(ESTIMATION TIME: 10 MINUTES)
When you’re doing something for the first time there is always the same feeling of chaos. So many new things, an uncountable number of topics to learn, mechanisms, and concepts that are like nothing.
How to know it all?
Where to start?
Of course, on the one hand, when it comes to IT, every software has its documentation (and in the case of PowerApps it is truly well written). However, on the other hand…show me at least ONE person who has read the whole documentation before starting with something (programming, using tools, developing the new app in PowerApps) 😉. Of course, there is none – otherwise, people like me, consultants & trainers, won’t have much to do. That’s why I’ve created below a list of 10 tips I wish to know before I’ve started with PowerApps.
Learning PowerApps
If you read the image description above, you probably see a lot of similarities to learning really anything that is new to you. Let’s take PowerApps for example. You want to build an app, create a solution to support your process, or build that powerful customized SharePoint list form. Most of the time, you try different approaches, different controls, and just DISCOVER new functionalities of the platform. From time to time you need to solve an error or warning (e.g. my favorite one: 500 items limit) and rarely (in comparison to other activities) are you completing your dream app. And that is ok – you are learning. You need to get the experience. Is there a way to increase the effectiveness of your learning path? Yes, there is. Follow me 🙂
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UPDATE (03-Feb-2023): Psst, please have in mind this article is from…2019? 2020? Something around that…Anyway – A LOT has changed over the past years. So please take a minute and look at what’s going on right now here or here, or here. You can also check out my new project: No Code Masters on YouTube 😁
Minimal effort to maximum effect
To shorten your launch with PowerApps I’ve noted down 10 things I wish to know earlier – at the very beginning of my PowerApps adventure. Treat them as my footprints you can follow to get your “artifact” quicker.
1. Templates
In the PowerApps maker portal when you go to the “Create” page you will see a bunch of tiles. The first three are for creating your app but all the others (28 tiles) are ready-made applications. They present the final solution to a specific scenario (Help Desk, Budget Tracker, Leave Request etc). By clicking on the template app you’ll add it to your environment, and you can start using it. But that’s not all! You can edit it and see how it was built! It’s an awesome opportunity to investigate the app structure, logic, used controls, and functions to learn PowerApps. Moreover, you can copy app parts and paste them into your solution – why not!
Play, test & analyze at least 1 of them.
Protip #1: If you’re beginning with PowerApps focus on templates with the “Canvas app” label
Protip #2: There are two app templates you can’t miss: PowerApps Training and PowerApps Training for Office. A must for everyone who wants to know PowerApps better.
2 . Controls & Properties
There are many controls you can use in your app. Text input, Slider, or Timer (with which you can build animations) are just a few examples. Use them to interact with a user in multiple ways: display information, gather some data, or even record a video or take a picture. All controls are under the “Insert” ribbon tab and grouped into categories (Text, Controls, Media etc). Take 10 minutes to discover all the controls in PowerApps. In most cases reading the control label is enough to get the general context of it. However, bear in mind some controls are more complex (eg. gallery or forms).
Other great things about controls are their properties that are for customization. Want this label text to be read? No problem! You don’t like those rounded corners of a button? Sure thing, I don’t like it either. Properties extend the capabilities of the controls. Using them you can use control in multiple ways and in different contexts.
Protip #3: The most popular controls are: label, text input, icons, button, gallery, forms. Starts with them. Almost any application needs them.
Protip #4: Check the Advanced tab from the properties pane (the above image). It has many more properties than Properties tab.
3. Functions
Interaction with a user is one thing but what will happen if a user clicks this button? And how to show an error message once users forget about providing required data? You won’t do much without logic in your app. And that’s what PowerApps functions are for. Controls, properties, and functions are PowerApps bread and butter. Without knowing them you’ll be like a kid in the dark.
There are 155 functions, and they are fully described here. In the documentation, each function description contains a note of what it does, when to use it, required arguments, and some usage examples. And to be honest I never use all of them. But the below list is really worth those 30 minutes to check them in the documentation.
