How about we all stop tracking Incidents in these ridiculous oversized Excel spreadsheets? They are clunky, hard to use, and share too much info with everyone. I can’t tell you how many customers have shown me their current solution and there is a whole lot of PII for anyone to steal. 😢 Today let me show an example of an Incident Reporting app based off of some customer apps and discussions we have had. Nothing too elaborate but hopefully gets your mind going on what is possible when you build your own custom solution using Power Apps. With solutions like this we focus on a few things: • Ease of use, anyone should be able to pick up the app and use it, no training required • Well structured and secured data, what could does it do to collect the data if you can’t keep it safe and generate reports on it later • The ability to capture photos and witness in a structured, related manner • Follow our business needs, too often when using off the shelf solutions the process follows the software, here we make the software follow the business process Okay. That is enough of the setup, let’s see it. And speaking of seeing it, if you want to see the app in action then check out the video Power Apps Advanced Example: Modern Incident Reporting . The video shows the working demo and some of the code behind the scenes. Incident Reporting Apps Walkthrough Below is a break down of all of the screens and some key details. Remember with Power Apps you can make the app anything you want, so this is meant to inspire you, not dictate to you how it all works. Mobile App Welcome Screen Often Incidents happen away from your desk (unless you are clumsy like me🤕) so we often build these apps as Mobile apps. That way they can be opened on any modern phone or tablet and get to work. The Warehouse, the breakroom, the job site, or even your desk, the app is always ready to go. Creating a New Incident By making it quick and simple to log incidents—even in high-stress situations—this app helps ensure more complete data capture, which leads to better reporting and faster resolution of safety hazards. After clicking New the user is taken to one screen that will prompt them for the information they need to capture. All fields are optional in this example. The goal often with these apps is to encourage them to get as much information as quickly as possible. When reporting on a spill it isn’t critical but this same app will be used to report a traffic accident or other possible stressful events. Getting as many details as possible is the key. Some customers choose also to have different logic when they choose high severity. So while only the safety coordinator is notified when there are trip hazards, the entire executive tier is notified when there is an injury requiring medical attention or worse. The great part about Power Apps is you can easily add that custom logic based on your business. One other nice thing about this screen. When you go to enter Location that is usually simple so you just have a small line, but when you enter Description you actually click the + and you are taken to a full screen for getting the description entered. This encourages maximum detail. Adding Witnesses with Proper Relationships With Power Apps connected to Dataverse, sensitive data like personal information can be secured with role-based permissions. This means only authorized personnel can access PII—unlike Excel files that often get emailed around without restrictions. Sometimes there are zero witnesses of the mystery spill in the breakroom; sometimes there are 25 of Timmy falling off the table with a lampshade on his head at the company holiday party. 🤣 Either way, the app needs to be flexible unlike that Excel solution that just has a bunch of columns. Here they can add as many witnesses as available. Each one will be stored as its own record in a separate table and then related back to the incident. Your typical parent child data model. Faster and more flexible for reporting. Awesome. Oh yeah, and unlike that Excel solution we can actually secure the child data, like PII. Do you know how often we see that type of data leaked in the XLSX file? 😲 Remember, if you need help with building this Incident Reporting Apps, or any other ideas you have we are happy to help. Contact A picture is worth 1000 words Like witnesses sometimes you need 1 picture and sometimes you need a dozen. So once again there is a flexible, many to one relationship for photos. Also, while this screen just grabs the image, keep in mind that adding metadata or notes about the image would be very straightforward. Sometimes 1000 words doesn’t cut it so letting the user add notes can be helpful. You could even add the ability to add annotations but now I am just showing off. Submitting the Incident Report Now that they have captured all of the information it is time to Submit it. This will save all of the data and establish all of the relationships so you can easily report on it later. But it doesn’t have to end there. On Submit you could add logic to do a multitude of things: • Send an email to the safety team with a link directly to this incident (deep linking) • Generate a PDF of the incident for saving or submitting to insurance • Have notifications or alerts go based on the priority or severity of the event • Start an approval or assignment process to get incident taken care of Once again, the great part about Power Apps is that you can make the software do what the business process dictates, not the other way around. View Existing By breaking things up into two apps you build a best of class solution for each app, instead of a big crazy app for everyone. This approach not only keeps the reporting app simple and user-friendly but also ensures that the management app can offer more advanced functionality tailored to supervisors and administrators. In the demo app there is a simple screen for finding and viewing existing Incident Reports. Often with this screen you would limit the incidents to the ones submitted by the logged in user or for their area of responsibility. You will notice that this app does not have edit capabilities. That was a design decision for the demo. Typically you will have 2 apps. One app for easily submitting the Incident Report and then another for responding to and managing the incident. The management app is often a desktop app because you do that work at your desk, not in the field. By breaking things up into two apps you build a best of class solution for each app, instead of a big crazy app for everyone. Remember when we started, one of our goals was to make our reporting app as easy to use as possible without training. Adding a bunch of editing and other functionality they don’t need just clutters things up. Closing thoughts Incident reporting apps are very common in the businesses we talk to. By building a straight forward Power Apps app to manage the process they get better data and better outcomes based on their business needs, not what the 3rd party app can do. If you need help with this or any Power Apps project let us know. Click that Contact button and we will be happy to give you a hands-on demo of this app or discuss any of the thousands of business solutions we have built for customers that range from a one woman shop in Alabama to multiple companies across the globe who are on the top of the Fortune list.

