Power Apps: Build a Calendar (Part 1)

Key insights

• Power Apps calendar
  Video shows a step-by-step build of a clean calendar UI inside Power Apps canvas apps without any external data source, aimed at beginners who want hands-on practice with app logic and layout.
• Calendar layout
  Start with a header and month view, then build a 7-column gallery to display days; the tutorial explains the design idea and how the visual structure maps to date logic.
• Galleries and Date functions
  Use galleries to render the day grid and date functions to compute the first visible date each month, handle month boundaries, and derive weekday positions.
• Month navigation
  Implement Next and Previous month buttons that update a current-month variable, recalculate the calendar start date, and let the gallery refresh the displayed days dynamically.
• Named formulas and tables
  Store calculated days and properties in named formulas or collections (tables) to simplify bindings, reduce repeated expressions, and make testing and maintenance easier.
• Calendar Control V2 and connectors
  Microsoft adds a built-in Calendar Control V2 for model-driven apps and supports connectors (Office 365, Google) to surface external events; the video focuses on a local, code-first approach while production apps can combine both methods.

Overview of the tutorial

In a clear, methodical YouTube tutorial, Alireza Aliabadi demonstrates how to build a functional calendar inside Power Apps without connecting to an external data source. He frames this video as Part 1 of a two-part series and walks viewers through the UI design and core formulas needed to render a monthly calendar. With time stamps that map to design, header creation, date math, navigation, and testing, the video reads like a hands-on lab for beginners. Consequently, viewers can follow along and recreate the component step by step.

What the video teaches

Aliabadi begins by sketching the calendar concept and then moves into building the header and navigation controls that let users switch months. He explains how to calculate the first date that should appear in a month view and how to populate a gallery with the correct sequence of dates using tables and named formulas. The tutorial also covers adding Next and Previous month logic and wiring a gallery to display days in a grid-like layout. As a result, the viewer gains a working, self-contained calendar component that updates when users navigate across months.

The creator emphasizes using galleries, date functions, and named formulas rather than relying on built-in connectors or third-party sources. This approach keeps the example simple and suitable for learning foundational concepts of Power Apps, especially for people who are new to canvas apps. He also spends time testing the calendar within the app to show how the component behaves in practice and to illustrate common edge cases. Overall, the walkthrough is paced for learners who prefer seeing formulas applied in context.

Technical tradeoffs and design choices

Building a calendar from galleries and formulas offers high flexibility, but it comes with tradeoffs compared with using the platform’s ready-made calendar controls. On the one hand, a custom gallery-based calendar gives more control over styling and behavior, allowing teams to tailor interactions or embed nonstandard metadata into each date cell. On the other hand, this choice increases maintenance effort and places the burden of handling complex cases — such as recurring events or time zone adjustments — on the app builder.

Alternatively, using the native Calendar Control or connectors to Outlook and Google reduces custom code and leverages built-in behaviors like event CRUD operations and time zone handling. Yet, that route can limit visual customization and may require additional licensing or consent to access external services. Therefore, developers must weigh whether they need tight visual control and offline capability, which favors a custom solution, or prefer quicker integration and fewer edge cases to handle, which favors native controls and connectors.

Challenges to expect when implementing a calendar

Time zones and localization pose practical challenges that the video acknowledges indirectly by demonstrating date calculations that assume a local context. When apps must serve users across regions, builders need to add conversions and respect user time zone settings to avoid showing incorrect dates or times. Furthermore, calendars that remain purely in-app without a data source can be useful for display, but they lack persistence and collaboration features until developers add storage or connectors.

Accessibility and mobile responsiveness are additional considerations that arise when you move from prototype to production. The tutorial shows a desktop-oriented layout, so teams should adapt spacing, touch targets, and keyboard navigation for mobile and accessibility compliance. Finally, performance can degrade if a gallery-based calendar scales into many connected records or complex formulas, so optimization and careful testing become necessary as complexity grows.

Practical tips from the video and implications for makers

Aliabadi’s step-by-step approach highlights useful patterns such as naming formulas for reuse, testing incremental changes, and validating calculations with sample dates. These practices make it easier to debug logic like the computation of the first date in a month view and the offset for week-start alignment. In addition, adopting named formulas can help collaborators understand intent, which is valuable when apps evolve or when model-driven and canvas components need to interoperate.

For organizations deciding how to proceed, the video helps clarify when to build versus integrate. If the goal is a tightly controlled UI or offline capability, a custom gallery solution is attractive. Conversely, if teams want built-in appointment management, bi-directional sync, and lower maintenance, using the platform’s calendar control and connectors to services like Outlook or Google may be preferable. Ultimately, the choice hinges on priorities such as customization, persistence, integration, and long-term maintenance.

What to expect next

Since this is Part 1 of a two-part series, Aliabadi sets the stage for deeper integration and more advanced behaviors in a follow-up episode. Viewers can anticipate coverage of persisting events, connecting to calendar services, or enhancing the calendar with event creation and editing features. Until then, the current tutorial provides a solid foundation for anyone who wants to learn the building blocks of calendar UI in Power Apps and to understand the tradeoffs of different implementation approaches.

Keywords

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