Version Control & Warning

I have kept hoping that Microsoft would deliver a standardized method for catching users running old versions of the application.  However, I am giving up on waiting on them to deliver on this.

While the platform generally updates automatically, some user's devices or browsers can cache the application and wind up stuck with a prior version when they first open it instead of immediately refreshing/reloading.

This is a fairly simple method to help you build out your application and catch if/when this happens so that users will be told to close/re-open/refresh.

NOTE: I really stopped doing a SharePoint list here and just do a hardcoded version in a Power Automate flow(s) specifically just to check versions.  It limits the # of failure points but also means a developer needs to be the one to update this.  YMMV.

Detecting End-User Changes to Fields Before Saving/Abandoning Changes

There are of course many ways to approach how to detect if somebody changed a value in a field and set a flag to know if something needs to be "saved".  However, it can get complex if you are doing this for many MANY fields or also for a gallery of items where changes could be made to many of them at once.

This is an example of several ways to approach the problem so you can have some standardized code to make updates back to your datasource much easier and more efficient (and not throw errors).

What does one of my own apps look like?

This is more of an sharing of "what goes on under the hood" kind of a configuration of what most of my applications look like by default.  

This is by no means the ONLY WAY to do applications, it is just a jumpstart for anyone who is just really getting into how to deploy applications in 2024/2025 and avoid most of Microsoft's dropped balls and extra licensing costs.

2027 me is going to laugh so hard at this.  Assuming some recently elected moron doesn't blow the world up before then.

You cannot pass web parameters into a PowerApp on a Teams Channel tab

The title says it all. Well, except that it also doesn't work for any other website or HTTP(S) destination either.  In my opinion, it essentially cripples the argument for embedding forms into Teams for the majority of the use-cases.

NOTE: As of August 5th, 2020, I've included a segment on Dataflex here which might lead toward WHY this is the case and WHY they may never fix this!

I've done a bunch of testing on this last week just to see if there was some magic formula that I'd missed.  And while there are of course some weird workarounds of sending the data to "something else" that then your app reads it out of when it starts, that's a horrible solution.  Particularly when Microsoft wants us all to now work all day inside of Teams.

You can, of course, hard-code a parameter when you add a link to a Website and it will work.  However, you can't change it at run-time.

NOTE: Dataflex data stores show us a path forward through this.  It seems like Microsoft is adjusting how we link items from within Teams and share them w/ PowerApps is changing.  I would HOPE that this is one problem that will be addressed, but perhaps not via passing data within the URL.

Generative Pages and AI Model Apps

Soooo, Reza just published out this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVjh8uaNCNI

If you haven't watched it, go ahead and then come back.  It's an overview of the upcoming "Generative Pages" feature that will use AI to build out actual pages within a Model app for you.  It literally builds out all the React code to create the web pages to alter the interactions within Model Apps for PowerApps.

That last sentence might start some of you already scratching your head, but this is a much deeper question of the future of this platform than just: do I now need to learn React?  No.  You don't.  At least not yet unless you're bored.

If you are a developer and are thinking about how powerful/efficient these tools will make you, then it is important to understand that this specific tech is intended to replace the need for you, not to make you more powerful. YMMV

Adoption of this path leads to a near-term impact most likely resulting in reduced employee salaries and paths for advancement for anyone currently utilizing the platform for non-Model applications, increased spend/opportunities for contractors and consultants using this approach.

NOTE: I will update this article probably several times as I learn more about this since this is all in pre-release right now. But I doubt my general perception of this will change.  

Searchable, Sortable, Filterable Items property for Datatables and Galleries

People don't generally ask me this question, but I do wind up rolling my eyes a bit when I see how others have solved for the problem of having a multi-item control (Data Table, Gallery, etc.) and they want to include the ability to search, filter, and sort within it.  

This isn't so much a problem that others won't figure out on their own, just that I think it isn't obvious how to do it in a reasonably consistent manner that you can use almost everywhere.  So I've included a walkthrough below to make it easier to get started.

Breaking PowerApps - Cannot Save or Edit an app

I just wrapped up about 12 hours of me wondering if I should keep trying to figure out this problem or if I should just quit and start filling out job applications.

It turns out that if you make a change to a SharePoint list that a Model PowerApp links to then it is possible your application can get in such a state that you cannot even edit or save any changes to it.  Completely unusable.  Completely broken.

Now imagine that somebody else controls the SharePoint list you are linking to...

Where's my data? Microsoft might have just broken your app

I got a panicked call this morning (Dec-22) from a developer out in the business who suddenly was having severe data loss.  It looked like all of his data was gone.  Worse, it appeared some records still had data, but as he went looking around at it, that data started disappearing!

Ultimately, it wasn't the data disappearing, it was his own app writing blank values over the data because Microsoft had f@#%3d him over by changing something relating to Records vs. Collections.

NOTE: I did just do a test w/ a locally created Collection AND with a SharePoint Collection and everything still works as usual.  So now we're down to testing if this happens with Dataverse (probably), or just Dataverse For Teams.

Microsoft Dataflex/Dataverse/CDS - What is it and what does this mean?

NOTE: I updated this today (Aug 5th 2020) after meeting w/ some Microsoft representatives around what we currently know about Dataflex.

NOTE: As of August 12, 2020, it appears this will be renamed from "Dataflex".  Perhaps Microsoft staff used Bing to search for the term instead of Google and didn't realize that trademark was in use.

NOTE: As of November, 2020, they've re-rebranded the CDS to be Dataverse.

Microsoft announced yesterday (July 22, 2020) a new (old-ish) method for accessing/storing data for "Teams apps" which still brings some questions of what in the world a "Teams app" is and/or what is included in what license and what we essentially can do with it.

