Custom Solutions with Power BI and Power Apps

Information is power

Whoever has the information has the power, or in this case, the ‘Power’. We can surely all agree that this phrase applies successfully to all aspects of life. The more we know about any of the areas in which we operate daily, the better positioned we will be to achieve our objectives.

In the business world, this reasoning goes a step further. Information is power, but it is also efficiency, productivity, profitability, money… Businesses speak; you just have to know how to listen to them. As we have already detailed in previous posts, transforming what they tell us (data) into useful information tailored to our needs places us in an unbeatable position to face the future with certainty, rather than with the uncertainties inherent to general economic activity, which are heightened in difficult times such as those we are experiencing due to the impact of COVID-19.

The development of Business Intelligence (BI) projects allows us to make that leap and take a temporal X-ray of the company to, with the information obtained, make estimates in order to take the best possible decisions. However, as we will see, how we handle information to make it useful for our business purposes is just as important as obtaining it.

Power BI: visual, dynamic, and intuitive analytics

There are various Business Intelligence solutions on the market; in fact, at LISDATA we work with several depending on our clients’ needs (Qlik Sense, Qlikview, Tableau). One of them is Power BI, recognized by Gartner as a leader in analytics and business intelligence.

And it deserves the recognition, as it is a very versatile tool that allows for the unification of data from various sources (internal and external) and simplifies its processing and visualization, thanks to Artificial Intelligence. Its greatest advantage is that it enables us to design dynamic and intuitive dashboards, which make the process of analyzing and understanding information visual and simple, streamlining decision-making to improve business results.

We already have the information extracted, summarized, and reflected in intuitive dashboards, but we can go one step further by creating custom applications, adapted to each business or business area, that optimize the work done with Power BI. We take this step to the next level with another of the tools that Microsoft includes in its Power Platform: Power Apps.

Power Apps: data capture and management

Power Apps is a tool designed to create data capture and management applications. And therein lies its great potential and utility: it displays information to the user, but also collects it through simple forms and connects it with pre-existing databases, such as the reports and dashboards generated with Power BI.

In other words, Power Apps has an active connection with the data sources it is linked to; that is, it re-evaluates the information in the source lists based on new items registered and vice versa. Changes in Power BI are applied and visible immediately in the applications created with Power Apps, and the same applies if the procedure is reversed. The circle is thus closed: tasks are automated, gaining time, efficiency, and productivity. This is not a trivial statement; a Total Economic Impact™ study commissioned to Forrester Consulting states that Power Apps can reduce application development costs by 74% and enables an average improvement in employee productivity of 3.2 hours per week.

This fourth pillar of the Power Platform presents three working models: canvas apps, model-driven apps, and portals. Let’s look at the characteristics and possibilities of each.

Canvas Apps

Canvas apps offer great flexibility in interface development. As the name suggests, we start from a blank canvas where we can customize the user experience from scratch, adapting it to the specific needs of each company, department, or specific task. It allows for the adjustment of every detail to the specific characteristics of the business and its optimization for specific tasks and roles.

The mechanism for their development has a dual aspect: applications can be generated from Power Apps itself, to which data sources are then linked, or directly through other Microsoft products such as the aforementioned Power BI or SharePoint.

Model-driven Apps

Model-driven apps allow for the creation of more sophisticated products based on the use of data and business processes. Using these as a foundation, immersive applications that run on any device are automatically generated. Although the interface cannot be developed as in the case of Canvas Apps, it does allow for the customization of business entities and the adaptation of the user experience to specific roles with forms, dashboards, charts, and other components.

Portals

Power Apps also facilitates the creation of web portals that open up the display and collection of information to both internal and external users of the organization. This functionality allows for the integration of model-driven forms, views, and charts, and the incorporation of Power BI reports or dashboards to achieve a greater connection with partners and customers, with whom interaction will lead to gains in efficiency and business satisfaction. Our buyers and allies become part of the business improvement processes and can obtain information on the areas that affect them, creating a symbiotic ‘win-win’ relationship.

Whatever the application model used, the strength of Power Apps lies in its dual role as a provider of easy-to-read information and a data collector, a task in which as many staff members as the entity wishes can be involved. Let’s look at an example: suppose we have generated a supply chain operations planner with the aim of optimizing the logistics network. Operators can consult this planning on their mobile phones via Power Apps, modify it if incidents occur, or create new records, and the data in the source databases will be automatically updated, showing the renewed information—that is, the new planning—to all users.

Conclusion

In the era of Big Data, Advanced Analytics, and Industry 4.0, ignoring what our own companies are telling us does not seem to be an option if the goal is to gain performance, efficiency, and productivity. Data, and its analysis and interpretation, facilitate our present and future decision-making.

In this process, the collection of this raw material and its transformation into useful information for the company is very important. The partnership between Power BI and Power Apps makes the extraction and visualization of information a dynamic process, in which each of these tools, based on Artificial Intelligence, feeds the other.

Power BI transforms data into information to improve decision-making, while Power Apps enables all users to use that information intuitively and dynamically, turning them into active agents in the compilation of new data that will feed both platforms in real time. In this way, obsolete manual procedures are automated and efficiency is gained through digital transformation.