Have you ever felt like navigating SharePoint is a bit like wandering through a massive library without a librarian? You're pretty sure the information you need is somewhere on the shelves, but finding it feels like a treasure hunt without a map. Well, guess what? Microsoft just handed us the map—and it's called the SharePoint Copilot Agent! A few important notes and limitations you should be aware of before getting started. To use the SharePoint Copilot Agent features you will need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Currently, SharePoint Copilot Agents only work with files up to 3 mb. SharePoint lists are not currently supported with Agents. How to use the existing SharePoint Copilot Agent. From your SharePoint site, in the upper right corner, you will see a Copilot icon. Click on the Copilot icon, and you will see a flyout with a Chatbot specific to your SharePoint site, with a few default choices. The chat bot can search through all of your Documents and pages in your SharePoint site. Below is an image to the supported document types. Now, from the open chatbot window we can ask a question like, Are we off for Christmas You will see we are then presented with a response as well as a reference as to where it got this information. Which was an internal document on this SharePoint site. Now, what happens if you have documents with conflicting information? Well let’s see. So, we are now going to ask a question like, Can I bring my dog to office? In this case, we know we have 2 documents on our site for pet policy. One is in our Customer Docs folder and the other is in our Documents (Company Documents) Library. Since we want to know what our company’s policy on pets, we are going to navigate to the Documents Library. From the Document library we can now click on the Copilot Agent Site, and from the dropdown select our Documents agent 1 which we created specifically for this library. Now if we ask if the same question again, Can I bring my dog to office? We will get a completely different response because we are only looking for this information in this specific document library. Now It's time to create your first SharePoint Copilot Agent! In our example, we will be navigating to our Customer Docs Library. At the top, click on Create an agent. You will get a new agent pop up, that is ready to go right away. But we want to make a few changes and refine the scope a little. Click Edit. In the Edit agent pop up, feel free to change the Name, Image, and Description. Then, click on Sources. With Sources, you have the ability to add additional sites if you want. Or you could select specific files you want to include so the chatbot knows to search those as well. In this case we only want it to search this specific Document Library, so we won’t be making any changes here. Now click on Behavior. From Behavior, you can set a custom Welcome message. Letting users know what is going on. You can set your own Starter Prompts. These are basically suggestions for what the ChatBot can do. These will help your users get started using the chatbot. You can also set instructions for the agent. This will tell the agent how to interact when using the chatbot. We like to keep things fun around here so we changed our instructions a little, see screen shot below. (You don’t have to do that, you could also leave the default instructions if you wanted.) Then just click Save and then close the Agent window. Great job! You just created your first SharePoint Copilot Agent! You will notice the Agent is now selected and we can start prompting to test it out. So, let’s ask it the same question we asked earlier to kick things off, Can I bring my pet to work? (You will see the response in the screenshot, and it is only looking in this document library for the answer.) You will also notice we can view the Reference document where it got this information from, it’s never a bad idea to verify. Now if we ask, Could I ask my manager for more information? Something important to note here is that your Copilot Agent has access to the Microsoft Graph. So, it pulled in Shane’s managers name, Nicola, which is really nice. Another cool feature of the SharePoint Copilot Agent is the ability to select a specific file and ask questions just for the selected file. So, in our example we will select a file and then ask the chatbot, Summarize this file please. And just like that, it summarized our document! Ok, switching gears for just a second. We are going to head back over to our Documents library to show off another cool feature of SharePoint Copilot Agents. Let’s say you have 2 similar excel files in your document library and need to compare them. With your SharePoint copilot agent, this is no problem! In this example, we have 2 Payroll files and want to compare them so it will find the differences, we can simply ask, Compare these files please. We will then see, it gives us the key difference between the 2 files, saving us time from having to do it manually. We also previously mentioned you could create SharePoint Copilot agents for Sites and Libraries. But you can also quickly and easily create an agent for a specific folder or file as well. If you select a file in your document library and click the ellipses, from the flyout you will see Create an agent. This agent will be specific to the file selected. Switching back to our Customer Docs Library, notice you will now see a Customer Docs Chatbot.agent file. If you click on that file, it will open the Chatbot in a full window for you. So how do users access these SharePoint Copilot Agents? Are they just instantly available for users after it’s created? Great questions! In the upper right, click on the dropdown next to the agent. 27. You will see 2 different sections, you have Approved for this site and Recommended for you. The Approved Agents have been shared and are accessible to all of your users with Copilot license. Whereas the Recommended one, is only available to Shane since it has not been shared yet. To make our Customer Docs Chatbot available to everyone, we can click on the ellipses next to the chatbot. From the dropdown, select Set as Approved and then it would be globally accessible. You may notice there is also a Share button. By using the Share button, you could select specific users or groups who you would like to share this Agent with. There is a third option for sharing your Chatbot, and that is you can share it to Teams and use it in Teams. (We did not have this option show up for us for whatever reason, but just know it is possible and should be available) – NOT SURE WE WANT TO INCLUDE THIS. As a final note on sharing and security, if a file(s) are not shared with users for security reasons, the chatbot will not use those documents in it’s response. This is important to know. Hopefully this was helpful in getting you started with SharePoint Copilot Agents. And helps get you thinking about how you could use SharePoint agents to help you and your team work more efficiently. Shane also has a video that goes along with these steps, you can watch here. Wrapping It Up: Time to Level Up Your SharePoint Game The SharePoint Copilot Agent is more than just a chatbot; it's like having a personal assistant who's always on call, ready to help you navigate the maze of information with ease. What would you ask your Copilot Agent first? Drop your ideas in the comments below—we'd love to hear how you plan to make the most of this game-changing tool!

