We were contacted recently to help with a mobile app using PowerApps development which can be used on building sites to check for Coronavirus within their workforce.
When an employee starts a shift, they need to answer certain questions and receive a temperature check before clocking on. Within this series of blogs, I am going to explain how we did it but not explain every technical detail. These blogs are more about how we use the technology not develop with the technology.
After numerous meetings and discussions on how we are going to do this, we decided to use the Common Data Service for the data storage. CDS (Common Data Service) is created using Microsoft Azure (this is the cloud offering).
All the data needs to be linked between entities. The first entity we are going to create is the Employee Details. This is needed so the user of the app can type the employee ID into their mobile app and the staff details are then shown. To get the data into the Employee Details entity we simply use Excel. We can also connect to your staffing database directly if you have one (even a 3rd party HR system).
So after the first entity has been created (Employee Details) we can use Microsoft Excel to get the data into the database.
Data can be pasted into this spreadsheet, like a normal Workbook. Then with an excel add-in, we can connect to the database in the cloud (CDS) and the data will be published (pushed to the cloud). When a new member of staff comes on board or if one leaves, we can easily update the spreadsheet and publish the new data.
Within the cloud, the data is now ready to be used on a mobile app.
In part 2 I am going to show you how the first part of the mobile app will look. See you then.
Silverlimes is a premier Powerapps development company, if you have any great ideas for a PowerApp showcase app then feel free to contact us for more information.
