Power App for non-profit. needs license

[ntubergen-grymc]

Based on this thread we should have powerApps access for all of our users, but when I tried to access an app from an account without a "Power apps trial 2" license, I get an error:

When building the app, I realized I couldn't use a SQL connector without premium, so I ended up going through flow to access the SQL data I needed. For some reason, even though I'm not directly using SQL through the app (Flow is using SQL, not the App), it's saying that it is being used.

Is that a glitch from my adding the connector early on in the app? Or is it blocking me out because I'm using SQL in flow? Again, I'm not directly accessing the table from the App, but am querying it through flow and sending the request response back to the app.

If that's the case, what would pricing look like to allow users access to these apps (per user)?

[ntubergen-grymc]

based on this thread

Sorry

[RandyHayes · Accepted solution]

@ntubergen-grymc 

This is as designed.  You cannot escape the licensing of a premium connector by moving it to Flow/PowerAutomate.  

PowerApps recognizes the connectors that are in use in any Flow that it is connected to and will also require that you have a Premium license for the app.

I work with a lot of non profits and, although we get their Office 365 for next to nothing, I've never seen any pricing specials for PowerApps for non profits - I would love to!

Otherwise it is the standard pricing for PowerApps. Single app licensing (actually it's really two apps) is $10 per month per user.  Unlimited apps is $40 per month per user.

Keep in mind...if you only have one App or Flow that is accessing premium, that counts as one of the apps in the pricing.  If you make other apps that do not access premium connectors, then they would fall under the regular Office 365 PowerApps plan already included in your subscription.  Just make sure that any users that fall into this have both the Paid and the Included license checked in their profile.

I hope this is helpful for you.

[ntubergen-grymc]

Not going to lie, that's pretty disappointing.

Why on earth is SQL premium? We are not currently in a position to spend that kind of cash. But putting the most common DB on the premium tier is pretty lame. we might end up going with Google Apps.

[RandyHayes]

@ntubergen-grymc 

I will not say that I am not disappointed with that choice either - especially since it was, for a long time, not considered Premium. And, we had built a lot of Apps based on that.  Most are still operational only because they were grandfathered in for a year, but the timer is ticking and they need to be redone.

I believe that the AppSheets use Zapier to connect to SQL. Zapier is like Flow but with a much different plan. The free plan for that means that transactions take 15 minutes to complete and you are limited to 100 per month.  I am speaking from research, not experience on that platform as I've never gone down the road of using it because we found the Power Platform to be much more mature and robust and, yes, cheaper.

If you are not part of TechSoup, I would suggest it for your non-profit in general.  And, you might be able to talk with them or even with a Microsoft licensing specialist to see if there are PowerApps plans available for Non profit orgs.

Finally, there are some workarounds to this dilemma.  in some cases we use Flow/PowerAutomate with 1 premium license.  It is a standalone Flow (i.e. no app is connected to it) and is on a timer.  The flow will gather information from SQL and populate SharePoint, and vice versa.  It adds a delay and is not good for real- or near real-time design, but for when needed, it works.

This is then just one $4 license a month.  The rest is included in the Office 365 subscription.

I hope this gives you some ideas to work with.