Power apps integration

Van Tam Ho

Hi All,

Not sure if this is the right place for power apps question but I am trying to create an app that connects to the events api module that I connected too. But I cannot get it to show all the events we have in a drop down box.

Is it possible to show all events we have in our system in a drop down box in power apps directly rather than using microsoft flow?

Thanks

Alex Wong

@Van Tam Ho
This probably belongs in the SKY Developer community forum.

I am not aware that there is connector for Power Apps. I know there is connector for Power BI that allows you to get RE data into Power BI for visualization.

Can you explain a bit more on what you trying to achieve with a Power Apps?

Van Tam Ho

@Alex Wong Hi, thanks for comming back to me.

Im looking at creating an app using power apps to pull through event information like signups. I have linked blackbaud to power apps, so I can see it in my list, but after having tried most things, I cannot get my drop down list to show any event information like event(s) or participants and was wondering if it can be done.

Im sure it can be done as the link between power apps and blackbaud is already connected.

I have done the same with Power BI and have created reports using the direct connection establised which is great, but using power apps would be even better.

If I need to move it to a different forum, I can do this, but I didnt know.

Thanks for any advice

Alex Wong

@Van Tam Ho
If you can provide some screenshot of what you mean by “I have linked blackbaud to power apps” that will help me understand your terminology and how you have it now that isn't working for you.

Also, if you are planning to show information only, then I would suggest you use Power BI instead. PowerApp is more useful when you have to interact with the data and do something to them

Van Tam Ho

@Alex Wong
Im not planning on just showing information as normally I would use power bi for that, im looking to interact with the data (please see screenshot of data source connectivity).

Using combined power apps and flow to create the interaction between specific data sets like events information.

Alex Wong

@Van Tam Ho
I don't see any screenshot, please repost it.

Van Tam Ho

@Alex Wong

Alex Wong

@Van Tam Ho
Honestly, I have not seen Blackbaud connector being used this way in PowerApps directly before. I just gave it a try and it doesn't look like it is connection to anything to pull data.

@Ben Wong are you aware this is a functionality that works in PowerApps or there's some missing configuration

For my org, I pull data from SKY API via Power Automate and dump into Azure SQL Server, which then PowerApps can easily grab from. So I'm not sure if others have experience in doing it directly in PowerApps. I hope to hear from others too.

Van Tam Ho

@Alex Wong It seems abit backwards to have the need to use power automate to pull the data into azure to then pull the information required when it should be able to connect directly to the data source of the that data through the existing connection that has been made through power automate.

I may well be wrong in what im trying to do as there maybe a need for an additional connector to be able to pull the data rather than just output the data which in terms is pointless as this information can be output directly through power bi.

The use of power apps is to create apps faster, so surely creating drop down lists would be a use of it and being able to pull that data from our connection is the point of it.

I do appreciate your response.

Alex Wong

@Van Tam Ho
it depends on what you trying to do. If you only need to “run/connect” to API once..and get few endpoints of data and show it/work with it, then “directly” get some data “may” be a good idea.

However, for my purposes, which I need a lot more data, having the data first pulled into a data warehouse makes more sense. I run a few PowerApps that depends on multiple tables of data (i.e. one PowerApp uses gift table, gift attribute/custom field table, constituent table, constituent code table, constituent attribute/custom field table, campaign/fund/appeal/package and its respective attribute table), another dozen of PowerBI that depends on multiple of the same tables and others.

It makes more sense to me that I run the SKY API to get all the data available 5x a day (every 4 hours except for late night) rather than having each Power BI/Apps to pull the same table of data multiple times.

Also, I find working with certain data difficult and not efficient when handled directly with the Blackbaud connector (i.e. attribute/custom field, esp those that BB SKY API does not give you a full list, but rather only give you 1 record at a time)

Van Tam Ho

@Alex Wong
I use the data points for specific things like Power BI but also as not all end points are setup, I then need to run off my additional exports to link them up within Power BI as our organisation do not utilise data warehouse so its the only way I can do it to use the sky api connectors within Power BI.

But for the purpose of power apps, my initial thought was for anything to utilise apps to build, the data source connectivity would use the connected data (api) to connect to our data and then we can code it to use to pull the data (into a list) for it to be displayed and then use flow to do the rest of what I need.

Maybe I need to re-look at this and see if there is another way round or try and get it to work.