Go big, if not then go even BIGGER

[rubin_boer]

Is it not peculiar when you mention Power BI, most people expect "magic", it could be that we live in a world where data is very "loud" and visualizing the insights is pretty "loud" as well, and somehow capturing the data is a whisper. Similar truth holds water for virtual agents and automation (yes there are those thinking it's the same thing, but that is a blog for another day). 

Showing the value proposition for Power Apps sometimes needs something big, doing something better (in my opinion) than some matured solutions on the market. (I'm passionate about Power Apps so walking up to the bully (even if the app is not the bully, just perceived to be better) in the playground comes to mind). By now you may have realized that showing value proposition is proclaimed but not the driving force to create this app, it's all about showing we can do big things, better. All that's needed is the right challenge where Power Apps raises its hand and shoutout I can do it, and on the way home try to figure out how to do it. Then it happens, budgeting is taking too long, and making a change to it is cumbersome to such an extent that different versions of the budget are presented to the shareholders, with finance and what's in the ERP. There are many reasons for this, lots of cost centers holders with even more cost centers, with a few management accountants, and an iterative process which is seeing the use of Excel, Outlook, and the ERP. The perfect opportunity.

The app needed to capture cost centers, check if it's blocked, and if so request for it to be open for a period, and about 20 other rules which are currently being provided by multiple tools and with some tools on different screens.

Question and concern raised: Can Power Apps really do this and even so is it the right tool? Answer yes and yes (sometimes it's needed to show what a solution can do to make others aware of what you already know, to me that is a yes, you may differ in which case I will accept your view as a yes too). 

In the interest of time, did we do it, yes, was it successful, yes. 

Some insight into what was done:

A Power App to create the budget for your cost centers (some clips of app). Users can do a budget for listed cost centers and when a cost center is not listed they can request it from management accounting. the users can do the budget and the solution will keep it, and once approved by finance it is sent to the ERP - this allows the users to do all the budgets at the same time, one of the reasons for the delay was that some of their cost centers were not unlocked which required them to get back later once it has been unlocked, now with Power Apps that scenario does not exist anymore. do your budget and when approved we will upload it for you, it's all good we can do that.

Some of the periods are simply the annual amount devided by 12 which the ERP can do how about Power Apps. And when we need to cut the budget by a certain percentage can that be done? lets see, yes. Below add periods when needed or annual (blue textbox) and devide by 12 and cut by a given percentage (yellow texbox)

 

All the requirements has been met in similar ways. Power Apps is now being understood as more than just an App but a solution for big things. Just in case you are wondering how do we get the data to the ERP, Power Automate Desktop, our ERP uses a rich client.

Now the question, what is the next big thing.

I hope you enjoyed this and is also being allowed to do some big things with Power Apps.

R