Solved: Re: App question

Sweeney669 · ‎04-21-2017

So I started using powerapp last night and after about 7 hours of tweaking/editing data and the app I ended up with a good start for what Im looking for. I'm creating an app to track our equipment hours and location for our mechanic to use.

Currently he has been using an excel sheet that he has to update back at the shop, so if the computer crashes/restarts/loses server connection, hell end up with autosaves/duplicate files etc. I end up sorting those issues out a couple times a month. On top of that 2 other people need access to his sheet for other billing purposes that dont involve him. So currently they jump on the server and open his sheet and check it out. Problem is if he has the file open no one can do anything which becomes an issue when hes out in the field and its open on his pc down at the shop.

I made a powerapp showing all the info that his current excel sheet does, except cleaner/easier to sort and hopefully able to be seen by multiple people at the same time.

Now on to the main question. The one thing I havent been able to figure out is maintenance notifications. Currently his sheet has a formula set so every 500, and 1500 hours that the equipment has been running, it will highlight that piece of equipment in a certain color based on the hour interval it has hit.

Instead of highlighting the item, Id prefer to get the app set so at his chosen intervals it will send an email to his or a new "maintenance" email account, then create a ticket/list of all the current machines at the interval and they currently need to be looked at. Then be able to check off that item from the ticket/list and autoupdate the main equipment list item with ticket name,date,date of completeion,which interval it was, and notes on what was done.

Eventually, Id also like to be able to add a few other things into this app once I get that setup and more familiar with powerapps like:

A notification system for any DOT/Registration/Emissions tests/paperwork/renewals that will be coming up so no one has to actively think about that.
A yes/no drop down that hides the equipment from the list. [ Owned(or sold): Y/N -> If no hide] from app, but still have a hidden/old equipment list in the webapp, not phone app
If I can get the rest of Dynamics setup how I want, I'd love to be able to have hours our supervisiors in the field send to the office, which include amt of hours they use equipment, to auto update the equipment list.
I'd also like to be able to make the "Hours" field an open box that can be edited right from the card, opposed to clicking edit and being able to change everything.
Make a more in depth webapp based off the current phone template im using and I dont think its possible but seperating the powerapp from the ios powerapp app and making my powerapp a standalone app that I can download/install on our fleet of iphones/ipads.
And - Ultimate Goal of fully setup Dynamics/PowerApps- Would be if each equipment card kept track of all of the above, and then have a "maintenance" section that could show invoices that have been scanned and allocated/tagged to specific jobs and equipment and be able to keep a running tally of total repair costs over week/month/year etc. Viewable from the sorted list the I currently get based on my CDM data.

Thank you guys for reading through that mess. Basically just curious If anyone knows how to add an email notification system to my data based on specific intervals with numbers my mechanic manually enters. Setting up a ticket/needs maintenance list after that and everything else I mentioned in the thread is just gravy if you happen to have any suggestions or know where I could see some sample data that might help me model it after.

Thanks again!

*Edit* Just added a couple pics of what I made last night. Currently the only button that does anything is equipment list. Truck Schedule and Equipment requests arent really needed I just added random ideas to fill up this apps homescreen so it wasnt so bare. But my thought is the needs maintenance tickets/list would go to the "maintenance" section in this app opposed to a seperate app.

sarafankit · ‎04-21-2017

@Sweeney669 - That's a really good use case for PowerApps, thanks for writing the details around your app. For automation scenarios which are triggered on schedule or an item creation/update or on PowerApps button click, I will suggest you to look at Flow (https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/).

Looking at the scnearion, I will suggest, you can:

Store the trigger time in your data source
Create a scheduled flow to look through the data source every x minutes and then act on items which are past the trigger time

I am inlcuding @merwan here if you have flow questions.

View solution in original post

sarafankit · ‎04-21-2017

@Sweeney669 - That's a really good use case for PowerApps, thanks for writing the details around your app. For automation scenarios which are triggered on schedule or an item creation/update or on PowerApps button click, I will suggest you to look at Flow (https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/).

Looking at the scnearion, I will suggest, you can:

Store the trigger time in your data source
Create a scheduled flow to look through the data source every x minutes and then act on items which are past the trigger time

I am inlcuding @merwan here if you have flow questions.