Protip #5: Some functions are unknown even to those who builds PowerApps professionally. These professionals waste a ton of time to make workarounds for what I’m solving in a minute. Some of those functions: User, Param, Language, HashTags,ColorFade, PlainText. Make sure you know them 🙂
4. Connectors
The true power of PowerApps (and Power Platform speaking) lays not in the platform itself but in the integration with other platforms. Thanks to that your app can use the capabilities of another service. I like to think about integration as “borrowing the power of other services” in a way. PowerApps contains over 350+ connectors to different services (not only Microsoft’s!).
You can find a list of all connectors here.
From that list few connectors deserve special attention because of their flexibility and how they greatly improve Power Platform extendibility:
- Office 365 Users
- Power BI
- HTTP with Azure AD
- HTTP / HTTP Request (available as an action/trigger via Flow)
Protip #6: You want to integrate your own service? Check out Custom Connectors
5. Store data in the right place
Ok, before I’ll say anything more, I have to announce one really important thing.
Side note: why do some people pick Blob Storage over SharePoint? Versioning, Permissions model, sharing capabilities, Integration with Teams and OneDrive – SharePoint has it all!
Uf, I’m good now.
So, when it comes to storing data there are a few places you can do it: OneDrive (Excel), SharePoint, and common database (Dataverse, SQL). The first two are a common pick for PowerApps adepts and after some time they always search for help. Because neither excel nor SharePoint is a relational database. But Dataverse and SQL are! And from my perspective, after the last updates, Dataverse is the first pick when it comes to PowerApps solutions. I won’t dive into my approach details in this post, but I’ll cover that in the nearest future. Dataverse made huge progress and is a safe and trustworthy relational database.
Protip #7: Files? SharePoint. Relational database? Dataverse.
6. Delegation
When it comes to data source connection there will be a moment in time when you’ll see the warning below.
But don’t worry! It’s the delegation thing. The delegation mechanism is well described in the documentation. However, sometimes delegation is not a solution. If you’ll get to such a point read my post: https://michalguzowski.pl/500. I described 4 workarounds for the 500 limitations (whereas delegation is only 1 of them) + 2 extra my own methods which you won’t find in the Microsoft official resources 😉
7. Turn on Advanced Settings
If you want to build your apps more efficiently and faster there are few options hidden from you by default(!). But as an app maker, you can easily turn them on.
Go to File -> App Settings -> Advanced settings
There are impressive functionalities that will boost your productivity. 2 examples:
Components
It’s a group of controls that you can reuse across screens and apps! It’s like you build your own control! Example:
If you want to read more about how to build components and my best practices, patterns and tricks check this blog post.
Formula bar result view
Normally there is no way to see what your filter function will actually return in the result unless you display the data using some control (e.g. gallery). However, turning on “Enable formula bar result view” allows you to see the first few results right in your formula bar. Like this:
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8. Extra content
The old saying says: “Don’t reinvent the wheel”. When you start with something it’s impossible to always avoid this mistake of reinventing the wheel. Because finding out what has been already made is a part of the learning process, right? Sometimes you’ll read about it in documentation, sometimes you’ll see it in one of the PowerApps templates and sometimes you read about it in a blog post. That’s why I’ve put this part here 🙂
- 10 Reusable Components: tab control, calendar, dialog box, map control and more
- Experimental tools from Microsoft: PowerApps Review Tool, Theme Editor, App Merger, Phone to Tablet Layout Converter
- Templates from PowerApps portal are not enough? Then go to PowerUsers Community Gallery for more.
9. Community
Remember those times when a 3 hour task has already taken 6 hours and you’re not even in the middle of it? That is the moment when your time management (plan control, reality observations, acting based on measurements) is crucial but what’s even more important is…your self-control. Quit the berserker mode. Stop the “ohhh…I’ve already spent so much time on this task that now I HAVE TO finish it”.
Follow below:
- Your app/task is estimated to be done in X hours
- Make a checkpoint every 1/4 * X
- Define what you want to have on the particular checkpoint.
- If there is “expectations vs reality mismatch” -> ask for help. PowerApps Community & #PowerAddicts are here for you.