At PowerApps911, we rely on efficient and cost-effective business tools, just like you. Instead of settling for generic, subscription-based apps that only partially meet our needs, we’ve embraced the Power Platform to create tailored solutions that address our specific challenges. Why Build Custom Solutions Instead of Buying SaaS? Traditional software often requires businesses to adapt their processes to fit the tool—a frustrating and inefficient experience. But with the Power Platform, we’ve flipped this dynamic. Now, we can design solutions that align perfectly with our workflows, empowering us to operate more effectively. The Advantages of Custom Solutions: Tailored Fit:  Each app is built to match our exact processes, ensuring seamless integration with our operations. Rapid Development:  Thanks to low-code tools, we can build functional apps in days rather than months. Empowerment:  Business experts can create these solutions directly, reducing reliance on traditional developers. Below, I share six examples of how we’ve solved real business problems using Power Apps and Power Automate. These solutions are tailored for our needs but can serve as inspiration for how specific and effective your own tools can become. Are these solutions a perfect fit for your business? Not exactly—they’re tailor-made for ours. However, they showcase the adaptability and customization potential of the Power Platform, inspiring you to imagine just how precisely you can address your own unique challenges. Also, keep in mind even though we have built 1,000s of apps and flows for customers we rarely build our own tools with that much focus. Many of them are on iteration 50 or more as we are constantly improving and tweaking it. Another beauty of the platform, the tools and the apps are at their best when things are very agile. Oh yeah, and if you want to see any of these business solutions in action then check out the video 6 Apps & flows that run our business - Power Automate & Power Apps Examples Applicant Tracking System Managing hundreds of job applications annually can be overwhelming, especially for a team of 30. To address this, we use a custom Applicant Tracking System (ATS) built with Microsoft Forms, Power Automate, and SharePoint. Process Overview:  Applicants submit their information via a Microsoft Form embedded on our careers page. Power Automate processes the form responses, applies filters for priority applications, and stores the data in a SharePoint list. Key Feature:  Automated Teams notifications allow reviewers to evaluate key responses quickly and collaboratively make hiring decisions. Enhancements:  Custom Power Apps forms on SharePoint streamline the data review and rejection process. Weekly Meeting Scheduler For our Power Platform University program, we host weekly classes for rotating groups of students. Managing these meetings was once a time-consuming task until we automated the process. Solution Details:  I fill out the app with the subject and body and hit Send. It triggers a flow that gets the current list of students from the Training API. It then generates a Teams meeting and sends each student a proper Teams invite. Time Saved:  Previously, it took 30 minutes to prepare these invites manually. Now, it’s done in under a minute. Bonus Feature:  Custom logic ensures recurring schedules (e.g., Thursdays at 3 PM) are automatically accounted for. Help Request Manager Customer inquiries are central to our business, and we handle thousands of them annually. Our Help Request Manager flow ensures no request goes unnoticed. If you have ever filled out our Contact Us form, you have been in this process. Core Functionality:  A Cognito Form collects customer requests, which Power Automate then routes to the designated team member for the day. The flow then facilitates all of the back and forth via Teams with the consultant and emails to the requestor. It might be the most complicated flow I know of. Adaptive Cards in Teams:  Responses are managed directly within Teams, eliminating email clutter for the PowerApps911 team. Additional Benefits:  The flow automatically updates SharePoint with inquiry statuses and tracks correspondence. Also, if the requestor says yes, they can automatically add themselves to our mailing list. I decided a picture of the whole flow was most interesting. 🤣 To say it does a lot is an understatement. Office Hours Scheduling One of the best features of being a paid Training student is the monthly live office hour sessions where you can get your own questions answered. The problem was not enough people were attending. So, we gave them an option to get a real meeting invite, none of that ICS garbage. How It Works:  Students select their preferred session (AM/PM), triggering a flow that adds them to a hidden list of attendees in a Teams meeting. Key Advantage:  Students receive calendar invites directly, enhancing attendance and reducing friction. I almost forgot, this solution has a full build video here . Do you want to get your questions answered? Sign up for one of our paid training options with Office Hours and you can attend and get your answers! Custom CRM System Our custom-built CRM, powered by Dataverse and integrated with QuickBooks, is at the heart of our operations. It’s a sophisticated model-driven app that simplifies customer and project management. Highlights: Tracks client details, projects, time sheets, and billing information. Seamless integration with QuickBooks through a Dataverse plugin. Biggest Win:  Automating time entry approvals and syncing data with QuickBooks saves over 10 hours of manual work weekly. Troubleshooting with Blank Apps Troubleshooting large apps or flows can be challenging, so we rely on creating “blank apps” to replicate issues in an isolated environment. Fail Fast Philosophy:  By recreating the problem in a controlled app, we can quickly identify whether the issue lies in our code or the platform itself. Key Takeaway:  This approach reduces debugging time and prevents unintended disruptions in live apps. Final Thoughts Building apps and flows isn’t just about solving problems; it’s about empowering teams and enhancing user experiences. Each of these solutions has not only made our operations smoother but also inspired us to push the boundaries of what’s possible with the Power Platform. If you need help with solving some of your business problems with your own custom solutions, then hit that contact button and let us know. We can help you with anything from a 30-minute bug fix to a 30-year partnership. Training, mentoring, architectural double checking, and more. We are experts and happy to share that expertise with you.