I don't have a lot of answers beyond what Microsoft has shared to date per Dataflex:

• it is included in base Teams licenses
• "Dataflex" is a subset of "Dataflex Pro"
• "Dataflex Pro" is a rebrand of the CDS ($$$)

And while I have been driving down a road toward divorcing PowerApps and Microsoft Forms from the ultimate data storage repositories and using semistructured data formats (i.e. JSON) for much of my recent recommendations, this seems to be an attempt to truly pin down some of the issues around deploying, supporting, and ultimately governing some aspects of the o365 landscape within Teams.

Starting Your App: Splash Screen vs. OnStart

Microsoft revamped how they handle the OnStart event for PowerApps last year (2022) and they made some additional tweaks this spring.  This has led some people to messing around w/ an array of methods using OnStart and StartScreen and just causing themselves no end of headaches.  Ultimately, there is one way you should start your application, and that is with a Splash Screen that does all of this in one place.

NOTE: It is now June of 2025.  You know what's still working w/o modification?  Everything I wrote below.  You're welcome.

Simplified Access Management

The PowerApps platform as a whole does a reasonable job w/ sharing of applications and restricts things down to a degree that I'm mostly happy about.  However, there are exceptions to this rule and sometimes it is easier to share applications with the entire organization and then trim down from there.  

Sometimes it is also helpful to make the approval process a little more "business friendly" for allowing people to have access to the application vs. training them on anything relating to the Power Platform as a whole. 

This walks through an example of how to set up an app where you can share it with your entire organization and then trim down from there.  The entire thing is managed from several SharePoint lists or honestly, whatever you decide to do within your Power Automate script to assess if someone's allowed to use the app or not.

NOTE: If you do this for an app that has PREMIUM connectors, then this would require users to have such licenses even to determine that they cannot use the app.  

Stupid Power Automate Tricks

As I have posted before, Power Automate is just terrible.  This is another of those situations where Microsoft had something "on the shelf" and just threw a new wrapper on it and called it done.  The language used is annoying and derived from Azure Logic Apps, the functionality is inconsistent in how it treats certain kinds of complex objects/arrays (I mean, it is consistent in that it is consistently terrible).  and the overall experience for version control is lacking (there is none).

However, here are a few tricks I keep coming back to time and again that I've pulled from other people's blogs but then time and again forget how to do just because I hate this platform so very much.

Pull Comments From SharePoint List Items Into a Field

This is a blatant copy from Ellis's excellent post here.  He really did a great job of laying this out and documenting a Power Automate flow in a way that can be readily copied/applied.  The only issue being that the new Power Automate experience of course doesn't quite treat JSON blobs the same and you need to do a minor adjustment.

However, it is worth understanding how to get some of the additional details out of a SharePoint list (like Version History) and to include it in a way that can be exported/archived as items age out of a process.  

App Migration - Automated response to share requests for redirected URLs

If anyone has had their IT team decide to start putting the CoE Tookit in place and start dumping your applications into quarantine, then you might benefit from few patterns/tools for migrating applications in a more friendly manner.

When this started in our organization, one of the first things I did was to figure out the best way to communicate with thousands of users on how to point at a new URL.  At least, until "somebody" bothers to follow the process on how to migrate applications across environments and retain the URL.

NOTE: This pattern also works if you just want to move to a new app and deprecate your old one for any reason at all.

The "Best" datasource for PowerApps

I give lots of credit for the folks doing Power Platform videos on YouTube.  I too sometimes grab them as a reference.  However, Shane Young did a video a few days back that was just terrible.  My comment in response to him was a little snarky (which he left up and responded to), but then I went into detail of why his delivery on this was wrong.  That comment was deleted (not by me).

So here is my own version of his terrible take on: the best datasource for PowerApps.

To just jump to the answer, it is SharePoint.

I'm sorry.

NOTE: 2025 John here popping in to say none of my opinions have changed.

Animating PowerApps

PowerApps does give you a few handy pieces that you can start assembling to make the UI a bit more interesting.  While animated slide in/out trays and menus are not provided by default, you can create them from the tools provided at least in some form or fashion.  Some of this is actually fairly easy if you have the right components to start with.

It looks so easy!

Do keep in mind that as I have mentioned in other posts, you cannot catch the OnHover or OnFocus events specifically, so you might be restricted on certain aspects.

Getting traction inside your organization for PowerApps

I'll definitely say that this is primarily a conversation that is not only about PowerApps but also is about what I've learned in (checks calendar)...thi- (checks calendar again)...thirty years of technology work/consulting.  The process of getting any organization to pick up a specific technology is almost always a slog.  Add in that being successful in the "low-code" space means definitely abandoning some "best practices" from traditional coding that will make people's heads explode.

The key thing to realize is that every single organization prioritizes one thing:  results.  If you just abandon everything else and focus on this, you'll be successful.  Now, how long you'll be successful...maybe don't abandon everything.  See some ideas below.

However, before you go, I do feel a need to state the following simply as my own moral duty due to what I'll be sharing below.  Consider this my own personal ethical EULA for you to agree to:

By clicking this link and reading the article attached, I agree to use what I learned here for the betterment of humanity, my employer, my family, and myself (in that order of priority).

Creating Collections Manually and Using Them

PowerApps mainly focuses on lookups and variables that are linked to data sources that reside elsewhere.  In fact, it is REALLY GOOD at this.  However, what isn't really clearly documented in a single location are the formatting requirements around manual population of the various data sources within PowerApps.

If you're just getting started with static data and are importing it from Excel then read my post on this first and then come back.

Inside the new Power Apps: The future of App Development

No need to mince words

How to create sliding trays

I wrote a broader discussion on Animating PowerApps previously.  That article was a fairly broad discussion per animating in general.

This article is covering a start->finish design on setting up a sliding tray allowing users to show/hide application controls at run-time.