Protip #8: don’t be obsessive, know when to quit. Ask for help earlier
10. Practice practice practice
This is the universal but absolutely true sentence: “To make apps you have to make apps”. In other means, no knowledge gives you as much expertise as practice. If you want to make great apps there is no other way than just make 100 of them.
Every 100 starts with 1.
The task for today: make a simple app.
E.g. with a button that sends you an email on click. But make it so good you could use it in the future. E.g. email can be sent to your family member with a random message:
- “Will be late – traffic today is horrible”
- “Sorry for being late, had some bugs in one of my projects but I’m close to fix them. Need ~30 minutes more. Love you!”
- “My client asked me to help him in an emergency case: they have some problems on production environment! Will be in 2 hours :(”
- Can’t find the keys – did you see them?
Was it helpful? Or maybe you think I’ve missed anything?
LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS! 🙂
I’m new to this piece of crap named PowerApps. I’ve read your article, and I can praise your good intentions. Nevertheless, there’s a lot more somebody need to know before starting with it. And before anything else, is the very poor delivery on the promise “low code platform”. I was not expecting to do everything with it, or substitute true developer platforms. But I did expect to do quickly at least trivial things!!! (eg. Deleting a record with user confirmation, I could not believe it is a project!! Master-detal record, trivial requirement for most real-world apps is a BIG Project!)
And I did expect to find out there a couple of real-world templates (or at least close to real-world).
Pure disappointment: Once again MS proves they know nothing about true business apps.
I think it’s a pure waste of time. And I think MS, eventually, will quietly kill it.
Hey Makis, I’m really sorry to hear that you had so wrong experience with PowerApps. I see your frustration when you tried to achieve simple tasks. From what you described they seem to me simple as well. And to be honest – I’ve never had such problems. I don’t know how you tried to implement those tasks but maybe you missed something that could save you a lot of hours (and stress). I’m not saying the platform is perfect, it’s not, but simple tasks as your examples, shouldn’t be a big hustle. Could you give me more details on what specifically made you a problem? Cheers
Hi, I follow the “official” Microsoft Power Apps community forum to get guidance and how-tos. I am amazed to find out that it is required to do tips and tricks for such straightforward tasks, such as a descent record edit screen, a navigation menu etc. Too much effort in a very stiff, stubborn and weird philosophy. “Low code business app” platform, sets completely different expectations! I cannot imagine I need to CREATE a delete record button! At the same time, overall the web environment is extremely inflexible, slow and overall counter-productive (even copy-paste remains a big hustle, esp. when you want to copy a complete screen). Not to mention other essential developer addons that are totally missing – Where is a data explorer? I mean MS owns the visual studio!!!! Is it possibly the best they could? Overall my test-run was a pure disappointment and waste of my time.
Hm…have you checked how much PC RAM your browser consumes? Because normally the web browser app editor shouldn’t be slow. And when it comes to creating delete record button – have you tried using forms instead of creating from scratch? I’m more and more convinced that you just don’t want to give the platform a chance. Sure, it’s not perfect but pretty good balance between NoCode and Custom Code. What do you use for your everyday development?
I agree with Michal. To me PowerApps is a small step into something that wildly huge in the future. Sure it is limited, and cumbersome at times, but the flexibility is amazing. You just have to work with what you have. The freedom of creativity one has with it is what it is best for.
Makis, sorry to hear of the issues you are having with this citizen development platform. My 8 year old son has grasped all the concepts this excellent article details and he thrives on teaching lower skilled students how to achieve their desired outcomes with simple tech! I’m sure he would love to help you out so feel free to drop me a line if you continue to be overwhelmed, don’t give up, you can do this! 👍
You sir are a king. Power Apps is a fantastic piece of software and anyone with an IQ above 19 should be able to make sense of it. I learned to build robust Power Apps that worked with SQL databases, Microsoft Flows and also incorporate automated emails etc in about 2 months watching Shane Young on YouTube. This shows how easy this can be and how powerfull it can be. My senior project for school was to develop a PoS (point of sale) transaction system for a local restaurant that included an app for wait-staff to input orders, an app for cooks to view tickets sent to the kitchen by wait staff, and a full inventory app with automated warning sent via email when supplies hit their reorder quantity. This entire development process took about a month and a half and was done while all other teams were still working on what stack they wanted to use. Some people may just not understand the basics or arent willing to put in any work. Unfortunately today most people was instant and free gratification and if they dont get it they throw a fit like… well like some people 😉
Share Young is a real king here :P. I’m only trying to promote the platform and give some inspirational advices. Btw – Did you see NoCodeMasters (https://www.youtube.com/@nocodemasterscom/streams). Is there anything specific you’d like me to show/explain?