As we wrap up the year, we know everyone is already in holiday mode, so instead of diving into complex new stuff, we’re taking a moment to reflect on the exciting functionality updates across the Power Platform in 2024. This year has been filled with innovation that continues to empower makers and users alike. Let’s dive into the highlights, broken down by product, to give you a quick recap before the new year. Power Apps The Power Apps Studio saw updates this year with the addition of Copilot, new Modern controls, and an updated interface for makers: Copilot: Made the formula bar more intuitive, automatically suggesting formula inputs as you type. You can even add remarks to your formula code, and Copilot will interpret these as coding suggestions. Modern Controls: Many modern controls are now production-ready, offering robust theming and customization options. These sleek controls, like combo boxes, date pickers, and the new data table (still in preview), make creating polished apps easier than ever. Enhanced Interface: The updated interface introduced hover menus for controls like galleries and combo boxes, providing quick access to settings without extra clicks. Tree view icons now better represent control types, while the Data and Media panels simplify resource management with smart removal buttons for unused assets. Power Automate Power Automate delivered notable updates in 2024, focusing on usability and integration: Modern Designer: Bugs have been ironed out, and Copilot now provides intuitive suggestions while designing and testing flows. Power Automate Desktop: Seamless integration between desktop and cloud flows is now possible, with Power FX support for desktop flows and improved functionality for the recorder tool. Tweaking automations has never been easier. Copilot for Automations: Copilot has improved significantly, turning natural language into functional automations. If you haven’t used it yet, now is the time to explore this game-changing feature. Power Pages 2024 Power Pages updates focus on enhancing the way makers create and connect their web experiences: Copilot for Pages and Forms: Easily create pages and forms using Copilot, which leverages natural language and the summarization API for actionable insights. Add insights to your lists and forms with Copilot integration with the summarization API. Improved Data Connectivity: A new setup wizard simplifies the creation of virtual tables in Dataverse and linking to external data sources, making integrations more accessible than ever. Power Fx Integration: While still in preview, Power Fx began rolling out in Power Pages, giving makers more flexibility to customize logic directly within their sites. Enhanced Data Model: All new sites now include an enhanced data model by default, setting a strong foundation for scalable and efficient data management. Power BI Power BI delivered some powerful updates in 2024, focused on enhancing collaboration, visual storytelling, and data-driven decision-making: Copilot Integration: Introduced natural language queries, AI-generated report summaries, and automated data cleaning to streamline workflows and enhance usability. DAX Enhancements: Released the general availability of DAX Query View, support for live connections, and new INFO functions for improved metadata insights. Feature Updates: Added visual calculations, dynamic format strings for measures, and enhancements to card and slicer visuals, offering greater flexibility and interactivity in reporting. Improved User Experience: Features like Dark Mode, advanced geospatial mapping with the Path Layer, and small multiples in card visuals further enhanced Power BI's analytical capabilities and ease of use. Shane releases new videos on his YouTube Channel, and those videos, plus exclusive extras (app downloads, code snippets), are available ad-free on our training site for just $15 per month (you can include office hours for $20 per month)!

Nicola here, CEO at PowerApps911, sharing my honest thoughts on AI – I'm both thrilled and a little terrified. If you're leading an organization, a department, a team, or working in product development, you've likely been thinking about AI and its potential to boost productivity or enhance your product/service. I know I have. Initially, I felt like many of you – a bit hesitant but happy to use ChatGPT for things like content improvements, brainstorming games for team meetings, or drafting PTO flyers for school. This was easy to jump into since I spend around 14 hours a day with Shane, who brings up something AI-related at least once an hour 😊. I loved the productivity boost, especially since ChatGPT helped in areas that aren’t my strong suit, but I still didn’t quite grasp the game-changing potential. Then, the team working on our AI services asked us to brainstorm problems and inefficiencies in our organization that we’d love to solve. I was hesitant at first, still unclear on AI’s unique capabilities. I even asked, “How is this different from the solutions we already build with the Power Platform?” Their answer? AI doesn’t just follow instructions – it can interpret data and provide insights. Unlike standard automation, AI can think critically about the data it processes and give meaningful answers. And then… the wheels really started turning. I began thinking about areas of our business I’d love to make more efficient to better serve our clients and create a better work environment for our team. Some ideas were: Creating a solution to simplify time entry. We’re a time and materials-based consulting company, and as much as we might wish to avoid timesheets, they’re essential. Making that process easier for our team would be fantastic! We have a lot of meetings; maybe AI could look at calendars and suggest (or even prepopulate!) time entries based on meeting data. It could analyze historical patterns and recommend or prepopulate entries, streamlining the whole process. Improving the resource shuffle. If you manage resources like we do, you know the challenges of adjusting as projects delay, new projects arise, or skill needs change. We have a solid resource management tool and a team of skilled project managers juggling resources constantly. But what if AI could make it just a bit easier? Imagine AI recommending resource shifts that optimize skills and availability or suggesting allocations based on our project pipeline. Before this brainstorming, we were working on an internal project to make it easier to identify completed projects similar to new opportunities. In many organizations, this information is stuck in people’s heads. Someone asks, “Have you ever done a project that uses XYZ?” and we rely on team memory, sometimes asking everyone to find an answer. We tried solving this by tagging documents with skill and technology information and short project descriptions, but with a backlog of projects dating back to 2018, it was slow going. Then Daniel LeMay, one of our AI experts, stepped in and suggested AI could solve it faster and better. Now, he’s working on a solution to analyze all our past project content and automatically tag new ones as they’re completed. These are just a few examples. Once I fully grasped the possibilities, I quickly came up with ten ideas. If you're like me and need a quick discussion with someone to understand AI and its potential, contact us. We’re excited about what AI can do, and we’d love to brainstorm with you. If you decide to move forward with AI, we offer AI Services and Training – we can build for you or teach you to build. We’re here to be the partner you need.

