Start Timers on separate devices running PowerApps by using Flow

[hendrixharlow]

Hi everyone,

Kind of a top level/entry level question here, but was wondering what people thought...

I'm trying to figure out a way of triggering timers to start on devices independently running a PowerApp.  I understand that of course the timers won't be perfectly in-sync, but it would be good to remotely start timers... 🙂  I've tried to do this by setting up a PowerApps button in flow, and just going directly to a Respond to PowerApps action where I was attempting to set my StartTimer variable in PowerApps to true to get the timer going...  Is this even the way to do this?  I could also envision setting up a database with the booleans in cells, and having an admin change them to start the timers...  Anyways--interested in people's opinions!

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi @hendrixharlow,

If you would like to return data to PowerApps, please consider using the action Respond to PowerApps.

Here is a blog on return data to PowerApps from a flow, please check it for a reference:

https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/return-data-to-powerapps/

Best regards,

Mabel

[hendrixharlow]

Hi Thanks for your response, I appreciate it!

I've been trying to figure out a method to trigger/start timers on separate devices for the last couple days and still have had no luck.  I did (successfully) set up a flow with the Return to PowerApps function that successfully started my timer, but unfortunately, I dont think 'return to PowerApps' works on multiple devices running the same app...

So instead, I have been attempting to set up a single rowed table containing a boolean that is changed by the 'admin' app, and 'slave'/'follower' apps/devices are looking at the same table, when the boolean/variable in that table changes to true, then the timer can start...  However, I am having futher issues, as unfortunately, when I read table values into PowerApps I can't figure out how to get them as Booleans in my timer/control..  they come in as record values...  Anyways, trying..