Unfortunately, you didn't say which phone model you have or which version of Android or PowerAmp you're using. You also didn't say whether the "shortcut" you're tapping is a playlist widget, or an M3U file. I'll cover both.
Most of the better music player apps enable you to put playlist "widgets" on your home screen(s). Tapping the widget for a specific playlist launches that playlist. I'd be kinda shocked if PowerAmp didn't have that kind of playlist widget option. Newer Samsung "Music" apps, MediaMonkey, MixZing, Google Play Music, WinAmp, et al, allow such playlist widgets. If your playlist widget isn't working properly, you may want to delete it and recreate it.
It may be worth noting that on some music player apps, tapping the widget starts the music playing, while on other music player apps tapping the widget launches the app and queues the playlist by you still have to hit the "play" button. I'm not sure about PowerAmp.
If you're tapping on an M3U playlists file/shortcut (that perhaps you've copied over from a PC or something) and it doesn't automatically launch in PowerAmp, it's probably because the playlist hasn't been incorporated as playlists into the Android media library/database (where they need to exist in order for music players like PowerAmp to "see" them so that they can be turned into widgets.). On my Android 5.0 (Galaxy S5) phone, any ".M3U" or ".WPL" playlist file that I copy (from my PC) into practically any folder on my phone automatically gets imported into Android's music library (and the song-file-path-names will get automatically translated) so that those playlists will be available to my music player apps. (And consequently, those playlists can be turned into a widgets by long-pressing the home screen.) I'm not sure if that automatic importation of playlist files is an Android (5.0) feature or a Samsung feature. I suspect Android.
On my old Android 2.3 phone, M3U and WPL playlists that I placed on my phone (from my PC) were NOT automatically imported into Android's music library database. For that phone I used the free app
"Playlist Backup" (by Droid.Parallel), to "import" M3U playlists into the Android media library database where they could be "seen" by media player apps (and then turned into widgets). If your M3U playlists aren't automatically getting sucked into Android's music library, then you may need to import them as follows.
Procedure for importing a playlist using the app, “Playlist Backup”:
- Select “Import Playlist”.
- Select “Advanced” tab.
- Under "File to Import" hit “Select File” and then surf to the location of the M3U playlist that you want to import. (I usually keep such M3U files in a "Playlists" folder on the top level of my SD card. I'm not sure if that's the required location, but it might be.)
- Under "Select a playlist" hit "Add Playlist" and then put a check-mark next to the playlist that you want to import.
- Hit “Start”. The playlist will be imported into the Android database (from which your music player app can access it.)
FYI: In the Playlist Backup "Preferences" you should probably choose "Smart" Import Logic and "Ignore duplicate entries". Playlist Backup will then automatically (figure out and) translates from a PC's M3U or WPL playlist formatting and folder hierarchy path-names to my phone's path-names. For example...
From: ..\Beatles\Please Please Me\Beatles-Love Me Do.mp3
To: /storage/extSDCard/Music/Beatles/Beatles-Love Me Do.mp3
