Category: Data

Formula - Transposing/converting rows to columns- an almost impossible task?

A common requirement is to transpose records in Power Apps - in other words, to convert rows to columns or columns to rows. This post discusses this topic and provides an example of how to carry out this task.

Data - How to rename field names in a record

From time to time, it may be necessary to rename a field name in a record. This post describes the formula to carry out this task.

Data - How to hide duplicate rows in a gallery / show distinct multiple columns in a gallery

A common requirement to show multiple distinct columns, or to hide duplicate rows in a gallery control. This post highlights a technique to carry out this task.

Data - Retrieving news/forum/blog articles with RSS

If you want to build an app that retrieves, displays, aggregates, and saves news articles, one way to acomplish this is to use RSS. This post describes how to retrieve content by using the RSS connector in Power Apps.

Data - How to sort by partial numbers in a text field

A challenge that we may encounter is, how can we sort a table/list of records by a number that partially appears in a field? An example of where this could occur is where we want to sort manufacturing product descriptions that contain the numeric part number, and we want to sort by the numeric portion of this text. This post describes the formula we can use to carry out this task.

Data - How to return the last record from a table

A common question from app builders is, how do we return the last record from a table? The reason for this question is because the Last function may not return the expected record. This post examines this behaviour and describes the most efficient way to return the last record from a table.

Data - How to create bulk test/dummy records with random values

When building apps, it's useful to be able to populate tables with dummy or test records so that we can test and see how our app behaves. This post demonstrates formula to generate multiple records with random values, and how to add those records to a table.

Data - 3 things you should know before using the MySQL or PostgreSQL connectors

If you're thinking of using Power Apps to connect to MySQL or PostgreSQL databases, here are 3 things you should be aware of before you start.

Data - A walkthrough of how to migrate the data source of an app from Excel to Sharepoint

How easy is it to migrate the data source of an app from from Excel to SharePoint? This post describes the steps that are needed to carry out a data migration, and provides a demonstration by walking through the steps to migrate the sample Service Desk app from Excel to SharePoint.

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.

Data - How much mobile data does Power Apps consume? What ways can we minimise this?

In general, mobile/4G data is more limited and expensive compared to Wifi. Therefore, a question that some app builders want to know, particularly in cases when they start exploring Power Apps is, how much data does a typical Power Apps use?

Data - How to save and retrieve Google calendar entries

Power Apps provides a connector to retrieve and to add Google calendar entries. The syntax for this connector isn't very obvious so in this post, we'll walk through an example of how to display contacts in a gallery control, and how to add contacts to a Google account.

Data - How to save and retrieve Google contacts

Power Apps provides a connector to retrieve and to add contacts that are stored in Google. The syntax for this connector isn't very obvious so in this post, we'll walk through an example of how to display contacts in a gallery control, and how to add contacts to a Google account.

SQL - Caution! This is how users can hack shared SQL connections

Is your SQL Server data as secure as you think? If we create a shared 'implicit' connection, our database may be more open than we think. In this post, we'll look at how users can exploit the security vulnerability that is associated with this connection type.

SharePoint – 2 Mistakes to avoid when importing Excel data

At some point, many app builders want to use the SharePoint feature to import Excel data into a new list. There's a 'knack' to doing this and in this post, I'll describe the settings to make this process as smooth as possible.