Dataverse Explained: Upscaling from Sharepoint

[@BulbDigital]

Dataverse can feel intimidating! What encouragement do you have or what is holding you back?

[@qaazz]

The first point in this video really hits home for me, it's so nice once you get over all the initial hurdles of getting used to Dataverse. What really kicked things off for me was the "Dataverse for Teams" option, which is free as long as you run the applications inside of teams and can live with the limitations.

[@joel.engelhardt]

This video is remarkable! Wow! He is so well-spoken and clear. Thanks!

[@BulbDigital]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Bekesam]

Probably the biggest difficulty in changing to dataverse is the conversion process from Sharepoint. If Powerapps could handle the mapping, not just of all the Sharepoint Lists, but also updated the Canvas app code, then that would be great. I do think Dataverse has a lot of potential, but will wait for more improvements to the conversion process. It has come a long way since I looked it 5 years ago, and hopefully we will be on the Dataverse boat soon! The other major issue is that we deal with Documents, and Dataverse cost in dealing with documents is cost prohibitive. This also needs to be sorted out. Bottom Line: If Microsoft wants users to switch to Dataverse from Sharepoint, then the obligation is on them to make it so that it would be silly not to.

[@BulbDigital]

Ahh, there's that sunk cost biting again! I think there's a couple things I would say in response to this comment. First, if you're going the Dataverse route, your'e going to pay for some licenses. If this is the case, then maybe rebuilding your app as a Model Driven App rather than keeping your Canvas investment should be considered. I say this because I believe 90% of the time you can build the same functionality with a Model Driven App in less than one tenth of the effort. I have a new video we just released that lays this out in more detail. Second, the document problem has long been solved with the use of SharePoint Document Integration. Check it out... learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/set-up-sharepoint-integration

[@mikeymouse2]

Just the info I was looking for

[@closedchill5243]

It would be helpful to see a detailed price breakdown with a realistic scenario. Yes using Sharepoint is really time consuming and inefficient compared to Dataverse. You can do poor mans ALM with Sharepoint. You can do poor mans security with Sharepoint. You can do a relational database with Sharepoint. Managers with control of the purse often don't really care if life is hard for a highly paid dev. What would help is a realistic scenario showing real number cost savings due to using Dataverse, or a project that is truly impossible in SharePoint but possible in Dataverse.

[@BulbDigital]

Your comment echoes what some others have posted. With any single effort you'd almost need to build both ways and make a comparison. Or have accurate data about the build you did using SharePoint and then track the same data when you rebuild with Dataverse. This can make it difficult to calculate. It's not always about the expense associated with a single application. We see the biggest gain when an organization can make a strategic shift and apply Dataverse to a higher percentage of scenarios. This is a big reason we advocate for the strategic approach. Figuring out how to bring the "purse managers" along on the journey can be difficult. In terms of the price question, often the easiest way to justify license cost, build cost, ownership cost will be in terms of what it will do for your business. So, if you can make a case that is tied directly to a revenue increase or increase in profitability, the license cost can become a rounding error, making it an easy decision. If we were to list a few things that you simply cannot or should not do with a SharePoint back end, they'd be... - More than 2000 rows - Column level security - Use cases that demand complex permission schemes - Use cases that require advanced row level security

[@navarrocloud]

Can you point to some documentation or examples where it shows that the Power Apps is aware of the relationships when using Dataverse as the Datasource?

[@BulbDigital]

@navarrocloud yes, I can speak from personal experience. While working on a Canvas App this week having many tables, two of which are Device and Case. The Case has a relationship / lookup column called Device. While updating a label within the item template in a vertical gallery using Devices as my source (Items). I was able to use CountRows(ThisItem.Cases) in order to get the number of cases that were related to the given device. That's just a 30 second example. This "feature" is most useful in terms of the intellisense used when writing expressions against Dataverse datasources, which is what is demonstrated above. There are some ways to build "data first" screens in your canvas app, but it's not at the same level you get with building a Model Driven App. I found this article to be helpful in laying out all of the ways relationships can be created in Dataverse and might be leveraged within a Canvas App. Check the links at the top of the article to dive in to each one more... thepoweraddict.com/how-to-master-dataverse-relationships-in-canvas-apps/

[@navarrocloud]

@@BulbDigital Great. Thank you very much appreciated.