Interest in Power Pages as a solution has become one of the fastest growing requests from our clients. And it is pretty easy to see why. Need a student registration website? An ordering portal for your vendors? A scheduling tool for subcontractors? Power Pages offers a secure solution for external users and connects seamlessly to your Dataverse environment. If you have processes that involve people outside of your company and right now rely on manual processes (email!), then consider Power Pages. Yes, there are licensing costs, but we ran some ROI numbers for our own org and building a Power Pages solution will ultimately save us time and money! But how low code is it? Power Platform is working to make application development accessible to people with little to no coding experience, and Power Pages is no exception. However, it is not quite as low code as some of its companion tools. As the child of Dynamics 365 Portals, Power Pages is built on Dataverse and is essentially a model-driven app on the back end. In its current form, you can only achieve so much with out of the box functionality and will need HTML, CSS, JavaScript and/or Liquid to go further. Currently, organizations can make very basic pages using low-code and need to leverage full dev to create more sophisticated interfaces. The Microsoft team is working to include more and more Power FX to Pages, which is great news, but it is still in the early stages. You can build for two different types of users: Authenticated or Anonymous Building for Authenticated Users Power Pages Authenticated users are users who obtain secure access to your website by logging in through an authentication provider website. More simply put, authenticated users are logged in to your website. Before you decide to start building for authenticated users, understand how you want each type of user to use the site. We call this, user roles. User roles help define what each type of user can access, view, and modify within the website. By establishing clear roles, you can tailor content and features to specific user needs, ensuring that sensitive information is only available to authorized users. When planning a Pages project, map out who will use your solution, and the different functions they will perform. Identify what tables in Dataverse they will have access to and make a plan to configure and test each users access role as you develop. Keep in mind that security in Dataverse is not relevant to Power Pages. It has its own thing which operates on the account and contact tables. By carefully planning user roles and enforcing security measures, organizations can create robust, secure websites that serve your audience’s needs without compromising on safety or compliance. Anonymous Users and Power Pages If you have no need to restrict the content to only certain users, then building for Anonymous users might be the right way to go. Anonymous access does not require users to log in. In these cases, your user role planning is focused on one user type- everyone. Even though user roles for anonymous users may seem simple, it is important to carefully plan and control what information is accessible. While sharing event details and documents is straightforward, it’s essential to ensure that sensitive data or internal resources are restricted and properly secured. Defining clear boundaries for anonymous users helps maintain the integrity of your organization’s information while still providing a user-friendly experience. Ready to build? Join our live three day workshop, November 12-14 (only $650!!), which will give you all the tools you need to get started with Power Pages. If you are still not sure, check out these videos or just reply to this email and ask us a question. Intro to Power Pages (youtube.com) How to Configure Power Pages for Item Redirection (youtube.com)

Welcome to our in-depth guide on leveraging SharePoint forms, Microsoft List, and Power Apps to enhance your data management processes. In our latest video, we dive into these tools, exploring their features, benefits, and limitations. Whether you're new to SharePoint or a seasoned user, this guide will provide you with valuable insights to optimize your workflows. If you want to see all of the tools in action this check out this video on Getting SharePoint Data? Use the right tool! SharePoint Or Microsoft Lists default form The Built in Experience When you create a SharePoint list whether through the SharePoint or Microsoft Lists experience, there is automatically an included experience to Create, Edit, and View your SharePoint data. With that default form you can make some tweaks by using JSON. It let's you make them look a little different but doesn't really change their functionality. Still, sometimes that is all you need and if so cool. It has literally worked for millions of people over the last 20 years. Understanding SharePoint Forms The New SharePoint Forms Button Recently, Microsoft introduced a new forms button in SharePoint, aimed at simplifying data collection. This feature is perfect for quickly setting up forms without needing extensive technical knowledge. However, while it's user-friendly, it comes with some limitations, such as lack of advanced customization and branching logic. Also, keep in mind these forms only work when you send someone the link. They don't change the default SharePoint experience. You cannot change the look and feel much but collecting data simply is where they shine. Use Cases and Limitations Quick Data Entry:  Ideal for simple data collection scenarios. Security Considerations:  Allows data entry without requiring users to have access to the entire list, which can be useful in controlled data collection environments. Leveraging Microsoft Forms for Data Collection Introduction to Microsoft Forms Microsoft Forms is a versatile tool within the Microsoft 365 suite, designed for creating surveys, quizzes, and forms. Unlike the other tools discussed, Microsoft Forms is not directly tied to SharePoint, but it offers a flexible and easy-to-use interface for collecting data from both internal and external sources. Features and Integration User-Friendly Interface:  Microsoft Forms provides a straightforward setup, allowing you to quickly create forms with various question types, including multiple choice, text, and more. External Access:  One of the standout features of Microsoft Forms is its ability to collect data from external users, making it ideal for public surveys or feedback forms. Data Storage:  Data collected through Microsoft Forms is stored in an Excel file, which can then be integrated into other tools or systems using Power Automate. Limitations and Considerations No Direct SharePoint Integration:  While Microsoft Forms is excellent for collecting data, it does not natively integrate with SharePoint lists. This means that additional steps, such as