets you focus on what matters—connecting with people outside your org without the usual tech headaches