Hi, I just found out that Power Craps cannot connect to my Sharepoint Task List (yes, the Microsoft Official one!!!!) It’s not supported! LOL
I think it’s because SharePoint Online Tasks list are going to be obsolete anyway. Have you tried creating SharePoint Online lists and connecting to them using Power Apps?
Wow Seems as if you are having a tough time and you are angry? “Power Craps”… Sounds like you are rally struggling. Have you looked at the wider platform… As in the Power Platform? Remember 1 tool for multiple jobs is not always the answer. Perhaps you would like to get on a shared call where you will get the opportunity to share your technical expertise with the rest of the community? maybe rant a little and show us how many other things you have tried? That way you may be able to vent a bit and also receive help from those who will listen (Providing you treat people correctly)? These are the types of use cases that we would like to solve as a community.
Also thank you Michal for your hard work in sharing your content. You are brilliant and you help so many people. I know you do this in your spare time and you volunteer help without reward. I hope others understand this.
+1 to what Chris has written. I’m working with other LowCode vendors as well and I must say – no tool is perfect, nor the solution you build. The key is to be above the limitations and find the balance between capabilities and limitations. There is a lot of training content around Power Platform on Microsoft sites The community is also doing very hard work to explain the same thing but differently. So everyone can find something for themselves. And also – Chris, thank you for your kind words.
> no tool is perfect
except for PowerApps?
Naah 🙂
> 1 tool for multiple jobs is not always the answer
you mean like PowerApps is trying to be?
What you mean? Could you give some examples?
Hi Makis,
Powerapps can connect to Task Lists in SharePoint, although you need to use the list GUID when selecting the list to interact with, as it doesn’t find the name of them automatically.
That’s true – it has changed over time. This article may be outdated in this part. Btw out of curiosity – if one will use a template tasks list why he would need PowerApps? Isn’t it redundant?
Really good, knowledgeable article Michal!
Thank you Nathan! I’m happy you find it useful 🙂
Hello, I’ve just recently started playing around in PowerApps about 2 weeks ago. I’ve already been able to create two extremely functional apps with galleries, edit screens, timers, switch controls for my colors/templatefills, search boxes, combo boxes, people finders, multiple filters, images, etc. I was super excited while working in the apps because this seems A LOT easier than say, InfoPath forms. It’s so unfortunate some users are having a difficult time. I’m a true novice, but I enjoy the learning aspect of it all. As I was seeking new knowledge, I came across this article and I loved it!!! So much USEFUL information and awesome tips!!! Even though I just got started, I completely see the value in your article and I want to thank you for sharing these jewels with all of us!!
Wow, thank you Ciarlie for your appreciation. Are there any other topics you’d like to cover? Recently I was not publishing many articles around technical topics but I’d be happy to write one if I know what Power Platform community need.
I’m looking at this as a data architect. I’m seeing something good for creating apps but getting accurate information out, no missing records onto other systems i’m unsure. I’m looking at ADF with staging tables to ensure reconciliation and previously using ADF alone we have 1000’s of missing records but it doesn’t seem to like moving data to another table or so the suppliers tell me. Also can you get say SQL query onto a table through an Azure Function. I go through the microsoft site and its a bit too sales focused for me. I’m looking at it perhaps ignorantly as sitting on a Hybrid DB it has SQL so of course you can do SQL Query but then the dev’s are telling me i’m insane.
The idea behind Power Platform (e.g. Power Apps or Power Automate) is to not elevate user privileges and work under his/her permissions. So if an app doesn’t fetch something then 99% of the time it means that the user doesn’t have proper access to the DB.
