A PowerApps solution for audit scenarios

In my opinion, the one enterprise use-case that PowerApps is born for is handling checklist or audit scenarios. To this day, organsiations large and small fill in paper checklists that often end up in a filing cabinet, adding no value whatsoever. PowerApps - with a little help from Flow and PowerBI - has several compelling features to address this effectively.

As a consultant, I have deployed PowerApps for various scenarios like this and noticed similarities. For example: inspecting a vehicle is not too different than going through all of the checklists before performing high risk electrical work or checking on the condition of equipment in a park or public space. In all cases there is a checklist, the need to take photos, record details of non-conformance with expectations, and often there is a need to work without the benefit of internet - at least where I live anyway. 

So eventually I decided to create a generic audit app, that could be adjusted and used by various organsiations. The design goals were to:

• Perform different types of inspections in a single app
• Show upcoming inspections based on location
• Save inspection into SharePoint list
• Upload photos into SharePoint with GPS and weather data
• Work in remote and offline scenarios

Now when I say "create" the app, what I really mean is I envisioned the app. I actually cajoled my daughter, Ashlee Culmsee to create it. If you have not come across Ashlee's work yet, then check out her answer to the fidget spinner challenge for an example of what PowerApps is capable of.

This, however, was the real-world project that enabled Ashlee to learn PowerApps in the first place. It showcases that someone with little real-world experience can produce a highly effective solution, especially if the customer (in this case dear old dad) has a goodd idea of what they need. 

For a quick overview of the solution (less than 5 minutes), Ashlee recorded a short video covering how the app works and its major features.

If you are interested in a little more depth, Ashlee and I also recorded a 25 minute video where we cover:

• how to design a single app that can be used for multiple audit scenarios (rather than 1 app per audit type)
• how to use your phone to take a photo and add it straight into the PowerApps app
• how to connect to a weather service to retrieve live data such as temperatures and humidity levels.
• how to select your current location in Google maps.
• a great trick using Flow to handle photos and other rich media into SharePoint with metadata tagging
• how bad my typing is in general 🙂

There is a lot to the app, and we will be recording a more detailed breakdown about some of the key features.

I hope this example inspires your own ideas. Also, if you can think of more enhancements. let us know!

Paul and Ashlee Culmsee