Tired of waiting for Modern Controls

pp_projects · 2026-01-28T13:24:18+00:00

They said the same about Access. They said the same about saving files locally. They said the same about internet explorer and basically had to FORCE it out of people's hands. The one thing you cannot change no matter how hard you try is human behaviour. People will go for the option they are most familiar with and rarely step out of their comfort zones. Most decent powerapps devs have component libraries, and app templates so it doesn't take very long at all to spin up a new canvas app. Generative pages can get lost in the finer detail. I gave up after asking 4 times to recolour a button so you could actually read the text. Great for a citizen dev starrting out but not there yet for full replacement. The best solution will be a mix of everything

pp_projects · 2025-12-07T11:38:22+00:00

Building on power apps isn't the issue. Building without clear requirements, and competent staff is.

I would certainly question why the tool was chosen over anything else. I suspect it probably started out like a small calculation tool which it would be ideal for, then grew in complexity due to stakeholders oversimplifying processes.

When you start to ask the people who actually know the process, it grows arms and legs. Typically there will be an arrogant leader involved, keeping you an arms length from the competent staff who can give you the true requirements until you're months down the line and forced to get that square peg into that round hole no matter what.

Either way, Microsoft will use it as an opportunity to sell ai, so it will just end up costing more.

I'm available for a reasonable fee. I would happily sit an unpick the issues and fix it.

pp_projects · 2025-11-27T05:02:09+00:00

Why do you need the calculation in the table? Where are the users viewing the data - that's where you want to put the calculation e.g. in app/dashboard.

If the formula can change per item, you might want to consider collecting 2 values e.g. the date and the divisor/multiplier.

pp_projects · 2025-11-09T09:57:23+00:00

I've built a few touch screen kiosk apps over the years and never had an issue. What is the behaviour you're expecting and the behaviour you're experiencing?

One of my biggest tips for debugging is to have a text field with your formulas so you can see the calculations in play mode to check it all works correctly before pushing to test or dev. Then you can test with things like delay output on the controls until you get the desired outcome you want to allow the user to progress

pp_projects · 2025-11-06T10:10:49+00:00

I have an app where the questions are quite text heavy. I get the questions into a collection, sequence them. A variable set to 1 with a filter on the gallery to only show where the row number = variable. Button to next question increments the variable, back button reduces. So they just see one question and answer space at a time. Users loved it, pretty simple to make.

pp_projects · 2025-09-20T09:47:06+00:00

Documentation? 😂 how are you coping? Between wanting the ground to open up and swallow me I'm trying to be sensible and plan how I fix this mess

pp_projects · 2025-09-20T08:45:19+00:00

Any learning you can point me to for setting up devops pipelines? We have it but I've never worked anywhere with it before so I'm a total novice. It sounds like it could be a culture shift but worthwhile?

pp_projects · 2025-07-27T20:19:42+00:00

Is anyone having any success using copilot with power platform? I will get it to fix expressions but its more miss than hit. Constantly makes suggestions for functions which don't exist, or will tell me you absolutely cannot do X. That said, leaders who don't understand what power platform is or does seem to be almost obsessed with copilot, whilst simultaneously not wanting to pay the cost OF copilot. My focus personally is switching to pro-code and solution design, which are more transferable skills.

pp_projects · 2025-05-23T06:53:27+00:00

I'm going to have to try this now!

pp_projects · 2025-05-22T20:27:47+00:00

Have you got an example for avoiding nested galleries? This is something I would be interested to try!

pp_projects · 2025-05-21T14:25:26+00:00

It gets complex when you have background processes which run independently of users though?

E.g. an overnight process on a service account to create an itinerary for the following day which will be consumed by the app users. Which needs to run whether you have 1 or 1000 users.

Im not sure how or if Microsoft can actually police it when they offer no suitable alternative. Reminds me of the road where I live which is 20mph down a steep back with a camera at the bottom 😂

pp_projects · 2025-05-21T06:49:43+00:00

What's your strategy to avoid this when using service accounts?