On one hand you can connect your app to the SQL directly (both cloud one like Azure SQL and on-premise one through the gateway). On the other – you could use Dataverse (instead of SQL or via dataflow integration) and then you’d have option to use Model-Driven apps.
@Richard – Be mindful of your end user’s licenses before jumping into a Power Apps project with Dataverse (canvas or model-driven). Dataverse is not covered under a basic license – requires premium connectors which are *not* cheap. There are some options for licensing; e.g. “per app”, etc. but it’s best to make sure before spending time on it only to find out your users cannot consume the app. You personally may have the proper license, but your target users may not.
Not only do we have to deal with 1 “perfect” tool to try and do everything, legalism has absorbed it into its tower of babel as well, as if the job wasn’t hard enough.
You are generalizing. Please be more specific.
Excellent blog about Power Apps. You said it right about technology any new technology is a dark area and you have to explore it to get used to it and know secret tunnels/paths to reach destination more faster and safer. And it is fun when things work as you expect after exploring 🙂 Power Apps is much capable of doing things and integrating with other services.
Thank you Ashish for your insight. I fully agree with you that it is fun when things start rolling as expected! Especially that I remember the times when the technology was never-ending errors and “argh…what now? WHAT SEGMENTATION FAULT?”
PowerApps makes the simple things hard and the hard things impossible. Terrible platform.
Wow, this sounds very definitive. Could you elaborate more about the context and scenario? PowerApps is not a panacea – it should be used in the right context in the right way. I’ll be happy to help you.
If you check the documentation I believe the main requirement is that your IQ be above that of a rock. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like you have met that requirement and this may be your issue.
Collect(LowerIQThanRock, {username: TruthTeller, dateposted: Date(2021,9,17), isMad: true}); Exit();
Horses for courses. PowerPlatform is not a universal platform to sort out all the problems. MS-enabled organisations may find it useful. However, the more complex problem one wants to solve, the complexity of the delivery and implementation of it rises dramatically. MS (and other LowCode platform providers) realized there is a market for simple solutions within their own ecosystems and that how we landed with Power Platform.
The key challenge for IT professionals is to understand where PowerPlatform makes sense and where it does not. Another challenge is that IT professionals are more and more sponsored by those providers so they will be naturally forcing it into the places where it does not make sense. MS is an aggressive seller when it comes to relationships and technology – they usually do not care about you as a customer as much as a buyer. Proactive selling, reactive support.
Know your IT partner well before jumping straight into a wedding as it might happen that divorce (Exit strategy, professionally speaking) may not be an option!
Sooo well said! 100% agree!
I’m still trying to find a free time to write an article about “how and where to use PowerPlatform so it makes sense”.
And as you said: PowerPlatform is not a panacea for all sorts of problems. The bigger complexity the less you’d like to use no-code or low-code solutions. However sometimes it may be a mix of NCLC and regular coding (10% of projects I’m involved in).
What I’d like to add to what you wrote is that another key challenge for IT professionals is to see an opportunity in NCLC instead of a threat. NCLC should be treated as just another tool in a toolset. Unfortunately for an IT if a tool isn’t another JS cool library then it’s unusable (poke intended 😉).
Great refresher! Haven’t used the platform in a few years and this helped remind me of some useful, time-saving pathways.
Thank you for this article. I can relate to the frustration Makis and Chris express. What I can do in 30 min in infopath I can’t do in 8 hours with powerapps. I guess, I’ve been in berserker mode for a while now, lol. I get the sense that there is real power and flexibility here, and I’m going to unlock powerapps secrets, one by one. Not being able to create a sharepoint form in tablet mode seems insane, and not having a clean or easy way to implement this is also seemingly short sighted. I have a use case where currently, simply creating an app doesn’t work, I need to go the forms route, and it has been painful.
Your article gave me a fresh perspective, and I am going to shelve the project for now, and instead put in more effort with the online documentation and the formulas. A few weeks of that, and I can come back to my simple project and revisit the powerapps version of the form. I do feel that once I turn the corner and this all “clicks,” I will find the tools very useful, minus the excedrin, lol.
