What license do users need to use a simple app that uses a custom made entity

[HansHeintz]

Hi,

I work in an animal shelter and I made a simple (canvas) app that uses one custom made table (entity) to contains events for an animal (one record is an event which can for example be a piece of text at a certain time) so the history of the animal can be opened on the smartphone. I have a powerplan 2 license myself. What  do the animal caretakers need to look at the data in the app? Not 40+$ a month per caretaker I hope.

My animal shelter uses office 365 and dynamics 365.

The app also finds related data of the animal in an microsoft sql server located on an online server to show things like name, chipnumber, breed etc

Greetings,

Hans Heintz

Veterinarian DOA Amsterdam

[HansHeintz]

Or: what is the best place to ask this question?

[iAm_ManCat · Accepted solution]

Hello!

You can check licensing options here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/pricing-billing-skus#powerapps-for-office-365

You said you had one table for for the data - where is this data hosted? If (in-app)/sharepoint/excel/onedrive then you're in the best position as any of these office licenses will be enough for your users to run PowerApps

Office 365 Business Essentials
Office 365 Business Premium
Office 365 A1 for Faculty
Office 365 A1 for Students
Office 365 A1 Plus for Faculty
Office 365 A1 Plus for Students
Office 365 A3 for Faculty
Office 365 A3 for Students
Office 365 A3 for Student Use Benefit
Office 365 A5 for Student Use Benefit
Office 365 A5
Office 365 A5 for Faculty
Office 365 A5 for Students
Office 365 Education E3 for Faculty
Office 365 Education E3 for Students
Office 365 Education for Homeschool for Faculty
Office 365 Education for Homeschool for Students
Office 365 Enterprise E1
Office 365 Enterprise E2
Office 365 Enterprise E3
Office 365 Enterprise E3 Developer
Office 365 Enterprise E3 without ProPlus
Office 365 Enterprise E5
Office 365 Enterprise F1 includes PowerApps for Office 365 Enterprise F1

If you've used a sql on-premise connector to store your data then you will need a P1 license for everyone (although I think from your description you probably used (in-app)/excel/sharepoint/onedrive, all of which are covered in the above licenses)

Any questions, please feel free to shout,

ManCat

[HansHeintz]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

We use both

One entity (= I think a table with index as you would say in database terms) as can be created in the powerapps section of office 365

And a microsoft sql server hosted on an online server

So how much would that cost (our 16 animal caretakers) each mont to view this table and related data form the sql server through my app on their phone?

I am confused how the info from microsoft relates to my situation as do others who I asked on generally well informed people on the tweakers website in Holland. They say users should only need office 365 to use the app since I do not use a model based app and I do not use premium connections.

But users who open my app do need to accept a free trial to powerapps plan 2.

My animal shelter would not appreciate paying 16x40 euro just for everyone to watch one table on an app. I want to go ahead with the plan but I am totally confused where it will lead after the "trial period" and I do not want to look a fool.

So yes, I still have a question: what license will everyone need in the end to go ahead with the app.

Many thanks again.

[v-xida-msft]

Hi @HansHeintz ,

Could you please share a bit more about the custom made entity that you mentioned? Is it a CDS Entity?

Do you add a CDS Entity data source within your app?

If you add a CDS Entity data source within your app, I afraid that the animal shelter who owns Office 365 licenses could not run your shared app.

If your animal shelter wants to use your shared which includes a CDS Entity data source, they must own PowerApps Plan 1 license for their account at least.

The users who own Office 365 licenses could not use an app includes CDS Entity data source, please check the following article for more details:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/pricing-billing-skus#powerapps-for-office-365

In addition, if the animal shelter who owns Dynamics 365 licenses want to use your shared, their Dynamics 365 licenses must meet the following requirements:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/pricing-billing-skus#powerapps-for-dynamics-36...

Best regards,

[HansHeintz]

Hi,

The entity is just an entity created by going to

(I have a dutch version so I hope I translate the menus correctly)

powerapps

data

entities

and the I click on

+new entity above

I can then define fields

The people that need to use the app have these licenses:

Office 365 Enterprise E3

Microsoft Flow Free

Power BI (free)

If I let someone use the app a powerapps plan2 trial is added to their license.

This cannot be avoided so logically it would seem as if powerapps plan2 is needed to run the app.

Thanks for your response.

[iAm_ManCat]

I agree with @v-xida-msft - you are using a CDS entity, which will require a PowerApps Plan 1 license to run. When your users open the App they will be presented with the option for a Plan 2 trial as this is the trial option that Microsoft offers if there is any premium connector or CDS source used within the App 

You can access premium connectors using the P1 license, $7/month, although I would really suggest just re-writing your data source and app - store the data in online sql or sharepoint or something other than the CDS entity - that way your users can use it without any additional licensing requirements than the Office365 licenses they already have.

[HansHeintz]

Ah ok,

Since a table containg all events for all animals might run into the hundreds of thousands of records over the years, is using a sharepoint table as a datasource really an option? Sharepoint tables don't do field indexes for "instant" filtering and sorting do they?

I might do another online sql database for this purpose but our magagent would really like to get all data inside the office/dynamics environment eventually.

[xzDan]

SharePoint does have indexes.

I use SharePoint Online for my lists, one of which is just under 30k items. It will exceed 100k by the end of the year, but for our purposes, if it slows down, it will have older entries archived. Perhaps that is something you can do? A list per year?

In PowerApps, it seems fast enough at pulling data through, just read up on delegation etc. as luxuries you may have in SQL with stored procedures etc, you wont have in SharePoint so its important to design the list with these in mind (for example, combo boxes cannot be filtered reliably (see Delegation), so I make a 'Single line of text' that copies the combobox's value, and that is what I filter by).

[HansHeintz]

It seems both for the sql connection  and the CDS entities a p1 license is needed. Luckily we quialify for non profit licenses as an animal shelter wich means about a 60% discount. We dicided to go through with this 🙂