10 Things You Should Never Do in Power Apps

Microsoft Power Apps is a powerful platform that allows users to create custom applications for their businesses without requiring extensive coding skills. While it simplifies app development, there are still best practices that need to be followed to avoid common pitfalls. Here are ten things you should never do in Power Apps to ensure your applications are efficient, scalable, and easy to maintain.

1. Using Global Variables Excessively

Why It’s a Problem:

While global variables can be useful, overusing them can lead to performance issues and make your app harder to debug. They make it difficult to track how and when data is modified, increasing the risk of unintended side effects.

What to Do Instead:

Minimize the use of global variables and rely more on local variables or context variables, which are limited in scope and easier to manage. Also, consider using collections or directly binding controls to data sources instead of depending on variables for state management.

2. Neglecting to Optimize for Mobile Devices

Why It’s a Problem:

Power Apps allows you to build apps that run on both desktops and mobile devices. If you don't optimize your app for mobile, you could end up with an application that performs poorly or is difficult to use on smaller screens, resulting in a frustrating user experience.

What to Do Instead:

Always test your app on mobile devices and use responsive design principles. Ensure that buttons, text fields, and other UI elements are appropriately sized for touch inputs and adjust layouts to fit smaller screens.

3. Overloading Forms with Too Many Controls

Why It’s a Problem:

Loading too many controls, especially in a single form, can significantly degrade the performance of your app. Power Apps must load each control individually, which can slow down load times and reduce the user experience.

What to Do Instead:

Simplify your forms and avoid adding unnecessary controls. If your app requires many input fields, break them up into multiple screens or use tabs to manage the complexity. This will improve performance and make the user experience more intuitive.

4. Hardcoding Values in Your App

Why It’s a Problem:

Hardcoding values directly into your app, such as URLs, user names, or other static data, creates a maintenance nightmare. Every time a value changes, you have to manually update the app, increasing the risk of errors.

What to Do Instead:

Store values in SharePoint lists, databases, or environment variables where they can be easily updated. This way, your app becomes more flexible and maintainable. It also allows non-technical users to update certain data without having to modify the app itself.

5. Skipping Performance Testing with Real Data

Why It’s a Problem:

Testing your app only with sample data or minimal datasets can give you a false sense of its performance. Once the app is in production and connected to real data sources, especially large datasets, it may experience significant slowdowns or even timeouts.

What to Do Instead:

Always test your app with realistic amounts of data from your actual data sources. This will help you identify any performance bottlenecks early and allow you to optimize queries, filters, and other data operations for better efficiency.

6. Ignoring App Load Performance

Why It’s a Problem:

App load time is one of the most critical factors for user satisfaction. Ignoring the initial load performance by cramming too much data into the app’s startup can make users wait longer, causing frustration and decreasing productivity.

What to Do Instead:

Optimize the app’s startup by loading only the necessary data initially and fetching additional data as needed. Use delegation in queries to limit the amount of data pulled from data sources, and avoid loading large images or heavy files during the initial load.

7. Forgetting to Implement Error Handling

Why It’s a Problem:

If your app encounters an issue, such as failing to retrieve data or submitting a form, and you haven’t implemented proper error handling, it will either crash or display a generic error message, leaving users confused and frustrated.

What to Do Instead:

Implement robust error handling throughout your app. Use the IfError function to catch errors and provide helpful feedback to users, such as displaying custom error messages or guiding them through troubleshooting steps. This improves the user experience and prevents potential app failures.

8. Overcomplicating Logic with Nested Formulas

Why It’s a Problem:

Power Apps formulas are powerful, but deeply nesting them can make your app difficult to maintain and debug. Long, complex formulas are harder to read, troubleshoot, and optimize, increasing the likelihood of introducing bugs or performance issues.

What to Do Instead:

Break down complex logic into smaller, reusable pieces by using variables or separate formulas. This makes your code easier to read, maintain, and troubleshoot, and can also improve app performance.

9. Failing to Secure Data Access

Why It’s a Problem:

Power Apps allows users to connect to a variety of data sources, but if you fail to properly secure those data connections, you may expose sensitive information to unauthorized users. This can result in data breaches or misuse of company data.

What to Do Instead:

Always use role-based access control (RBAC) and ensure that data connections and permissions are properly configured. Use the security model of your data source (e.g., SharePoint, Dataverse) to control who can access, view, or modify data. Additionally, avoid displaying sensitive information unless necessary.

10. Ignoring Licensing and App Limits

Why It’s a Problem:

Power Apps has various licensing models, each with its own limits on app usage, data connections, and capacity. Ignoring these limits can result in unexpected costs, app failure, or throttling, especially in high-usage scenarios.

What to Do Instead:

Understand the limits of your Power Apps license and plan accordingly. Ensure that your app design doesn’t exceed data or user limits and that you’re using the most appropriate license tier for your needs. Monitor app usage and scale up your plan if necessary to avoid disruptions.

Summary

Power Apps is a flexible and easy-to-use platform, but it’s important to follow best practices to avoid common mistakes that can impact performance, scalability, and security. By avoiding these ten mistakes, you can ensure your Power Apps solutions are efficient, user-friendly, and maintainable over time.