Automation of processes with PowerApps

Project description

The main research question was: “How can the process regarding the automation of compliance forms be standardised and how to gain insight in the collected data?”

The project is related to HLB Witlox Van Den Boomen’s desire to be more transparent in their way of working according to compliance, in order to be compliant towards regulation and society. This is important to accelerate in decision-making towards situations like data leaks and risk information. HLB WVDB is already working with PowerApps, but they want to know if there are some new possibilities within PowerApps.

Context

HLB Witlox Van den Boomen is an international, multidisciplinary consultancy. This organization was established in 2021 after a merger between HLB Advisers and Accountants and Witlox van den Boomen. Their clientele is very diverse, from family businesses to international SMEs.

The mission of HLB WVDB is as follows: “Together we make it happen”. HLB Witlox van den Boomen provides added value and quality through multidisciplinary teams, enabling clients to achieve their goals.

Results

The research shows that development time could be saved by using the component library over copying and pasting over elements from previous PowerApps. Regarding standardizing actual form content, there currently is not much availability to do this. Another option is using model-driven apps, which generate PowerApps based on the data source, but it less customizable, which is something HLB Witlox van den Boomen finds very important. Data gathered in these apps should be stored in Dataverse instead of Microsoft Lists because it has more security and governance options, business logic and rules can be applied, and has a similar ease of scalability. Data gathered in these forms is available in a redesigned Power BI report, which fixed an issue with readability and useability. These reports contain 2-3 KPI’s and KRI’s out of the functional design that the compliance officer deemed the most value. This report would give the compliance officer and the board of directors direct insight into potential risks and alert them timely.