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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Apps - Microsoft Dataverse / Dataverse design for a...
Power Apps - Microsoft Dataverse
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Dataverse design for an Inventory PowerApp

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Posted on 17 Aug 2023 14:11:01 by MaFe 5

Hello

 

I'm tasked with creating a power app that will be used to keep inventory of parts, tools and euipment on a hotel ship.

The idea is to create a list of items with meta data and quantity for different department (hotel, nautical, maintenance, gastro)

Then couple of times every year, employees will receive a task to check each item and quantity and log current state.

In the end the approved outcome of this task will be used to update inventory status for every item.

 

I'm new to PowerApps and Dataverse & I'm looking for help to review my tables design.

 

  • Do I need to add CreatedAt/UpdatedAt/UpdatedBy data to tables or is this automaticaly done in Dataverse ?
  • Am I missing anything that might bite me later ?
  • Do you have any suggestions how to adjust my design ?

Thanks

Marek

Categories:
Microsoft Dataverse
Tables
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  • Drew Poggemann Profile Picture
    Drew Poggemann 9,278 Most Valuable Professional on 17 Aug 2023 at 15:22:31
    Re: Dataverse design for an Inventory PowerApp

    Hi @MaFe ,

    Thoughts on your data model (after initial review)

    1. First of all, the createdon, modifiedon, created by, modified by fields all exist on the dataverse.  You will not need to create these.
    2. The Owner field on the tables is out of the box as well so where you have "UserID", this would be exist already and allow you to assign records to users or teams.
    3. Status Table - normally you would utilize the Status and Status Reason fields on the tables and not have a separate table for this.
    4. As I think about the Location, Storage Room, Stock Status tables
      1. Inventory - This table could have the fields like the Item (FK), Location Type, Quantity, Disposition, Location.  This would be the current inventory position for each item at a location. 
      2. Location - This table would be the locations of the inventory.  Should have things like Name, GPS, Address, etc.  You might want to look at this having a parentID as well on this table to the same table to be able to have hierarchies of locations.  
      3. I didn't see any transaction table for inventory in / out.  If you needed this it would also add some complexity to the structure
    5. I see you have a relationship from Inventory Task to Item where it looks backwards.  You should have a 1:N from the Item to the Inventory Task vs. the opposite.  
    6. I would not create an Item Meta table but utilize the Item table for this information.
    7.  
  • MarioRing Profile Picture
    MarioRing 541 Super User 2024 Season 1 on 17 Aug 2023 at 15:06:15
    Re: Dataverse design for an Inventory PowerApp

    Hi,

    I love your design! I am personally into old-school software design - today in no-code/low-code universe people usually forget to create and validate the design before they start actual customization. Excellent job! You can also draw use cases and sketch the forms/screens of the user interface.

     

    Do you want to use Model Driven App or Canvas one?

     

    There are some additional concepts that you should check - how security roles work, and when choose "Option Set" instead of lookup to another table.

     

    On the other hand, if it's a new area to you, you can improvise and start building your solution directly in the app to verify your ideas.

     

    By default, all Dataverse tables have "Created on/by" and "Modified on/by" columns, and they are automatically populated by the system. 

     

    Inventory management is an extremely popular type of application, you can analyze some template solutions provided by Microsoft to get more ideas. Go to https://make.powerapps.com, click "+Create" button and choose "Asset Checkout" or "Inventory Management" templates. You can also find many insightful video tutorials on YouTube. 

     

    Focus on user experience - try to make the app as much accessible and convenient to use as you can. 

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