using Power Automate, are needed to transfer the data into SharePoint. Customization Limits:  While it offers basic customization, Microsoft Forms does not provide the same level of control and customization as Power Apps. Advanced Customization with Power Apps Power Apps Integration Power Apps is the go-to tool for creating highly customized forms and applications that interact with SharePoint data. It provides extensive capabilities, allowing users to create complex, multi-step workflows and custom interfaces. With Power Apps there are two ways to use it here. First, you can use it to make SharePoint better by replacing the SharePoint default form. This will replace that default SharePoint form with one you build in Power Apps. Making the SharePoint Browser experience better. Second, you can build a complete standalone custom app, and have it save data directly to SharePoint. This works great in those complex business scenarios. One of our specialties here at PowerApps911. Pros and Cons Customization:  Power Apps offers unparalleled customization, from simple color changes to complex data manipulation and workflow automation. Security Requirements:  Requires proper permissions for users, making it less accessible for broader, anonymous data collection. Choosing the Right Tool Choosing the right tool depends on your specific needs: For simple data collection:  The new SharePoint forms are quick and easy to set up. For a more user-friendly interface:  Microsoft List offers a clean and straightforward experience. For a flexible experience you can use anywhere: Microsoft Forms allow a host of security options, including anonymous but do require you to build a Power Automate flow to get data into SharePoint. For advanced customization:  Power Apps is the best choice, providing a comprehensive suite of tools for building sophisticated applications. Comparison Table To help you choose the right tool, we created a table comparing the options: Conclusion Our goal at PowerApps911 is to help you navigate the complexities of Microsoft 365 and the Power Platform. If you have any questions about these tools or need assistance with other Power Platform or Microsoft 365 solutions, we're here to help. Just scroll down and fill out the contact form, and one of our experts will be in touch!

A lot of businesses are trying to find ways to pilot AI in their organization and for many of them trying out chat bots seem to be the answer. And of course, in the Microsoft ecosystem that means Copilot Studio, formerly Power Virtual Agents. The reason for the popularity of these tools now is their ability to use Generative AI. So instead of going in and defining 100 Human Resources questions and the answers manually now you can point it at your documentation and let it answer the questions using a large language model (LLM). Since most businesses have things like HR policies and procedures, PTO policies, and the Employee Handbook available to all employees in a SharePoint site today building a Copilot can be done in literally minutes. But the fun doesn’t stop there. The latest iteration of these chatbots can also easily include actions. You add actions for things like submitting a request for time off or requesting a meeting and the AI can take those actions for you. This allows for an interactive and action-oriented conversation, a drastic improvement from the wall of text people are used to getting from HR documents. Is it Copilot or Chatbot? Yes. 😊 To build these things we traditionally called chatbots you use Copilot Studio. In Copilot Studio you build a copilot, which we used to call a chatbot. So for this context Copilot and Chatbot are interchangeable. I use both throughout the article to hopefully drive home they are synonymous. Demo of an HR Copilot with Generative AI Since we receive a lot of requests for this specific use case, I built a demo bot to show off some of the cool. Below I will walk you through the key features with screenshots. If you want to see the Copilot in action, then check out this video demo I did HR Assistant Copilot using Copilot Studio  for all of the fun. For this Copilot I built and published the bot as a Teams app. Copilot Studio can be used to publish to many different channels that are both publicly and privately accessible. But in case where you are looking to use internal content, like SharePoint, and you want to have authentication then publishing to Teams is the path of choice. Answering HR questions with Copilot Studio Alright, let's ask this bot something. How about an important question like “Can I bring my dog to the office?” Now in this case we have never trained the bot on this topic but the fine folks in HR have addressed it in our employee handbook. So, when the question is asked the Copilot looks through the handbook, finds our pet policy and responds with the appropriate answer. Notice the blue colored 1s at the end of the response. These are the links to the documents that Copilot referenced to come up with this response. So, if you want to dig in deeper or just validate things before you purchase your pup some business attire you can click the link and you will be taken to the document. Now you can see where the pot belly pig stuff came from, not AI’s imagination but from the actual policy. 🤣 Maybe I shouldn’t be in charge of HR. Fun pigs aside, this is really powerful. By just giving Copilot access to the proper content, it is able to provide accurate answers to random questions and provide attribution so you can validate those responses. And look, all I did to set it up was give the Copilot a link to the SharePoint site and made sure everyone had access. That was it. And while SharePoint seems to be the default in our Microsoft 365 based world, there are a lot of other supported data sources in preview right now. Providing a structured response via Topics Now sometimes you don’t want Generative AI to provide an answer, you want to specify exactly how a conversation goes when they ask about a specific subject. In this case you will provide a topic. When a user asks a question topics to take precedence over generative AI. In this case, if they ask anything about getting a raise, I want to simply redirect them to the manager or HR. With topics you can go anywhere from this simple response to full on multi-step conversation with conditions and actions. You could ask them for additional info, you could trigger a flow or action to get more information or submit a ticket, etc. All of the traditional chat bot activities. Add a new employee with a Power Automate action Okay, so far, we have just gotten information but what if we want to take action. You can add actions and/or Power Automate cloud flows to your copilot. When you add them you give it a description of what the action can do and then Copilot will use AI to determine when to invoke to action and how