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Home / Insights / Blog / Dynamics 365 PowerApps: 5 Common Challenges and Solutions
June 16, 2020 - by Synoptek
In today’s hyper-digital age, empowering employees with modern workplace tools has become critical to boosting productivity and efficiency. Dynamics 365 PowerApps offers organizations a great way to boost collaboration; by offering an array of connectors, services, apps, and data platforms, it allows business users to spin up apps and leverage several tailored problem-solving capabilities to meet business goals.
Users can create their own apps – either by building it from the ground up or by choosing from an array of pre-built templates – and connect them with existing data sources to track finances, streamline projects, and collaborate with employees.
However, despite the many ways in which PowerApps helps meet the needs of modern businesses, users often complain of challenges they face while using PowerApps – from problems concerning downloading attachments to image issues, publishing issues, media control issues, and more. Although most of these problems have quick and easy workarounds, users need to be aware of them as well as the solutions to each of them. Listed below are common issues specific to Dynamics 365 PowerApps that you need to be aware of:
If you are experiencing issues while signing in using authenticator on your Android mobile device, it is due to a problem with limited functionality. When Microsoft Azure Active Directory Authentication Library generates this error, it is advisable to implement user guidance. If possible, tailor the guidance to the device being used.
When importing camera images from Edge, users who use the legacy Edge browser might find their images getting flipped. To overcome this issue, they need to use Microsoft Edge (or any other browser).
Users who find iOS device images that do not contain any meta-data information, need to use Picture Control to take photos or upload image files from their device and update the data source with this content.
Users with Android mobile devices might find their camera control dysfunctional – due to a change in the Android OS. Since Microsoft has already updated camera control in response to this change, all you need to do is republish your app and reopen it on your Android device.
When it comes to downloading attachments in SharePoint or PowerApps, users often do not get any response. This issue arises for users using Google Chrome version 83 or Microsoft Edge version 83. While Microsoft is actively working to fix this issue, the only way now is for users to use a different browser to download attachments.
If you face problems while scrolling with your finger, lift it and start to scroll again. Drawing with a mouse or using touch input might be intermittent; this is because the pen control has partial support for drawing using the mouse or touch input in the Windows app. To enable smooth drawing, use a pen or run the app in a browser.
For users who haven’t updated PowerApps in several months, it is a good idea to republish it to sync with the most recent version of Power Apps – to overcome common operational issues and make the most of performance improvements and other fixes.
If you run out of memory while using Power Apps, make sure to download a 64-bit version of your browser – irrespective of whether you are using Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Internet Explorer.
For users trying to launch a website from an embedded app, your Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge browser might block the launch of a URL that’s in protected mode or with lesser security than the website in which the app is loaded. To overcome this issue, change the security and privacy settings for your browser.
When copying and pasting a Data Table, you might find the formula for the Items property containing a _1 suffix – which makes field names invalid. To overcome this issue, make sure the Filter function does not reference any field in the data source with the same name before copying the control.
Although PowerApps works with large data sources, you might get a warning at the authoring stage for apps that are created from data – since only the first 500 records of a data source can be accessed. This issue can be resolved by using the Filter function that finds records in a table that satisfy a formula; it helps you find a set of records that match one or more criteria and discards those that don’t.
If you create an app using Power Apps build 2.0.540 or earlier, you might get a notification saying API was not found. This issue comes up because the previous versions of PowerApps rely on a database in the Common Data Service and at least one custom connector in a different environment. To deploy the connector to the same environment as the database, you will need to update the app to use the new connector.
PowerApps is the perfect tool for the modern business user to improve productivity and efficiency while collaborating with peers and sharing data and working on tasks as a team. By offering the capability to connect to various data sources such as Excel, SharePoint, Salesforce, Dynamics CRM, Office 365, and more, it allows users to spin up need-based apps in a matter of minutes. For making the most of PowerApps and driving maximum value from your PowerApps investment, it is important to be aware of its common issues, challenges, and workarounds.
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