Thanks Michal and all the others for their comments. I’m coming from a ASP.NET (MVC) background and then 4 years of PowerBI. I think that if I hadn’t had my .NET experience then PowerApps would be very frustrating to learn. I am motivated to learn Power Apps Canvas because I see so many teams and colleagues use Excel as mini applications and databases and I’d love to be able to help tidy that up for them with Power BI as well.
I think what is helping me study is creating a Power App which is based on a hobby, football data for my predictions, and gradually build up the concepts and stick with one app to learn new concepts. Knowing what you want to build which is real and interesting, bit by bit, feature by feature, is the only way to keep your learning on track. When you see it grow it will keep you motivated. Videos and books have pros and cons but together with a personal study project they both become far more useful. I’m looking forward to your article on when to recommend Power Apps 🙂
Hello,
Regarding the challenge at the bottom (Eg. email can be sent to your family member with a random message) so I used the email template and its connected to my outlook, office365users. Thing is I understand the challenge as you pick a random message to email a family member? so, would this be like a quick message you send from your phone when you cant answer? also, would i create a sharepoint list with the quick responses and connect it to my powerapps and have a button populate these options and then the email template screen will populate with the message and we can click send?
looking for the steps to follow or how to think of the process in order to execute it.
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It’s not just Powerapps that is rubbish.
Dataverse is also a pile of nonsense.
Try creating multiple table views and showing that in Powerapps.
Not only that – try removing dependencies when you make a mistake and want to remove a field.
This whole eco system was rushed out by MS.
I can create multiple tables views and show them in PowerApps (both Canvas and Model-Driven). I can remove dependencies and remove a field.
I mean…could you give a specific scenario you’re thinking of?
Michał, I would really like to know how to create multiple table views, could you elaborate?
Do you mean Dataverse table views? Like this -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU-Z-ZnCL_c&ab_channel=KeaPointTechTips ?
The video doesn’t cover making views from multiple tables (as in 3+ levels down relationship chain).
From my experiece you could not make a view of T1->T2->T3->T4, you can only make view that is based on either table 2 including T1->T2->T3 or based on table 3 including T2->T3->T4, you can’t include all 4.
Michal, I admire how polite you are to people who address ignorance with anger and invalid platform bashing. I don’t think I could do it.
Also, I love HOMM3. It was nice to see taht screenshot.
Thanks for the tips – I’ve bookmarked this.
Thank you, John, for your comment 😊
Oh, I’m sure you can do it. Maybe not exactly at this moment but you can learn it.
The key is to understand that these people are telling some part of their story. Their experience, their frustration, their way of seeing things. If they like to feel frustrated – they will. I don’t. Why to feel frustrated to them, I won’t let them to enforce how I feel.
You had me at HoM&M3! Great game! Great advice on Power Apps! Thanks!
Indeed they have very well explained
good work Michal!!! Super helpful article my brudda
Thx m8! Luv ya!
Is there a way to record a live video through camera on power apps and store it in sharepoint?
Hmm….never tried it. Have you look here? https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Power-Apps/Add-a-video-to-powerapps-and-send-it-to-sharepoint/td-p/781149
Should I use a different Account than my personal Account for the development. For deploying the App in the Company. I mean a secound developer account only for powerapp development.
No, you can use the same account. JIC you can give another user ownership. Admins can always change app owner via powershell
Indeed power app connectors are helpful. I have been using PowerApps for the last five years.
I’m working on my first app, and these tips are exactly what I needed!! Many thanks for posting this Michal. Super Duper Excellent Advice!
And, anyone who loves HoMM3 gets and A+ in my book! Still play this game.
Hahaha! I love this comment 🙂 Thank you!
