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Canvas app or model-driven app?
Apps we are asked to build
Receiving and counts
Scan a barcode, confirm quantities against the purchase order in Business Central, take a photo of damage and post the receipt, all from one screen.
- ✓Barcode scanning with the device camera
- ✓Photo capture to SharePoint
- ✓Offline capture where signal is poor
Inspections and checklists
Step-by-step inspection forms with pass or fail rules, signatures and automatic follow-up tasks when something fails.
- ✓Conditional questions
- ✓Signature capture
- ✓Follow-up actions through Power Automate
Requests and approvals
Purchase requests, new vendor requests or credit applications collected in a structured form, checked, then created in Business Central after approval.
- ✓Role-based screens
- ✓Approval history
- ✓Duplicate checks before creation
Job and time capture
Technicians or consultants record time, materials and notes against jobs or projects, and the lines land in Business Central journals for review.
- ✓Job and task pickers
- ✓Mileage and expense lines
- ✓Manager review before posting
Design decisions that decide whether the app lasts
The first choice is where the data lives. Writing straight to Business Central through its connector or API keeps a single source of truth, but every screen then depends on Business Central permissions and response times. Staging data in Dataverse gives offline support and richer security, at the cost of a second copy to keep in step. Business Central virtual tables in Dataverse sit between the two.
The second is delegation. Canvas apps push filtering to the data source only for supported functions; anything else is applied to the first batch of records the app downloads, which is 500 by default and 2,000 at most. An item lookup that works in testing can silently miss records in production. We design queries so the source does the filtering.
The third is licensing. Apps that use Dataverse or premium connectors need a Power Apps premium or per-app licence for every user. For a shop floor app used by a large crew, that can change the business case, so it is settled on paper before any screen is drawn.
How an app gets built
- 1
Watch the task being done today
We sit with the people who will use the app, count the taps they need, and note where gloves, poor signal or bright light will get in the way.
- 2
Sketch and agree
A clickable prototype with your real field names is shown to users before the data layer is built. Changing a sketch is free; changing a finished app is not.
- 3
Build inside a solution
Apps, flows, tables and environment variables are packaged in one solution, stored in source control, and moved from test to production without manual rebuilding.
- 4
Hand it over with a runbook
Your administrator gets the solution, a description of each screen and data connection, and the steps to add users or change a threshold.
Hiring a Power Apps developer: common questions
Why not just use the Business Central mobile app?
Often you should. The Business Central app on iOS and Android shows the same role centers and pages as the browser. A Power App earns its place when the task needs a simpler screen than a full ERP page, a user who does not hold a Business Central licence, or data from several systems in one place.
Can people without a Business Central licence use the app?
Only within Microsoft's licensing rules. The app still connects to Business Central through an account, and Microsoft's multiplexing rules say that users reaching Business Central data indirectly still need an appropriate licence. We explain the published rules for your scenario and your licensing partner confirms the detail.
Does it work offline?
Canvas apps can work offline when they are built for it, most reliably with Dataverse as the data source. The app stores records on the device and syncs when a connection returns. Conflicts, where two people change the same record, have to be designed for, not left to chance.
Who can maintain the app after you hand it over?
Anyone comfortable with Excel formulas can learn to make small changes in a canvas app, and we show your administrator how. Structural changes, new tables or new integrations are better done in a test environment first, and we document how to do that.
Talk to us about your project.
Tell us what you run today and what has to change. A senior consultant replies with a written next step.