to get the inputs the action may require. For the example of creating a new employee I wanted to add a record to my SharePoint list. I started by creating a flow that is triggered by Copilot and has 4 inputs. These inputs will be used as dynamic content within the flow. Now we add a SharePoint Create Item action, configure the site and list, and then fill in the fields with the Dynamic content. And finally, we set the flow to respond with a message back to Copilot to let it know you are done. Perfect, the flow is ready. Now you add it as an action to your Copilot. As part of adding it you will then tell it how to get the information for each of the inputs. The default, let Copilot figure it out and prompt the user as needed, works great. If you need more, there is extensive customization options available. Same deal with output. You can configure a message saying “Success” or let AI generate the appropriate response or just not respond with anything if it isn’t necessary. Now that you have configured the action the chatbot will call it as necessary. Here you can see I asked it to create an employee and since I provided no other context Copilot asked for the inputs. If you are enjoying this, then be sure to check out our training classes for both Copilot and Power Platform . We have both on-demand and live classes available to help you learn. But, if I ask it to create a new employee and provide all of the context it needs, then it will just do the action.   I think the coolest part of that is it understood that Buddy Young was the full name, and it broke it into First name and Last name properly when it created the record in SharePoint. 😲 Remember, I didn’t write any logic or explain to copilot this was what to do. It understood the context and did it itself. This is the power of generative AI at its finest for me. Conclusion Using Copilot Studio to build a copilot or chatbot from existing content today is a powerful first step into bringing AI to your business. And the flexibility of generative AI, topics, and actions allows you to build so much more than we could before. Even if you are thinking “I am not ready to do this yet” I encourage you to dig into Copilot Studio. I think it will play a big role in our AI futures and those of us who have already embraced low code tools like Power Platform are primed to lead that charge. If you need help with this or anything else Copilot or Power Platform related let us know. Just scroll down and fill out the contact us form below. We have free help, quick help, dedicated resources, or traditional project services, all designed to help you be more awesome!

This week we are having the PowerApps911 annual get together. Our team is made up of people from all over and we all come together once a year for some good ole fashioned fun. One of the team building things we do is build a solution as a small team. This year, the challenge is to build something that makes the company better. Could be something we sell or something that improves an internal process. Me and a few others are responsible for judging these solutions and grading them across a range of criteria. And to keep it fair, we want each judge to score the event on their own by assigning points to the different criteria. And of course, we want things to be as flexible as possible so we can use it with different criteria or judges all while not having to rework the app. If this sounds interesting to you then follow along and I will give you a closer look. Or if you want to see then there is a full video walkthrough of this app here. In the video, I dive deep into each feature and functionality, showing you how to set it up step-by-step. Key Features of the Event Scoring App Below you will find a list of the various screens and some of their functions. Security The app is configured so only the Event Organizer, and the Judges have access. The Event Organizer has full access to all functionality while the Judges can only see the Score screen, they cannot see what other judges have scored the event nor can they see a team's total, just the scores they entered. Judges Setup The app allows you to configure judges using Azure AD Security Groups. This simplifies the process of granting access to judges, making it easy to manage permissions. By adding someone to the group, they automatically get access to the app. Scoring Criteria Configuration Setting up scoring criteria is a breeze with this app. You can define the criteria and their descriptions, as well as the maximum points available for each category. This ensures that all judges have a clear understanding of the scoring metrics. Team Management The app lets you manage teams by listing all team members and adding any relevant comments. This is particularly useful for keeping track of who is on which team, especially during large events. Both the Criteria and Teams screen are just simple Galleries and Forms, easy data = easy screen. Scoring This screen is kind of complicated to build so it is easy to use for the users. I had to go through a few testing passes with Nicola to get it to her liking. 😻 You start by choosing a team and click Start. This loads the criteria, and any past scores you entered into a collection. This part had to be very dynamic, if someone adds a new criteria everything must work, no hard coding. We do this with collections and a gallery to make an editable grid. All fields automatically update using OnChange so no saving required. There is also validation to make sure you don't award too many points. Once you are done scoring a team you hit Submit and it is pushed back to the data source, which is Dataverse for this app. Lots of little details shown in the video, this screen took the most time to build for me. Results Reporting Now we need to know who won. This screen is made up of a Chart control and then and HTML control. Making the HTML table in the bottom right also dynamic was very tricky, required nested Concat functions and a lot of elbow grease. 😎 In no shock to anyone who has been to the site before, the dogs won by a lot! Mobile Version Because I am a judge, and I want to score from my phone, I built a simple one screen app for scoring only. I built it in less than 10 minutes but literally copying and pasting from the desktop scoring screen and then just resizing. 🤩 Not beautiful but super easy! Get the App You can download this app and start using it for your own events. Just head over to our YouTube library and sign up to get access to the solution package. It includes all the necessary tables, security roles, and both versions of the app. Need Help? If you need any assistance with this app or any other Power Apps project, PowerApps911 is here to help. Just scroll down to the contact form on our website and get in touch. Whether it's training, consulting, or mentoring, our team is ready to support you.