[@nevilleattkins586]

You make a good case for why Dataverse makes sense as a backend over cludged sharepoint lists. But what undermines this sensible story is powerapps - there are very few who understand it in deeply enough to get the benefit. Can dataverse be used with React as the front end?

[@BulbDigital]

Love the question! Indeed Power Apps is intended first as a dev tool for "business users". To that end it's not necessarily the most familiar tool for pro developers. However, I'd say unless you have a unique or niche user experience requirement, it's going to be hard to beat the speed at which you can build a full featured business app with Power Apps vs. a custom app with React. That said, Dataverse has a robust OData Web API that you can leverage with any front end framework you'd like. Of course you need to do all the authentication things (OAuth2), and your users must be licensed to connect to Dataverse, but if you're doing that properly then all the rest is C.R.U.D. and whatever UX you want to put in front of it... learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/developer/data-platform/webapi/overview One additional point I'd make is that React is actually the front end framework of choice if you're going to build custom components for your Power Apps... learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/developer/component-framework/react-controls-platform-libraries

[@EdirinImiruaye]

One big issue I have with moving away from SharePoint is version history. Being able to quickly check who and when changes were made and roll back to a previous version is extremely key in my organization. Any way to move over to dataverse and still have this?

[@BulbDigital]

The easy thing you can do out of the box with data verse is turn on audit tracking. This can be enabled at the individual table level so you don't have to turn it on for everything. It will allow you to see exactly what happened when and who did it. Unfortunately it does not give you the ability to easily roll back to a previous version. There are all sorts of other implications that you would have to deal with if you wanted to roll back individual records in a relational database. If you most care about version history and rolling back to previous versions of documents then you can enable SharePoint document integration for your data verse entity and get the best of both worlds.

[@EdirinImiruaye]

@@BulbDigital thanks, guess I’m on a path towards change management

[@alexk7837]

Do you have any videos on dataverse management and upkeep?

[@BulbDigital]

At the moment we don't have anything specific to point you to, but we love that suggestion. Are you interested in the Power Platform environments administration side of that question, or more from a solution / app operational side of things? Another way to ask might be... "Dataverse storage / usage / capacity / feature updates?" or something like "Medium to long term strategies for managing my app data? "

[@alexk7837]

@@BulbDigital I guess both are valid tracks, but I was seeking a strategy for managing data as it expands and becomes stale. How do you mitigate data duplication?

[@Ploplox]

Does dataverse not have a 5000/2000 row limit within powerapps as well?

[@BulbDigital]

The row limit is specifically configured / applied by a Canvas app. It is defaulted to 500 and can be increased to 2000. This is regardless of the data source you are using. The key difference is that Dataverse does not have the same limitations when it comes to delegable filters as SharePoint. What this means is that you can apply filters in your Canvas app to a Dataverse table that has 100k rows, and the filter logic is pushed to Dataverse to sort out, rather than only being able to pull the first 2000 rows and apply the filter to only those 2000. So, if the data you're looking for happens to be at the bottom of the 100k rows, the filter gets applied across all 100k rows and you will have a complete dataset matching your filters (up to 2000 rows in a Canvas app). If you need more than 2k rows, then there are some other ways to work around this limitation, like using pagination, etc. If you make it past the licensing hurdle with Dataverse, I'd recommend looking further at Model Driven Apps. The modern UI supports mobile layouts and handles more than 2k rows with infinite scroll, etc... all more or less out of the box.

[@Ploplox]

@@BulbDigital thanks for this detailed response. I'm toying with the idea of model driven solution but I think it might be a tough sell for my company tbh

[@BulbDigital]

Well, then your next video is this one... kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4XZh6SDjrqmadU

[@tonya3308]

I like the concept of Dataverse, but I can do so much more with SQL Server. Is there a way to create views with Dataverse like you can with SQL Server? We have on prem sql server and the gateway is as slow as molasses on winter day. But dataverse seems like a little more complex SharePoint and I truly hate SharePoint as a datasource.

