Power APP from Excel or list

[Sudhavi_84]

Hi Experts,

I have a question not sure I am posting here correctly or not.

1.) Current Process, We have latest 3 Months of data (projects) maintaining in Excel, and we comparing always Budget Vs latest 3 months of data of all projects.

user will check against budget with latest month and enters the value in same excel sheet about variances..Variances can be in different categories..

Is it possible that we can do this in Power APP? I don't want to do this in Excel because it is too much time consuming and in App  they can enter manually variances for each project..

2.)  Example in Latest month, projects will be repeated twice or thrice or more, so first Initially it should be summarised values always based on Month/year, so first should I do in List to summarise and then should I need to incorporate into Power APP?

Please guide me I am so excited to do this in Power APP for users

Thank you in Advance

[BCLS776]

While Power Apps can read data from a Table in Excel, it is not the best data source available to work with the platform, mostly due to speed and data limits. A Sharepoint list is a much better option.

Some new users how a Power App will fill out an Excel sheet at specific cells and sometimes with formulas. Unfortunately, that is functionality that does not yet exist.

That said, if you've got lots of data in Excel to load into database tables, a Power App can help you do it.

Hope that helps,

Bryan

[Sudhavi_84]

Perfect @BCLS776 ,

I will do it then I need some guidance on this on going forward to start up

Currenlty in Excel We have Budget and 3 Latest Months (Inlcudes Repeated Projects in Monthly and Budget File).

We have Year1, Year2, Year3,Year 4 columns includng Monthly columns for each years.

So first I may need to summarise in List isn't it? So that project will appear once only based on criteria?

Or should I not summarise in list get everything in Canvas app in text boxes by writing query or something?

I have lots of data in Excel and we have various templates in each sheet like comparing Budget vs Current Month, Budget vs Last Month, Budget vs Last before Month etc... and lets say Budget Vs Current Month we have variances, and that variances need to fill in 5 Categories like timing delay or covide delay or any other delay etc..

If I get this in Power APP, that would be amazing and users can select there own project and enter the variances manually like in excel etc...

Could you please let me know what best I can do to acheive this in power APP?

Thank you:-)

[BCLS776]

Yes, spend a bit of time at the start to plan your data. In your case, consider at least two lists: A Projects list and a Budgets list. The Projects list will contain details specific to your projects, including drawing a budget number from the Budgets list. The Budgets lists will contain details specific to budgets, such as the year and amounts. Give each "object" in your app its own list/table.

When you get to building your app, Power Apps does great things with Form and Gallery controls. These are the most feature-rich ways of displaying and editing data from data sources such as lists. You can set up an interface within those that give users just the info they need and can accept their information back. Some good reading is available at this link.

That's only a start. As you get further into your app, do some searches on here to look for posts related to your question, or post a new question for the community to answer.

Good luck,

Bryan

[Sudhavi_84]

That's Awesome @BCLS776 ,

One more question for today sorry

Currently in Excel we are maintaining latest 3 Months(Jun,Jul and Aug) tabs and Budget Tab

All 4 tabs includes Yearly and Monthly.

So should I first Summarise this 4 tabs in to 4 separate list? so that i can create in Canvas app and pull the data and appear in text boxes etc? and additional text boxes so that can fill the variance manually and it will update into the List? and if previous variances are already avaliable, then it will show into the text boxes as well correct?

I am very new to the APP and your link will be very much helpfull for sure. But i am just making sure that i am planning properly for this on goibg forward..

And also same question

Should I summarise the Excel in to List when I move all 4 tabs in to list for example each project will show only once

For example project ABC  is repeated thrice and in Aug it has 3 values (100,200,300), should I keep in list as it is or is it  better to summarise it in list like ABC and in Aug as 600?  

But if I need to summarise there are plenty columns to summarise in list and don't know what is the best way to summarise in list too..

Sorry for asking:-)

[BCLS776]

Good for you for doing some pre-planning - it usually saves some work later on.

With a Excel sheets and tabs, you have a lot of flexibility on where you put things. As well, you attach formulas to individual cells. Power Apps (and databases in general) operate differently. In canvas Power Apps, the data don't contain formulas like in Excel. The formulas (functionality) are in the canvas app itself. In lists (or any tabular data source), data is organized into tables with columns. Columns (or fields) contain the data that applies to the subject of the table. All the rows (called records) are alike in data structure, meaning they can be described by the same sets of columns. Those records can have data added/deleted/updated in their columns as necessary to accomplish the goals of the app.