I’ve been using power apps only for 3-4 weeks and I have to say that my initial experience is absolutely horrible. I’m a .Net developer so to me it just takes so long doing things that would normally take seconds. It also feels like everything that you learn as a developer to make robust applications just doesn’t exist here.. e.g. there is no source control… If someone amends one of my flows and it stops working all you get is an email to say someone changed one of your flows.. Noone knows what was changed to break it. Also, there is no form of unit or automated testing that I can see. If you have a complex flow then you cannot create automated tests to ensure it still works if you refactor it. Also, good luck refactoring it, because if you have to change the trigger then normally you basically have to rewrite the flow. When developing you normally need to write sql to test what you’re doing or to view the data.. here you have to wait 10 minutes while dataverse shows you some records in a table.. Having to write expressions in the flow editor is a joke.. no intellisense, no help, no syntax checking, nothing – you just have to use trial and error to get your expression to work. Then there is the weird syntax that is like nothing else and inconsistent. Sometimes you write field eq ‘value’, sometimes you write equals(field, ‘value’). Above all though is that you are developing in a browser and the experience is flaky as hell… sometimes controls don’t load… sometimes when seeing a flow run it will tell you it’s stuck on an action when actually it isn’t it’s just the UI hasn’t updated. It’s so slow to do anything. We’ve run into limits all the time when dealing with small amounts of records – so get ready to use a myriad of workarounds to avoid this… definitely don’t put too much in a flow.. use child flows… then use dataflows to do data migration but good luck passing any data to it from another action in a flow.
I totally appreciate I am new to this and so I’m trying to be positive, but my initial experience is that this feels like a beta product.
Relax, it’ll be better on the go 😛 Just don’t compare it to the dev IDEs etc. It’s not development environment, it’s nocode environment. Not for software development.
This blog is an amazing source of information and I’m so glad I found it!
thank you so much ilan!
Quick question regarding PowerBi Tiles, is it possible to use multiple filers or other operators outside of ‘eq’?
You can apply multiple ‘eq’ filters by appending them to the URL, but other operators like ‘lt’ (less than), ‘gt’ (greater than), or ‘ne’ (not equals) are not supported.
However, for more complex filtering, you might consider applying your desired filters within the Power BI report itself, then saving that as a specific view or using bookmarks to capture the state of your report.
Please note that Microsoft is continuously updating their products.
Oh, and consider to leave feedback on MS ideas: https://ideas.powerbi.com/ideas/
Yes, they REALLY read this 🙂
Me surpreende a quantidade de pessoas que não entendem como funciona o Power Apps, ou acham que ele é como um Android Studio. É unicamente para aplicações pequenas ou médias. Admito que há um monte de segredinhos escondidos, mas até o que o criador do post se queixa que não é possível fazer, como relacionamento e chave estrangeira, o Microsoft Lists faz sim.
Os relacionamentos nas listas da Microsoft são extremamente limitados (por exemplo, sem *-* e configurações de comportamento como: Remover link, Colocar todos em cascata ou Nenhum). Listas de SP não foram, não são e não serão substitutos para banco de dados relacional.
E em relação ao objetivo do Power Apps – você deve vir a uma de minhas sessões em algum momento, onde mostro grandes implementações baseadas em PowerApps. Apenas um exemplo aqui: http://www.developico.com/budimex
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Can you recommend a good web hosting provider at a reasonable price?
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Interesting article,
Been working with power apps and it’s turining into a nightmare. It’s great if you have simple apps and can use the existing templates. But once you set your foot outside of default solutions it becomes very heavy in code. That doesn’t include the $ you must spend on licenses.
Microsoft (MS) have done an excellent job in forcing anyone into their toolset. for example, Power BI is a good tool but you are limited on the data source (text files, excel, sharepoint list, and few others) anything else, dig deep into your pockets to connect to other data sources. Share and distribute your BI reports, again dig deep for additional features.
Power Apps is no different Out of the box, you’re very limited on the data source, pay more money to get it at least functional and even more money to connect to datavers or other data servers.
The downside besides having a huge monthly bill, Once Microsoft get your data, your business is screwed. MS can pull the plug on you any day of the week and you have no recourse. User agreements? data privacy? data ownership? means nothing since it can be changed at their whim. To use their platform you must agree to it no matter what. Once your data is on their system, you lost control and your data is no longer your data it is owned by MS. Google and Apple are the same way. Build a better mouse trap, the big boys will take it from you and leave you with nothing.
Very good and helpful post, thanks so much !