[@BulbDigital]

SQL Server is very powerful and if you've made investments in custom developed apps, or you have super low data latency requirements, it might make sense to stay there. From the sounds of it though you're probably building Canvas Apps that use your SQL, so that's probably not a valid reason to stay with SQL. Dataverse is by no means a more complex SharePoint. I consider it to be an enterprise ready data platform. The real value realized with Dataverse happens once you unlock your ability to build Model Driven Apps. If you can get there, you'll find that many of the other things you're building manually in your Canvas Apps are just built-in and can save you tons of time. Think of it like an enterprise ready, no code application platform, sitting atop an enterprise ready cloud data store. Can you create views? Yes. Dataverse lets you create system views which can be configured with specific fields, filter criteria, and sorting. System views can be leveraged both in Model Driven Apps as well as in Canvas Apps, enabling you to tweak something at the view level that will ripple to all the apps that use that view. Here's a link to a good blog post on how to do just that... powerappsguide.com/blog/post/how-to-create-and-use-dataverse-views

[@ZombieEtiquette]

Dataverse isn't very viable when you are building apps for company wide (400-800 staff) use, since every user that uses that app has to have a power apps premium license ($20/user/mo)

[@BulbDigital]

First, not every user needs the $20 / month per user license. You have other choices like Per App licensing, which is a $5 / month add-on per user accessing a single app. Additionally, you can start with Pay as you go licensing to assess real usage to see what you really need. I think the other thing I'd say is if your organization is 600 strong, and the apps you're rolling out to "everyone" are core to the business, then it's certainly within reason that you'd need to spend some money on an annual basis to run and operate these apps. Applying the per app pricing to 600 users for a year means $36k for an app that has significant impact. I know of companies that spend way more money on software solutions that help them accomplish their mission. If you're building apps that are not connected to a measurable outcome that matters, then you're right, it's too much money. Why would you build that app in the first place?

[@EMiller500]

@@BulbDigital I started in Dataverse (before SharePoint), by creating apps with Dataverse in Teams. My understanding is that this doesn't involve any additional licensing, right? Whoever has access to the Team, has access to the app, right?

[@michaelbodell6337]

@@EMiller500 Dataverse for Teams does not require additional licensing, that is correct. However, this does not create a full featured Dataverse environment. If you want that, then you'll need to purchase per user, per app, or pay as you go licensing for Power Apps.

[@EMiller500]

@@michaelbodell6337 Yes, I understand that. But what exactly are the elements of a "full-featured Dataverse environment" that Dataverse for Teams lacks?

[@ENG.Kelvinffxgchfhg]

Unfortunately no logarithm functions are supported in Dataverse

[@BulbDigital]

If you need to do complex math, you might want to look at the use of Power BI, or even embedding Power BI into your office apps. We have another video coming soon on this topic! Power Query and DAX both offer LOG functions which can be used in Power BI. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powerquery-m/number-log learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dax/log-function-dax

[@FenixFenix-p5p]

moving table in 18 min? couldnt you do it in 2?

[@BulbDigital]

Is that what you got out of the video?

[@joaopedrostefanon9642]

Thank you ma boy

[@BulbDigital]

No problem, glad we could help!

[@Plainace]

Managed to convince a multi billion dollar company to FINALLY invest in the licenses - can finally move out of Sharepoint 🎉

[@BulbDigital]

Woohoo! Seems like it shouldn't be so difficult, right? This is a problem we think about quite a lot actually. There can be many hurdles to overcome when trying to get leadership to unlock something great. Often, they're in that position because they're good at what they do, and often what they do simply isn't technology related. We are always looking for ways to effectively identify and articulate the value technology can bring to the workplace. @Plainace what approach worked for you?

[@Plainace]

@@BulbDigital When 25,000 users are using a canvas app with a SharePoint back end, performance issues become way more obvious - that's all the convincing I needed :D

[@ENG.Kelvinffxgchfhg]

Mathematical functions have a long way to go. Excel is better in calculation by far

[@BulbDigital]

Thanks for the comment! This video has to do with switching from SharePoint to Dataverse as a backend for a modern app. Excel wasn't really part of the discussion. Surely you're not suggesting Excel as the right solution for building apps 🫤