Power Apps - import data from a third system (alternative Approach)

When we create Power Apps we often need to use data that is stored in other data sources like Oracle, Sap and SQL Server. Here we build integrations with tools like Power Automate and APIs.

Working with SharePoint as a backend and in mind the maximum 2.000 Records limitation in Canvas Apps, we have multiple challenges to overcome. First updating our data lists daily will lead to timeouts when using Power Automate, yes we can fix this of course. Second, we need a list for every dataset we like to import, lists we have to build and manage.

And when we have our list and Power Automate Flow(s) set-up we run into the record limitation in Canvas Apps when we have more than 2.000 records, set aside the performance challenge with those 2.000 records we want to load in. This we can also fix if we want, but then we have to use complicated formulas to do so.

All these challenges started to make me thinking of a better way to handle this kind of integrations and I came up with a very easy to incorporate solution in which I reduced my Flows runtime to just seconds, reduced the needed number of lists to one, and optimize load performance in my Canvas App drastically. Instead of a list per dataset, I have just a record per dataset in one list to store them all. Instead of records, I use a CSV formatted string for my data. Instead of collecting thousands of records from a connection, I only collect one record. Then I apply some formulas to that one record to convert the CSV formatted data string to the collection I would like to create.

Interesting in my approach? Check out this tutorial in which I set-up this integration in just 30 minutes, including Power Automate Flow, SharePoint List Set-up and Power Apps Formulas:

Learn Power Apps | How to implement data from external data source into Power Apps

Please let me know what you think of my approach?