This should be interesting

[NauticalGent]

Long story short, since the "company" I am in a contract with has vast resources and DEEP pockets (DLA Aviation), they have managed to arrange a Teams meeting with 2 MS engineers who are going to review our Access App and show our dev team (me and 2 others) how Power App can replace it.

I will see if I can record the meeting and post it here is anyone is interested.

 

[Isaac]

This is all very interesting.
I like the new contract's name: "Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability". Sounds solid as a brick. Something out of the 1950's.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Amazon is completely untrustworthy. Their politics guide their decisions and we don't need them cancelling us if they disagree with us selling arms to Israel.

 

[NauticalGent]

If anyone wants to attend: https://www.microsoftevents.com/profile/web/index.cfm?PKwebID=0x1024196abcd

 

[Isaac]

Interesting registration process..

 

[Isaac]

I've been pouring over Warren Belz's blog, which contains a bunch of good advice before starting to build a PA. Warren seems to be to Power Apps what people like Allen Browne have been to Access.

A fair % of it has been principles I already would have adhered to anyway (naming conventions, avoiding creative datatypes in the source, etc), but also plenty of good reference "how-to" information.

One thing that struck me as I was reading today was: Up to now, I've been moaning and groaning that in PA, I cannot write "free flowing code".

And yet, day after day as I learn, I find out that many of these power apps formulas actually do translate to the same things I would accomplish with "free flowing code" - it just LOOKS different.

For example. Establishing a collection of ASCI characters that you don't want to allow in a text box. This runs instantaneously at app startup.

ClearCollect(
   colChar,
   ForAll(
      Sequence(15),
      {FieldNo: Char(32 + Value)}
   ),
   ForAll(
      Sequence(7),
      {FieldNo: Char(57 + Value)}
   ),
   ForAll(
      Sequence(5),
      {FieldNo: Char(90 + Value)}
   ),
   ForAll(
      Sequence(4),
      {FieldNo: Char(122 + Value)}
   )
)

I'm thinking Wait.....A formula that loops? What is this sorcery?
Pretty cool actually ....... You just have to know the expression exists, and remember that it does, that's the hard part for me.

Warren's Blog

 

[NauticalGent]

So...trying to get the video now, I was not able to attend the "meeting" yesterday. One of my colleagues who did attend told me things were underwhelming but things got awkward once it became known that this solution was going to require additional funding for both licenses: Power Apps AND Dataverse.

Now here is that shocked emoji....

 

[NauticalGent]

I have the recording for anyone who wants it (at my election). It is a MP4 that is just over 124mb so I may have to email it to you. PM me with your email and I will either send it or explain why I didn't.

 

[Minty]

So...trying to get the video now, I was not able to attend the "meeting" yesterday. One of my colleagues who did attend told me things were underwhelming but things got awkward once it became known that this solution was going to require additional funding for both licenses: Power Apps AND Dataverse.

Now here is that shocked emoji....

This seems to be a major stumbling block IMHO. I think these would be great solutions for a SME but the costs (as far as I can work out) ramp up really quickly once you add a few users.
So imagine a workshop that wants to use a couple of simple App on the workshop floor to upload pictures via the user's mobile phones or iPad. Five staff means five licences, @ $10 per month if it's just the one app, or if you have a few $40 per month ($200 total). You may as well get a proper web app set up and hosted.

Actually, they have just announced their pricing is being halved! Maybe the feedback has been pretty negative. New Pricing Linky

 

[Isaac]

@Minty I agree, it seems expensive. I am not recommending it to any of my small business clients. But it's good if one works at a corporate large place that already has it - then it seems to "have its place", so to speak.