The challenge so many organizations face is that out-of-the box programs simply don’t meet their unique needs. Yet the cost and time build solutions from scratch is often prohibitive.  So is there a middle-of-the-road option where a company can benefit from customization without the from-scratch price tag? Pre-built PowerApps customized for your organization Pre-built PowerApps developed by PowerApps911 offer the best of both worlds, where an organization can benefit from the economies of scale offered by purchasing a pre-built solution while enjoying the benefits of customization. A perfect example is our newly redesigned Bookings App which we’ve just released for deployment to YOUR Power Platform environment! It builds on the solid foundation of the original version released in 2023, with an updated user interface that is both familiar and innovative, providing time grid and list views that let users quickly visualize availability while also being able to filter resources based on location, amenities, capacity, and more. Our goal in creating this resource was to make it heavily customizable for both large and small organizations.  You can adjust work hours; set up multiple locations, each with as many spaces as needed; assign amenities; and more!  A photo gallery of each space can help users identify and confirm that the space they’re booking meets their needs. One of the great benefits of Power Apps is the ability to create custom solutions that are on brand, and we were sure to include that functionality even in a pre-built solution like our Bookings App. From the title of the app itself to your logo and color scheme, all are customizable so that your users enjoy the experience of a fully-customized solution while the organization benefits from a budget-friendly solution that’s available for immediate deployment. PowerApps911 offers several pre-built solutions like this one, such as our newly-released Expense Reporting solution that allows management of expense reports and receipts while providing customization options for approval thresholds and spending categories. Integrated Power Automate flows email those in the approval pipeline and various options for storage are available, including SharePoint (no premium licenses required) as well as Azure Blob Storage and SQL Server. You can learn more about these pre-built solutions, as well as our other products by contacting our sales team here or learn more about the Booking App in particular here.

Do you want to make invoices or keep record of something in Power Apps? This video will teach you how to make HTML, utilize Flow and OneDrive, and send information from Power Apps directly to a PDF. In this video you will learn about: HTML generation The Concat function The DataUri expression Link to the video on YouTube: Power Apps PDF Generator using Microsoft Flow PDF Converter Link to the video for Curated Library subscribers: Power Apps PDF Generator using Microsoft Flow PDF Key timestamps: 0:00 Intro 2:04 Demo of the solution Shane demonstrates the PDF solution that he is going to build throughout the video which includes an image and Chewy’s Dog Food Report 3:08 Write the HTML, add it to Flow, and utilize the Concat function Write the HTML for Chewy’s Dog Food Report and create a new flow. A file is created within the flow and the Concat function is selected for the file contents. HTML is added within the parenthesis of the Concat function. The flow is run. An action is added to the flow to get the image onto the PDF. 9:21 Convert the file format and utilize the DataUri expression A variable is created that has the converted version of the file via the Initialize Variable flow. The DataUri expression is selected as the value and the file content of the image is added within the parenthesis of the expression. The flow is run. 14:35 Edit the flow and convert the HTML file to a PDF The OneDrive Convert a file using path action and the OneDrive Create file action are added to the flow in order to convert the HTML file to a PDF file. The flow is run. 17:33 Add the flow to Power Apps An app is created in Power Apps and a button is added to run the flow. The manual trigger is deleted from the flow and the Power Apps connector is added. HTML is updated to include the data from Power Apps. The flow is added to the button in Power Apps. 23:32 Generate a PDF from Power Apps The app is previewed and a PDF is generated directly from Power Apps. Additional learning: Video: Power Apps PDF from table data Do you want to become a Power Apps Rockstar? Check out our different full length training classes at https://training.PowerApps911.com or you can download a working version of the app we built today by subscribing to the Curated Library.

In part 1 of Shane’s video series on repeating tables, you will learn how to build an expense report using SharePoint lists as the data source. This demo lays the groundwork for using cascading menus to display results and adding custom functionality in later videos. In this video you will learn about: Power Apps Forms The NewForm function The Collect and ClearCollect functions The ForAll function Link to the video on YouTube: Power Apps Repeating Tables like InfoPath Part 1 - Enter the data Link to the video for Curated Library subscribers: Part 1 - Create the repeating table Key timestamps: 0:00 Intro 2:19 Demo of the solution Shane demonstrates the functionality of his expense report app. The user is able to enter and save expenses by navigating the app with the tab and space bar keys, rather than having to click on each line item. Total expense is automatically calculated. 8:23 Create the solution in Power Apps and insert a form A new app is created in Power Apps and a form is added to display the expense report from SharePoint. 11:32 Put the form in new form mode using the NewForm function and create a new collection using the ClearCollect function The NewForm function is added to the ‘create new expense’ button so that the form is able to be edited. The ClearCollect function is added to the button after the NewForm function in order to create a new collection for every new expense. 13:39 Insert a gallery and use the Patch and Collect functions A gallery is added to display the expense collection. The gallery can be edited and saved through the use of text inputs and icons. The save icon utilizes the Patch, Value, and Collect functions to update the expense collection. 19:33 Add a save button to submit the form to SharePoint using the Patch function The SubmitForm function is added to the ‘save’ button. The ForAll function is added to the OnSuccess for the form. 24:01 Save to SharePoint and demo of the final solution The app is previewed and expenses are saved to SharePoint. Additional learning: Video: Power Apps Repeating Tables like InfoPath Part 2 - View and edit the data Video: Power Apps Repeating Tables like InfoPath Part 3 - Inline editing Do you want to become a Power Apps Rockstar? Check out our different full length training classes at https://training.PowerApps911.com or you can download a working version of the app we built today by subscribing to the Curated Library.