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Yahya
Kudo Kingpin
Kudo Kingpin

Seriously, has anyone build a single CDS PowerApp for complex Business needs?

‎04-30-2017 04:12 PM

Speaking about a really real sophisticated App, that we used to do via Access or Access Web Apps (retired), a SINGLE App that includes Tables (Entities) of Projects (Opportunities), Offers, Orders, Shipments, Invoices, Products, Services, etc, has anyone built (or started to build) a single PowerApp to deal with that all? Does that (single PowerApp) seam possible via PowerApps? 

 

PS: I do not mean CDS as must datasource, but, to me, it would be the best option. 

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stormea
Advocate III
Advocate III

‎04-30-2017 08:51 PM

I can tell you that for the extra $7 a month to use CDS, it has not been able to prove that it is a value add to me. Being more developer focused, I think it's been much easier working with SQL Server sitting in Azure and using the other free connectors such as SharePoint. However for non-technical people CDS might be an easier interface to work with. Really if you want to make sure you're doing a lot of safistication, I would say managing the environment / instance of the app with the P2 licensing might just be worth considering.

 

That said, to address your point about complex apps, I've built some apps that pull from multiple tables such as you've outlined and have been able to calculate and display items based on a many to many relationship as well. They work and they are beautiful demo ware, but I hesitate still to say these are production ready. The data layer is well established and strong running on SQL Server, but the PowerApp capabilities are still really lacking in being able to query and work against a more complex schema.

It's easy to highlight when you are start looking at your main query functions; Search() is able to query text with 5k+ items like a champ but trying to Filter() is going to give you incomplete data sets if you're above 500 items in your table doing a basic comparision. That is really restricting your search type use cases if you ask me and scares me to think of what kinds of issues could occur if your users were missing data like that.

 

I just don't see real complex apps able to make it in production until they can ensure they are able to handle larger data sets and perhaps offer a little more flexibility in querying your schema. Hope that helps!

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v-monli-msft
Community Support
Community Support

‎04-30-2017 09:41 PM

Hi Yahya,

 

With Access Web Apps, you are basically limited to the AWA database itself as a data source.

 

PowerApps gives you a lot more flexibility on interaction with the user and in combining different data sources. But it is still in its infancy. CDS (Common Data Service) is proposed as the default back end, but AWA is still far superior as a database. CDS does not have compund indexing, calculated fields, data validation, queries, basically nothing that any normal database should have by default.

 

You can try to build a PA interface on top of AWA applications. This could be successful for building some on-line reporting, advanced emailing, automated data entry etc. You can do this by adding the AWA back end as a data source to PA.

 

About how to connect to PWA：
https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/PowerApps-Forum/PowerApp-Connect-to-access-web-app-data/td-p/166...

 

About PowerApps and CDS:
https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/powerapps-cds-ga/
https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/guided-learning/learning-common-data-service/

 

Regards,
Mona

 

Community Support Team _ Mona Li
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.
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Yahya
Kudo Kingpin
Kudo Kingpin
In response to v-monli-msft

‎06-08-2017 05:06 PM

Hi @v-monli-msft

 

Thanks for your reply by which for the first time, I think, Microsoft acknowledges that CDS/PowerApps are not ready for dealing with REAL business database.

 

I loved the expression you have said: infancy!

 

One thing you have missed is that, Microsoft have already shocked AWA users by shutting down AWA!

 

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-Retirement-Blog/Updating-the-Access-Services-in-ShareP...

 

comments were closed disrespectfully without having a clear conclusion, while we have been left to face our destiny!

 

What is funny is that in that blog, and in other places, see below, Microsoft proposes AWA users migrate to PowerApps.

 

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Access-Services-in-SharePoint-Roadmap-497fd86b-e982-43c4-83...

 

This is just not fair.

 

And by the way, this thread has not been solved.

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Anonymous
Not applicable

‎09-29-2017 01:51 PM

I think we still need to use Access until this happens.  This isn't complex business stuff-it's regular business stuff that PowerApps should get to-and quickly please.

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