Configuration ool

[joroehr]

Hi there,

the issue seems to be trivial but i would appreciate how to approach it in Power Apps. Available are 5 different products. Depending on the requirements in 10 different areas the tool should one product.

The user should be guided to answer 10 questions with fixed values as an answer. I understand as an answer a set of specific values for the question.

In 80 % of the cases one product is the right one. For the rest 20 % the answer is: Product a and b are suitable for the purpose.

Do you have a recommendation how to structure the database and set this app up in Power Apps?

You support is highly valued!

BR

Johannes

[AJ_Z]

This sounds like a cool power apps use case. are we dealing with yes/ no questions? do all of the products have fixed answers? Does it have to equal all of the fixed answers to give you a product at the end or is it products with the most answers linked to it? These questions will affect how we approach it. Also what database are we using: Dataverse, Sharepoint List, Sql or something else.

[joroehr]

The products have different ranges for their features and the questions pointing on whether the requirement hits a specific range. Some features just having two options ether in our out.

This means we have specific KO criteria - if the requirement is out of scope the KO'ed product is out of scope. 

For a range criteria the customer is defining his value eg 5. One product has a range from 1-4 - means it's out. One product has 4-7 and the other one 3-9. Both are in. 

In combination the KO criteria is not met fro the last two - means they would be suggested as a possible option.

The final assessment should contain about 10 criteria which describe the need of a customer. The result should be a recommended product which hits all the specifics.

The database needs to support this specific use case - so we are free to use whatever is suitable.

[joroehr]

Is it possible to support such case in Power Apps?

[AJ_Z]

Yes it definitely is 🙂 - let me type up some suggestions  

[Mike2500]

Sure, you could create a sharepoint list (or entity in dataverse, or sql table, or an excel spreadsheet (excel only really works if you have less than 500 rows or so)). This list could have one row per product, and appropriate fields for filtering. Perhaps one of the characteristics is temperature range. The list could have two fields, MinTemp and MaxTemp. 

You could then have a screen with a gallery and a bunch of controls used by the filter function that sets the "items" property of the gallery, OR have multiple screens with a more wizard like approach, where each screen had the same filters as the previous plus an additional filter.

[AJ_Z]

Yes I think suggesting the Wizard Approach is one of the best ideas. I would store criteria and product details in the database i am thinking as number ranges for criteria values, and true/false or Yes/No or 1/0 responses for certain questions. Then store the responses from the user in a collection or a set variables (incase we change screen). Then we could use a gallery in the app to display the filtered or looked up to product that is appropriate based on the responses using switch() or if() . If there is no hard answer we could use the logic to give the product a grade based on how good the product is at meetin the needs and pull out the highest scored one 🙂

[AJ_Z]

another option if you are looking to store this data (e.g. the responses) for future analytics or history is to write it to a separate datasource with records of what the app suggested. this would be good for testing and gathering data

[joroehr]

Thanks guys for your input. I will create now a database - for easier sharing i start with an excel sheet - one row per product and define the variables with columns. Later i will include it in a Sharepoint list. Any requirements for the configuration of the rows like a forced format or dropdown list?

I also like the idea of yes/no questions and a range of min and max ranges. This really suits my purpose.

It is not a must to store the config for later. The intention is by answering a set of questions to get to a recommended product or product range if the configuration leads to several products. For the beginning the questions could be answered on one page and the result can be shown on a separate page or at the bottom of the page. 

It would be great if you could give me a hint on how to start to put the app together with this excel.

[AJ_Z]

Do you know the type of questions we are asking?
See my example below (I picked biscuits as my example as I am enjoying some now with a cup of tea):
Q1 Do you need a round biscuit? - this is a binary response so it is going to be a Yes or No (I like comboboxes for these)

Q2 How many biscuits are needed in each pack? - This is a different style we could go with a choice with a dropdown or radio and have predefined answers or we could use a slider and set a minimum and maximum value in the datasource

Q3 When are the biscuits needed for? - This is a different style we could go with a choice with a dropdown or radio and have predefined answers or we could use a date picker and calculate whether a products delivery window stored as value in days meets that deadline, i do this with the Difference in Days function referencing a datepicker and Today()

depending on the style of questions i store my data differently