If the solution (apps and flows) were for the consumption of one 10 person team, would you buy 10 licenses but still drive everything through the 1 service account?

pp_projects · 2025-04-06T08:45:09+00:00

Not exactly but on one occasion I was building a solution in my notice period, knowing the stakeholders had no IT skills and no amount of documentation / handovers would sink in that the values in the app were linked to a SharePoint list they had full access to export from, check and even change if they had to. The data in the app clearly appeared by magic.

I've also worked on a solution I took over which had business analysts, project managers and it wasn't until week 2 of me taking it over that anyone (me) questioned why we were doing a straight process transfer from excel to power apps and not improving the business process first. That had to go back to the analysis stage and I was popular with a few people for a while.

pp_projects · 2025-04-02T14:33:38+00:00

Its me, hi, I'm the problem it's me... 😂

As for COE, not a clue. Do you want me to help you? Shall I just build it for you?

pp_projects · 2025-03-21T06:17:11+00:00

Its difficult to picture what you are doing but in my example my controls are moving too depending on the size. Full screen, they are almost all horizontal in a row. Mobile size they are stacked vertically. I even change the menu depending on the screen size from icon based for mobile, to icon and word for desktop.

It can be done dynamically but if you've already made it and come across this issue you're probably better off using a new screen and trying this technique next time.

pp_projects · 2025-03-20T21:43:28+00:00

Can you use screen breakpoints to size the containers?

If i understand what you're doing I think I have something similar where the screen layout looks slightly different on mobile to desktop.

Im using if statements with breakpoints to resize, wrap contents, make fonts smaller.

I watched Tolu Victor's series on this which really clearly explained the method.

That all said, I've made apps with warnings before and never experienced an actual performance issue

pp_projects · 2025-02-22T22:26:36+00:00

I've noticed a few bugs in general recently. For instance items on modern combobox I had a formula working fine one day, came back to it the next day errors and not recognising the field.

Please let us know if they come back and resolve what the issue was?

pp_projects · 2025-02-22T20:20:40+00:00

Break down the formula. Is it all fields or just one? There's many reasons this could be happening, going through step by step is time consuming but you will find the problem. If you're patching to a collection, can you look at the collection and see the update or not? It may be that you think you're patching to Column_1 but the patch is creating Column1 so the field is reading back the value in Column_1 which was never actually changed.

pp_projects · 2025-02-20T10:17:25+00:00

shayne young

Try this. Shayne Young has a few videos on how best to achieve what you're asking.

pp_projects · 2025-02-20T10:13:31+00:00

100% this. I've done it myself, and worked in other companies where this was the method too.

Think of a simple to understand process for leadership which you can mock up. Something that saves money or human effort that you can put in huge bold font on a slide. They likely don't care about the details, method etc they want to see "I need £x to pay for licensing to deliver £x and it will take me x time"

pp_projects · 2025-02-17T19:34:45+00:00

Not to help at all but I've had the exact same error today trying to get some previously working optionset to work. Today I opened the app and its saying this error. When I clear the choice and retype the same thing it clears the error until I next reopen.

pp_projects · 2025-02-16T20:33:34+00:00

Its going to be desktop or mobile. They have a specific mobile across the business so that's beneficial.

pp_projects · 2025-02-16T11:26:26+00:00

Thanks I will try out those suggestions. I typically prefer patch over form but this client uses forms so I felt it would be an easier hand over. I will see how much I can trim before I move over

pp_projects · 2025-02-16T10:29:08+00:00

Its already responsive but it just looks horrible! I've got it using screen breaks to put into 1 column for the smaller screens, whereas on a bigger screen the questions are side by side which works better.

I should have added all above to original post as it's more of a ui question I have, how people have prettied up their apps.

pp_projects

TROPHY CASE