Microsoft Power Apps

Power Apps: Unlocking Offline Capability for Robust Mobile Applications

Evelyn Dennis

Introduction

In today’s dynamic business environment, many professionals, especially those in field sales, service, and remote support roles, often operate in areas with limited or no internet connectivity. To ensure productivity and data integrity in such scenarios, applications need to seamlessly transition between online and offline modes. Microsoft Power Apps, a platform for building custom business applications, offers tools to achieve this. The challenge lies in enabling the mobile Apps to store data locally, monitor network connectivity changes, and synchronize data seamlessly when connectivity is restored, ensuring a smooth user experience and data consistency.

Power Apps Offline Capability
Power Apps Offline Capability

Problem Statement

Traditional applications often struggle to provide robust offline functionality, even custom-built native mobile applications with custom code can be unreliable at times due to network connectivity issues or device limitations. For professionals in industries such as manufacturing, distribution, engineering, and medical supplies, with large field sales, service, and support teams working in remote locations, the inability to access or input data offline can lead to significant inefficiencies and data loss. Challenges include remote inventory management, field service operations, and real-time data collection, all of which are hindered by connectivity constraints. A reliable offline-capable application must address these issues by:

  1. Storing data locally for uninterrupted access.
  2. Detecting changes in network connectivity.
  3. Synchronizing offline data with the server once connectivity is restored.

Dataverse vs. Collections: A Comparative Approach

Power Apps Offline Capability

Dataverse is the superior choice for building scalable, efficient Power Apps with offline functionality. It simplifies development, ensures a smoother user experience, and supports future scalability.

Solution: Implementing Offline Capability

To achieve offline functionality in Power Apps:

  1. Use Dataverse for data storage, leveraging its out-of-the-box offline capabilities.
  2. Configure offline profiles and sync filters to manage data access and updates effectively.
  3. Detect network connectivity status using built-in tools and trigger synchronization processes upon reconnection.

Video Demonstration

For a step-by-step guide to implementing offline capabilities in Power Apps Canvas applications, watch this video on Sysfore’s Official YouTube Channel.

Microsoft Power Apps

HABY JOSEPH

Microsoft Power Apps Platform

What is Microsoft Power Apps

Microsoft Power Apps enables you to build zero or minimal code web and mobile applications, enabling you to turn your ideas into feature-rich apps that can transform your processes digitally, solve business problems, or increase business value. You can interact with intuitive visual tools that do not require code, work faster with a platform that allows data integration and distribution, and for professional developers to extend the platform with building blocks.

Microsoft Power Apps
Microsoft Power Apps interface

As it integrates with Microsoft applications such as SQL Server, SharePoint, OneDrive, as well as third-party applications such as Dropbox, Google Docs, SAP, and Oracle, the scope of use of Power Apps is huge. In addition, Common Data Service, the enterprise-grade datastore on which Microsoft Dynamics 365 apps are natively built, is built-in, eliminating the need for further integration of data.

  • With these capabilities, you can drive enhanced mobility, productivity, and innovation in your organization. 
  • From tailored apps to advanced applications
  • Power Apps enables you to create a broad range of app scenarios that infuse digital transformation into manual and outdated processes.

Canvas Apps

Canvas applications allow you the opportunity to organise the user experience and interface the way you want it to be. To create a highly personalised interface with the power of a blank canvas, begin with your user experience, connect it to a choice of more than 200 data sources. For online, smartphone, and tablet applications, canvas apps can be built.

Model-driven Apps

You use the Common Data Service ‘s power to quickly configure your forms, business rules, and process flows when you create a model-driven app. Start with your data model, building up to model forms, views and other components from the shape of your core business information and processes in the Common Data Service. Model-driven apps generate a great UI automatically that is responsive across devices.

Microsoft Power Apps: Features

Although it can sound like a difficult challenge to build applications, Microsoft Power Apps provides many features and functionality that help you create them as a professional and with minimal effort, most importantly.

Feature model

  • Common Data Service to store data
  • 200+ connectors to integrate data and systems
  • Pre-built templates
  • Drag-and-drop designer
  • Power App Canvas
  • AI Builder and pre-built AI components
  • Portals (for no code responsive websites)
  • Role-based user experience customization
  • Pixel perfect website development
  • Several app scenarios
  • Wide variety of controls such as camera and location
  • Logins via authentication providers like LinkedIn and Facebook
  • Private and secure submission of information


 

Microsoft Power Apps: Benefits

  • By rapidly building low-code apps that modernise processes and resolve business challenges, Microsoft Power Apps boost agility across your organisation.
  • Work faster with data integration and distribution
  • Enhance mobility and innovation with no code capability
  • Enhance productivity with prebuilt AI scenarios
  • Simplify tasks and enhance prediction with AI Builder
  • Gain value from data
  • Improve user engagement
  • Forrester Consulting’s commissioned report, a Total Economic Impact™ study, showed that Microsoft Power App consumers experienced 188 percent ROI in three years, 74 percent decrease in app production costs, and 3.2 hours / week average increase in productivity of line-of – business workers.

Why Sysfore Technologies?

You can ensure that your application is all you need and more with a Power Apps partner, capable of deployment all across your business, pulling data from internal and external applications and delivering analytics-based insights that take your data to the next level.

Sysfore Technologies offers data integration and analytics expertise, a solid understanding of data architecture, enterprise-grade application building experience, and a deep industry partnership with Microsoft to help you create tailored Power Apps for your business. We handle the end-to – end process and take care of all collection and UI design specifications and use the Common Data Service to map diverse data sources within the business.

 

You can talk to one of our solution experts today to learn more about you can leverage Power Apps and the Power Platform in your organization.