Blog - Recent Posts

Mobile - How to navigate back through screens with the Android back button

By default, the back button on an Android device quits the current app, and returns the user to the app list. Here's how to configure an app so that the button navigates the user to the previous screen.

Data - How to rename a table or data source

The ability to rename a data source can be very useful, particularly following a change to the way that Power Apps names the SQL tables and views that we add to an app. This post describes how to change the name of a table/data source in a canvas app by modifying the source code.

Tools - The best way to carry out canvas app code reviews

As a matter of good practice, it's important to build apps that are performant, maintainable, and reliable. The 'Power Apps Review Tool' offers the best way to assess a canvas app, and to discover ways to improve the quality of an app. This post introduces the review tool, and provides a walk through on how to install it.

Email - How to send email without the Office 365 Outlook connector (using the Mail connector)

In cases where we cannot use the Office 365 Outlook connector, or don't have a suitable email account available, we can send messages using the Mail connector. This post describes how to send messages using this connector, including how to specify multiple recipients, CC/BCC recipients, and how to include attachments.

Data - How to enforce unique values (or prevent duplicate values) in one or more columns

When building apps that collect data, a common requirement is to prevent the entry of duplicate records. This post walks through how to accomplish this task by demonstrating how to enforce unique email address values in an employee table, and how to enforce a unique combination of firstname and surname for each record.

Email - How to send mail with the Gmail connector

The syntax to send messages with the Google connector can be tricky. How do we specify multiple recipients, BCC/CC recipients, the 'From' and 'Reply-to' email addresses, the message importance and attachments? How do we define line breaks in the message body? This post will answer all of these common questions.

Teams - The easiest way to add a message to a Microsoft Teams channel

If we want to add messages to a Microsoft Temas channel, this post describes a very simple way to carry out this task.

Controls - How to enter and display Office/Microsoft 365 email addresses with a combo box

When building data entry screens, a common requirement is to simplify the entry of email addresses by providing a combo box that displays all the email addresses that are available throughout the Microsoft/Office 365 tenant. This post describes the formula to build and configure this type of combo box.

Gallery control - How to set no selected item in a gallery

There are cases where we want to clear all selected items in a gallery control, or to configure a gallery control so that no items are selected on load.This post describes how to configure a gallery control to behave in this manner.

Dates - 4 tips to make sure that dates display correctly in UK "dd mm yyyy" format

A common requirement for UK app builders is to configure canvas apps to aways accept and display dates in "dd/mm/yyyy" format.This post describes 4 tips to help ensure that date picker and label controls display dates as expected.

Forms - How to select-all / unselect-all checkbox or toggle controls on a form

When building data entry screens, we can simplify data entry by adding a feature to select all, or to unselect all true/false values on a form. This post walks through how to build this feature.

Excel vs SharePoint vs Dataverse vs SQL Server - updated 2021

When building canvas apps, an important question is - what data source should use? This post covers the pros and cons of the 4 most popular data sources with Power Apps - Excel, SharePoint, Dataverse, and SQL Server.

Troubleshooting - How to use the 'app checker' to fix a broken 'service desk' template app

When an app stops working, we can use the 'app checker'  to review the errors. To demonstrate how this works, this post describes the errors that can occur when template apps become outdated, and walks through the process of troubleshooting how to fix an app with this tool.

Connectors - How to use the Microsoft Teams connector to add messages/meeting invites to Teams

From Power Apps, we can use the Microsoft Teams connector to perform tasks in Teams. The syntax to call some of these methods can be complicated and therefore, this post describes how to carry out common tasks, including how to send messages and how to send meeting invites.

Dates - Examples of how to calculate dates relative to today

There's often the need to perform date calculations that are relative to the today's date. For example, what's the start date of the current week? What's the last day of the current quarter, or the last day of the current month? This post highlights several useful formulas that can help in this situation.