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Model Driven Forms

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Posted on by Tal22

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I built a few Model Driven Forms but my users don't like them. They find them confusing and awkward to use. It seems that Model Driven forms meant to be used by developers/IT staff and not non-technical users. My question is do any organizations actually use MDF's for their non-IT employees?

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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Shashank Bhide 942 Moderator on at

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pure model driven app can contain links to tables and view and forms, if your users are finding it hard to navigate around the MDA then possibly they are expecting a unified experience, for that you can either have a PowerPages (website) or develop a canvas app or some other custom solution. but IT or non IT staff both can easily use an MDA, it's 100% meant for end users and not developers.

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ankit_singhal 590 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Mode; driven is simplest form and easy to use and understand. You can check what they want and based to that you can create canvas app or use custom page in model driven app. then you can make UI according to your requirement.

Note: Please mark verified, if it is useful for you.

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Tal22 259 on at

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Thanks for the clarifications. My users, as well as I, prefer using MS Access. It is a much better platform that MDF, which, in my opinion, is extremely clunky, and convoluted and not even close to being a real relational database application like Access. As for Power Apps, the same, clunky and convoluted process, opposite of Access experience.

Also, this is a screen shot of a view. Notice how busy it is on the left pane with all the items that are confusing to my users.

MS Access allows simple views of any data via queries that can be viewed and exported in various formats. MDF lacks this basic capability. Not sure why Microsoft would not make an online version of Access.

I did some research and only a handful of companies use MDF and Power Apps. I am not sure I want to invest time into these platforms until they are proven legit by wide adoption.

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ankit_singhal 590 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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You are in power app edit mode thats why are you able to see left panel like this. when any business user will use power app then view will be different and simple and they will export the data in excel also. They can set filters according to their need. Just publish your app and they play your app and see the difference.

Check below link for reference:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/model-driven-apps/create-edit-views

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Tal22 259 on at

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Hi Ankit,

I am not in Power App edit mode. I am using a Model Driven Form. The instructions you posted don't track with my experience. I think it's either because that I have a different Dataverse / Power Platform license, or it could be that the instructions have not been properly translated into English. No matter, there are way too many hoops and processes to navigate to create something that should be far simpler. This is why I stick to my assertion that MDF's (and the entire Power Platform) are designed to be used by IT/Developers, not for everyday users. Hence the reason why this platform has not been and probably will never be widely adopted. I suspect someday that Microsoft will deprecate the platform. IMO, learning it is a bad investment of time.

That said, I appreciate your assistance.

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,429 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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HI

Just be clear what you said is not true. Model drive are not for IT people etc.

They have been out for decades, so you would need to share what you created, versus just a blanket statement.

Show us what you made, explain what they didn't like and go from there.

Unified experience IS in MDA, has been for a very long time., Building Canvas makes no sense unless its necessary. It makes sense but to do it to make the users like it better isnt a good reason because you can build garbiage there too and they will hate it.

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Tal22 259 on at

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FLMIKE

"Model drive(n) are not for IT people etc.

"They have been out for decades, so you would need to share what you created, versus just a blanket statement."

Several organizations I have been with had access to Microsoft's Model Driven Forms but no one ever used them because they cannot figure out the pretzel logic involved in making apps, including my current staff - definitely not for citizen developers. And the fact that the Microsoft's MDF platform has been out for decades demonstrates just how outdated that tech is. It is just horrible tech, which is why no one uses it except for large companies with an army of developers.

I guess my question should have been what cloud drag-n-drop platforms are being used by organizations and companies. I found a few answers. Kintone, Zoho and others are light years ahead of Microsoft in terms of UI and UX.

I keep forgetting that this forum is meant for IT and developer pro's, not for citizen developers/users. My apologies.

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