Confused on wether Lists + Power Apps are for me

[FlorentST]

Hiyall, 

my supervisor asked me to asses if we could transition from an Excel spreadsheet to a List. The Excel file essentially is a log of jobs we do on a specific machine : item name, defects, comments, etc. There are some macros in the file, notably triggers and conditional formatting based on inputs entered in the name column. 

I've scoured around the internet, but in my research, it mostly came back on how Power Apps are great. But would they help me ?

I've also tinkered around Lists and the Power Apps canvas, but I'm running blind, as it's a completely new tool for me. 

To me, it appears that Power Apps are disconnected from Lists and are their own thing. I was expecting some sort of tool that resembled Macros in that they affect the List ; as it is, the Rules are extremely limited. As is, Power Apps seem to run on their own and use Lists to power their database. Is that the case ?

So for example, here's one of the main features I'd need : 

- previously to doing the actual job, I enter a name ABC in a form to create an item in the List. This should check into another List or maybe an Excel file (a database essentially) if that value exists and has specific instructions about it. If yes, then it should be displayed in some way - not necessarily added to the item but it still could be...

(in Excel, this is done by checking values in another sheet from the workbook or a folder whenever a value is entered in the first column)

Another example : 

- I need to be able to extract a history of defects on a specific item. On my initial tests, it looked like I could generate graphs rather easily, but creating reports or exporting dataset was a bit more clunky (it kept exporting the whole List instead of filtered out data).

Am I looking in the right direction with those tools ? Is Excel still best ? Would there be a compromise, another set of apps ? Thanks for any insight ! 

[BCLS776 · Accepted solution]

If Excel is meeting your needs, keep using it - there are a lot of good use cases for a spreadsheet.

Where the Power Platform becomes more useful is when you need to have multiple users see and interact with the data, connect it to external data sources, or do more detailed reporting than is available in Excel. That's a start and the platform can do much more than that.

The use cases you describe in your post all sound like they fit within the capabilities of a Power App connected to a SharePoint List. While a List can do conditional formatting and some other user interface tricks, you'll learn you can do much more with a Power App.

As for macro-like functionality, you've probably seen a taste of what Power Automate flows can do when they are connected to a List.

It takes some learning to really start leveraging the platform to do very useful things, but this is the place to start. Searches on the community will help you understand using Filter() in a Power App, for example, to generate that list of defects by item that you described.

The community forum works best when you can write a specific question in each post. That helps people like you find specific answers with the search functionality.

Welcome, and hope that helps,

Bryan

[FlorentST]

Hey Bryan,

thanks for the input ! Reasons to switch to Lists is essentially what you describe as their capabilities : reports, shared access (and some sort of Corporate easiness !).

I've found some tutorials here and there, I'm going to follow those to get a better grasp of Power Apps and Automate. I have to admit, my old self is a bit lost in the mobile-web feel and design of the tools 😅 I'll keep in mind to ask questions in an orderly manner and to search for previous answers, of course. 

Cheers,

Florent