Convert Your Paper Processes to an Online Application

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We are kicking off a new year of growth and optimization so, with that, you may recognize that your organization is ready to move away from paper processes, duplicative data entry, and manual notifications. As such, it may be time to migrate your process and any legacy applications to the Microsoft ecosystem; however, it's necessary to understand the full scope of what that entails before you lose out on productivity.

Organizations must first determine if they have the resources for the overhaul. Will this be an initiative undertaken internally or will you outsource to consultants to complete the task? Understanding and identifying who will complete the work early-on impacts both budget and schedule so this should be addressed immediately. Organizations should also be consciously aware of costs associated with licensing as all of Microsoft's products require a license of some sort. Subsequently, you should have a good idea of how many end-users will require access.

Next, take stock of what drives your decision to migrate by identifying the current gaps within your manual process or legacy application. Determine pain points or requirements that must be addressed with the new application so you can confirm that the solution will address the critical functionality and features its predecessor does not. To do otherwise may incur a costly mistake. If your organization is updating a legacy application, do not forget to evaluate and identify which third-party connections will be required on the new platform that your current legacy application supports. Microsoft has over 275 connectors to work with third-party services. Assuming your organization is unable use one of Microsoft's connectors, organizations also have the option to create and utilize their own custom APIs with the Power Platform.

When creating or updating new applications or processes, we must always remember the data. How will you handle your legacy data? Will you migrate all of it to the new platform? Will the organization start completely new with an empty database? If migrating the data, how do you intend to accomplish that? How will the new platform and database handle the legacy data? If your migration requires cleaning the legacy data, an implementation plan for transporting and transforming to the new platform and databases is critical.

Lastly, consider the importance of training. Depending on how many end-users will have access to your application, training could potentially be a huge endeavor. As a result, a scaled training plan should be created and implemented regardless of the size of your organization. This ensures that end-users will have the resources and content to competently use the updated application without an interruption to your organization's productivity.

Key Takeaway

If you're interested in exploring the use of a consultant for your organization's migration to the Microsoft ecosystem, reach out for a consultation.

Dataverse vs. SharePoint - Which Solution is Right for You

Struggling to decide where to store your data?

The success of your next project could ultimately come down to where you store your data. Within the Microsoft ecosystem, there lies a heavy decision when deciding between the use of two of their more "user-friendly" options for saving data: SharePoint or Dataverse?

SharePoint is a solid contender for data storage when you understand the boundaries of the tool as it is not a relational database or a database, at all. As a result, it will not grant you the same functionality as the Dataverse. SharePoint is great for projects where lists with limited pivoting to one another may be more appropriate as it supports formulas for columns and is great for small volumes of data. It's also a useful resource that does not incur an additional cost on top of your Microsoft 365 Business Basic license. Cost can't always determine the solution as SharePoint has some significant drawbacks that may not be viable for your project. Before selecting SharePoint, consider:

• Delegation queries are limited so the number of records returned will be incomplete

• It lacks full audit capabilities

• It does not support business rules, logic, and validation

• It requires users to recreate lists if importing Power Platform solution into another environment or tenant

When deciding whether to use SharePoint to save my data, I think about the structure of my data set. Is it mainly row-centric where columns are not dependent upon one another. If that's the case, I am not trying to relate columns based on the values in the rows so SharePoint makes sense.

The Dataverse differs from SharePoint in every way as it is a relational database with a cost associated with it. Subsequently, the features and functionality available to you allow for more robust and complex projects. As an added convenience, when packaged within a solution, you do not have to manually configure the database when switching environments or tenants.

The Dataverse supports business process automation logic based on your data and allows its customers to secure their data on multiple levels from a role, database, and field (or column) level. Out of the box, the Dataverse comes with auditing features which is integral for change management.

Despite the advanced features within the Dataverse, it still falls short of expectations as it pertains to limited calculated and rollup column types though SharePoint is similarly limited. As a workaround, you can create these custom calculated fields in Power Bi or PowerApps, but it would be great if the Dataverse functionality was better. Microsoft recently released Power Fx which is available in preview mode within the Dataverse to support formulas.

Given the sophistication of the Dataverse, creation and maintenance may not be as straightforward for a person who has never created a database where SharePoint has a relatively easy and intuitive column creation.

Ultimately, if your data requires the following, choose Dataverse:

• Business process logic based on information in your columns

• Securing your data on a column level

• Auditing capabilities of your data

• Large volumes of data (terabytes)

• Relating columns to one or more columns

• Create once and reuse

Whereas SharePoint may be a better fit for your project if your data:

• Is small in volume

• Does not have related columns

• Does not require complex field types

#PowerApps #Dataverse #Microsoft