So, to answer your question, if you have budget data spread over many tabs by date, chances are that will work better if it is organized into a single list with some sort of column that describes the period or date applicable to that budget item. As to whether you should have three entries in August for a project or one, think about whether there is a need for users to have that kind of detail, or if they simply want to know the current or total budget amount.

For new users, my advice is frequently: if you are unsure if you should break something down into two lists, the answer is almost always yes if it makes your data easier to understand AND you can describe in words how the records on the first list relate to the items on the second list. New users sometimes fall into the trap of trying to cram everything into a single list with 60 or 100 columns, and that's a tough thing to fix. If you have to add more than 10 columns to a list, start asking yourself if you should have a second list.

This is pretty abstract stuff for now. Feel free to reach out again when you have some specific ideas to explore.

Bryan

[Sudhavi_84]

Hi @BCLS776 ,

Thank you for your response. I am slowly slowly getting in to it. 

First I am trying to undesrstand the list and thinking to split as you adviced.

Firstly, Budget Excel Workbook Contains only one single Tab with Projects, Categories, Monthly Forecast and Yearly Forecast

Secondly August Excel Workbook contains only one Single Tab with Projects, Categories,Monthly (Actual Value and Forecast) and Yearly

Thirdly, Other 2 Workbooks Same as above for June and July.

So What I am thinking is to create one more list as simply Projects, Categories, Sub Categories etc as master table and give relation to all List, so that I can retrieve in to canvas app based on categories orders in projects and then get the Budget and August data in other 2 text boxes based on Categorie and project..

Is it something better to give relationship in List and go with Power APP?

and also we can expect every month new projects..usually we get in excel format, How can I update Master list table next month if new projects are added?

What do you suggest?

Thank you and your help is highly appreciated.

[BCLS776]

Hmm, I am not sure if I will address your question, but here is an example of how a couple of lists could interact and be queried within a Power App. Consider two lists and their associated columns:

ProjectList

ProjectName

ProjectID

Category

SubCategory

ProjectBudgets

ProjectID

BudgetMonth

BudgetAmount

ProjectList is designed to carry the details of projects, while ProjectBudgets contains info on the budgets themselves. Since the ProjectID column is common to both lists, there is a relationship between the tables. Queries you could do in Power Apps from these two lists include:

• A breakdown of budgets by category
• Find out the budget amounts allocated to a particular project in the months of June, July, & August
• The name of the project with the highest and lowest budget amounts

  As you add in additional tables, you can create a relationship with those and do further queries & calculations.

  Does that help a bit more?

[Sudhavi_84]

Hi @BCLS776 ,

Thanks for your help on this so far. I am sorry for not making from my self clear but you did understand well.

ProjectBudgets

ProjectID

Year 2021

Jan 2021

Feb 2021

Year 2022

Jan 2022

Feb 2022

You see above fields for Project Budget, similarly we have same fields for June, July and August.

So what I am doing is I am creating one more list as Master list which contains as you specified below

ProjectList

ProjectName

ProjectID

Category

SubCategory

After I build this 5 List and I will bring into Power APP to compare. 

I want to bring  2021 Field from ProjectsBudget and 2021 Field from August In to App.

Example

Project  Aug 2021(Budget Table)  August 2021(August Table)  Variance  

ABC       5 M                                  6 M                                        1 M

              user need  to allocate variance in few categories like Timing, Covid Delay, Council Access

             So user will enter manually 1M variance in to 3 defined categories to explain in which category and where it came that much variance

             Covide Delay  Timing  Council Access

              .5 M                .3 M     .2 M

I want to capture above  Variance categories into list as well. Do you think it's better to autoupdate in Project list Table?

Secondly, after creating project list table, Is it better to create relationship like one(Project List) to many(Budget,June,July and August)? Do you advice me to do relationship first in List?

can we define relationship in Power APP? 

Thank you again @BCLS776  for your help:-)

[BCLS776]

Be careful about creating columns tied to months in a table. In my experience, this means adding columns over time, which makes the table grow with time. Each time a table changes, this can mean potential changes to any Power App using the table.

Instead, add a column that can contain the time period, which is why I suggested a BudgetMonth column in my example. Within that column, you can put in the info for the record that applies to the month involved. In this way, you will create as many rows in your table as necessary to record all of your entries without having to add columns. This is a departure from how you think about Excel and data but will serve you well as you build more apps.

A really good resource from one of our busiest community members, Warren, is available at this link. It is a tremendous resource for those who are new to Power Apps, so I strongly recommend you have a look.

Keep this principle in mind: Decide on your columns & tables on the front end of the app build. After that point, they should rarely need to change. Rows, however, change all the time as your data gets updated, added, deleted.

Bryan