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Running timer in the background with app minimized

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Posted on by AccessPowerApps

I ran into a problem with PowerApps not having built-in capabilities for running background tasks or timers… the app must be in the foreground for the timer to run. The business need is time tracking of 100 snow removal employees on 100 separate properties. Each property is billed for the hours worked to clear the snow. The employees will move between properties throughout the day and we do not want to count on them to check in and out of each job… if we get them to check in and out for the day we are happy. The game plan was to have a start button to kick off the process and every 5mins the timer sends the lat & long into a SQL database for each user until they hit the end button. In SQL we would geo code against the fences for each property and roll the hours together. The key is to get the user with their current lat and long every 5mins

Searching I found others that faced the same challenge and not really a clean way to handle…

How would you approach? Has there been changes to PowerApps to fix this that can be activated? I have never used Flows… if this is a viable option, please provide newbie level instruction or pointers.

Thank you in advance for your reply.

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Building Power Apps

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,335 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi,

Is this a mobile device? or a laptop?
If its a mobile device, some of it is dependent on the OS, not the app at all unfortunately.

And no for Power Automate. Similar issues with PA Desktop, which youd have to combine with PA Cloud
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Michael Gernaey MCT | MCSE | MCP | Self-Contractor| Ex-Microsoft
https://gernaeysoftware.com
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AccessPowerApps 15 on at

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It needs to be a phone app ... phone in one hand and a shovel in the other.

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,335 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Yeah, sorry its not just an issue specifically in a power app, the literally phone iOS/Android/Windows etc have different requirements/abilities and then its not so much more than data sync.

sorry
Cheers
If you like my answer, please Mark it as Resolved, and give it a thumbs up, so it can help others
Thank You
Michael Gernaey MCT | MCSE | MCP | Self-Contractor| Ex-Microsoft
https://gernaeysoftware.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgernaey

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AccessPowerApps 15 on at

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Is there a way to get off the rails and do anything outside the box or custom and still meet the goal?

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,335 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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I am unaware of a way to do what you are asking in the background. I'd have to really think about it.

Hmm I wonder if you could use an HTTP Connector (in the app), in the Timer, that would call an API you expose (Azure Function, Web API, Power Automate HTTP Trigger)... I haven't tried it but possibly that would still run in the background.

I'd say if you dont mind giving that a shot.

Cheers
If you like my answer, please Mark it as Resolved, and give it a thumbs up, so it can help others
Thank You
Michael Gernaey MCT | MCSE | MCP | Self-Contractor| Ex-Microsoft
https://gernaeysoftware.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgernaey

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AccessPowerApps 15 on at

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Thank you for your responds FLMike
With the lat and long changing every 5 minutes those parameters would have to come from the clients device and then do a Patch or call an Endpoint. If the timer will not run in the background on Power Apps how can we trigger that event? It would not run for me in the background with a simple UpdateContent to increment a number on a label and nothing else. It is my understanding that Power Apps does not have any kind of background services, but Power Automate does. If we install Power Automate alongside Power Apps has anyone worked out a solution?

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