From Excel to app without code: AI agent collects Power Apps from your spreadsheet
Half of the business processes in small companies still live in Excel: customer requests, warehouse, time sheets, contract registers. On September 6, Reza Dorrani, one of the most famous authors on the Power Platform, released a 20-minute tutorial in which such a table turns into a real multi-screen application, and all without a single line of code: Excel is imported into a SharePoint list, a framework Power Apps of modern templates is assembled on top of it, and a connected AI agent (Claude Code or GitHub Copilot) brings the workpiece into a working application with KPI dashboard, search and forms. The chain is simple - Excel → SharePoint → Power Apps, and the application assembles most of the path itself.
Why remove the process from Excel at all?
The tablet has three congenital diseases. The first version: “data_v2_final_CORRECTED.xlsx” is familiar to everyone who has ever received a file by mail. The second is access: opening a file from your phone and entering an application without breaking the formula is almost impossible. Third, there are no rules: anyone can delete a line, and no one will know who did it and when.
The application solves these problems: the data is in one place with access rights, forms check input, and the history of changes is saved. Previously, one thing got in the way - such an application had to be built by hand, and this took days of work. Now the AI agent takes over the assembly.
Step 1: Table moves to SharePoint
It all starts with import: SharePoint has a standard option Import from Excel - it takes the table along with the column headers and turns it into a list with typed fields. Dates remain dates, amounts remain numbers, yes/no choices remain checkboxes. It’s easy to stumble here: the more accurately the headers and data types are designed in the file, the fewer changes there will be later. A SharePoint list is no longer a dead file, but a living data source with versioning, rights, and an API that you can connect to from anywhere.
Step 2. Frame from modern templates
Next in Power Apps a canvas application is created directly on top of the list. The platform has recently introduced modern screen templates: instead of an empty canvas, screens with demo data immediately appear - the main one with KPI tiles, a list of records with search and filters, a form for viewing and editing. The template looks like a real application, but the data in it is fish. This takes a couple of minutes, and this is no longer that gray “push-button” generator that used to produce one poor screen with three columns.
Step 3. Connect the AI agent
The most interesting part. The canvas authoring agent plugin is connected to the canvas application editor - it has come out of beta and is now available to everyone. The MCP protocol works inside, through which an external agent connects to the designer: in the video this is Claude Code, as an alternative, GitHub Copilot is shown. Then you simply write to the agent in chat what needs to be done: connect a real SharePoint list instead of demo data, rework the screens for your process, add a detailed card page, set up filters by status.
The agent itself finds the necessary screens, rewrites formulas, and associates controls with list columns. In the video, this takes a few minutes - and before our eyes, the blank with placeholder data turns into an application based on a real customer onboarding table.
What's the output
The final build looks like an application that was previously ordered from the developer: the main screen with indicators, a list of clients with a live search, forms for creating and editing, adaptive layout for the phone. All this is connected to the SharePoint list, that is, the data is entered once and is visible everywhere. The author has posted a ready-made application file for channel members - you can take it apart piece by piece and look at the techniques.
Where's the catch?
Honestly about the cons. Firstly, this is the world of Microsoft: you will need Power Apps (in the free plan it is greatly reduced) and SharePoint, and licenses cost money. Secondly, the agent is not a magician - it changes templates perfectly, but complex logic and non-standard screens will have to be sent manually, checking each formula. Thirdly, everything is tailored to neat tables: if in your Excel half of the columns are without names, and the dates are written in the text “somewhere, somehow,” you will first have to put things in order. And yes, the interface with documentation is in English.
But the technique itself is universal and goes far beyond the limits of Power Apps: “data → framework of templates → AI agent brings it to a working state” - exactly according to this scheme, websites, dashboards, and internal tools are now assembled. We discussed how this style of development works in general in articles about what is vibecoding and about assembly of a website or application based on a text description.
Source: Turn Excel Spreadsheets into a Multi-Screen Power App with AI Coding Agents - Reza Dorrani, YouTube