Recap
In the first post of this series, I introduced the concept of what I’m calling common sense solutions. These are scenarios where I’m trying to solve common business problems in a way that’s repeatable, automated, and makes our jobs easier and more enjoyable.
The ultimate goal is once the solution is in place, it becomes common sense to keep solving it that way.
This first series is focused on automating event management using nothing but Power BI and Office 365. And if you recall in part one, we created a registration process consisting of a Microsoft Form to capture user info and a simple Flow to automate sending a confirmation email to each user.
Part 2: Setting up an Attendee Management Process
We are going to continue the journey in this post, where I’m going to walkthrough how I’m storing the data in SharePoint and using PowerApps to build a mobile app to help control attendance.
A little context before we dive in:
Hosting customer workshops is one of my favorite parts of the job – I absolutely love them. I’m always happy to give a one-to-one event at a customer site, but I especially enjoy hosting one-to-many events at a Microsoft office and exposing multiple customers to the power of Power BI and all of Modern Workplace.
Side note: if you are interested in having a one-on-one workshop at your organization, please contact me and I’ll be happy to discuss how we can make that happen.
As you can imagine, when hosting a one-to-many event, such as the ones on my Events page, I don’t want a single customer taking up all the seats just because they were the first to register.
So by default, I add every user to a wait list when they sign-up to ensure maximum customer exposure.
So given that, let’s hop in.
Because I will be editing details of the registration data (Registration Status), I need to store this data somewhere. I chose a SharePoint Online list because of how easy it integrates, but you could follow a similar process for an Excel file or a SQL Server database. Just know you’ll need an On-Prem Data Gateway if you’re not using a cloud source.
The first thing I did was open my SharePoint site, logged in via O365, and created a new list called DIADs. Within the list I created a column for each question in my Form, and an additional choice column called Status, with options of Waitlisted, Accepted, and Rejected.
I’m going to assume each reader has knowledge of how to create a SharePoint List, but feel free to reference this guide if needed.
Now theoretically I can navigate to my SharePoint list and manage attendees from there, but that’s boring and so 2000s.
What if I told you that in three clicks (and zero code!) you could create a mobile app to manage your data? And that you could embed it within a Power BI report to be able to manage from there?
Hello, PowerApps!
From within my SharePoint Online list, all I had to do to generate a mobile app was select the PowerApps dropdown, click on Create an app, give my app a name (DIADs), and select Create.
If you’re following along at home, go ahead and refill that coffee and when you come back, boom – mobile app created. At this point you literally can save/publish the app, download the free Microsoft PowerApps application on your phone, and use this app to add, remove, or edit entries in your SharePoint Online list. It’s that easy.
The only change I made in my PowerApp was choosing which List columns I wanted to appear in each record. I did that by selecting the Gallery – aka one of the records – and then, on the right hand navigation, clicking on DIADs next to Data, and then choosing the columns I want from the drop downs on the next screen, as seen below:
And that’s it. I now have my data stored in a SharePoint Online list and a mobile app to make it easier to manage attendee information.
Attendee Management process built!
What’s next
Now that I’m capturing who registers and have simplified how to manage my wait list, I’m going to focus on leveraging Microsoft Flow to accomplish two things in Part 3:
- Extending automation to keep users in the loop
- Adding a collaboration layer to also allow peers to help manage attendees
And then we’ll tie it all together in Part 4 by creating a Power BI Command Center.
Wait, what? Stay tuned!
Are you interested in learning more about how PowerApps can help streamline mobile application development? Contact me and I’ll be happy to discuss further.