Power Apps Solutions

[JayHangan]

Good morning Makers,

Have you been working on a Power Apps Solution that you would like to share with your peers...Please do! Tell us about the scenario and business need, then talk about the great solution you and your team developed to increase productivity.  We would be interested in learning about the roadblocks you faced, what learning resources you used, and what tips and tricks you would like to share.

Let's help make each other better and start the conversation.

[FocusRach]

On the contractor side, we've created a couple of enterprise-wide apps that have been working well. We are a smaller company and don't have to worry about data size. 

• Resume App
  • Collect details of an employee resume, skills, certs, and more. Using a Power BI report to review and analyze data. Generates a Resume from a word template and sends a copy to the manager/employee once the resume is completed. 
• Performance App
  • Most Recent - A custom in house solution to help managers and employees navigate performance related topics. 
• Employee Directory App
  • As you would expect. Simple and for searching Employees for contact information.
• IT Asset Management App 
  • SPO Forms and Mobile App for Scanning Equipment using the barcode feature.

Some of the challenges we deal with Specific to Power Apps: 

• Co-Authoring in GCC high Power Apps would be helpful! 
• More Templates available for quicker launch. In Commercial there are so many power app templates available that give stakeholders/end users a quick glance of the art of the possible. Can we have the Onboarding one moved over?
• Cost Related / Available Resources: For larger data requirements, we'll need to expand to a data base. Because of the lack of familiarity with Dataverse and knowledge, I do think we would choose the tried and true SQL (in Azure). Which... I guess Microsoft gets money either way. My point is.... cost vs features is still a factor (in my current situation) that I cannot justify when it comes to continued development in Power Apps when expanding to a datasource that isn't free. Power Apps is still new to our industry and mid to small size company investment is less likely, because of the various facts:
  • It's new and the number of people who understand it in our industry is still small (slowly growing).
  • It requires development - other OOTB solutions from other companies, don't requirement development, so it's quicker to receive the functionality you need. Why go through the ordeal to spend in house development time + Costs to license and maintain a database + in house maintenance and support when it costs the same or only slightly more to buy someone else's product.
  • It requires support after development - OOTB Solutions can package support costs in with licensing. A custom in house app.... well... you'll need to find someone who can support it. With there not being enough power platform developers for GCC high... this is a challenge. 

While I understand the decentralized model that Microsoft started this platform with, I just see that model struggling in our industry. Most people are not spending time, excitedly creating their own solutions (like I did) AND manage them internally. There are companies that are IT centric in services and thus have more than enough resources and but not everyone in our industry has that. Growing the talent pool / interest in GCC high's Power Platform would be so helpful overall. I've seen how Microsoft does this in the commercial space, I think the GCC high space just needs more attention, more community!

Other Solution Challenges for GCC High:

• Power Automate - Copy feature is not working correctly.
• SharePoint search - not that great yet! Some companies are avoiding SharePoint for this reason. 
• Simple end user/stakeholder lack of knowledge. I still met a lot of IT professionals who have not/do not spend time learning the 'new' way that Microsoft has architected solutions like SharePoint or even Teams. They are still managing in the old ways. I think adding help guides or 'walk through pop ups' for IT professionals on the Teams screen would be helpful.