Full solution from PowerPirates of Axdata

Our main goal with this years ACDC was to make the workday a lot easier for both the Pirate Planners and the Pirates itself. We had identified that the use of Finance and Operations standard functionality for both planning and Employee Self-Service is far from easy and user friendly to use. Therefor we decided to use these days to create this:

  • A Model driven app for the Pirate Planners to use when they plan for what raid what pirate should be on, based on the skills that pirate has. This Planner app receives all the data it needs regarding the raids/projects and the pirates with skill profile directly from F&O, so that they always have the up to date data to work with as this is crucial to be able to do the correct planning.
  • A Canvas app for the Pirates to use on their mobiles, where they can see and update their personal information while the app talks directly with F&O, accsess other information that is relevant for them that we have integrated into the app like your calendar and meeting, let you see where the Planners has booked you, an AI chat that can give you answers for whatever you want and more.
  • PowerBI reports showing what the Planners have planned for in the different raids and other relevant information.

And, to make it easier for you judges, here are the reasons why we think we deserve a lot of points in the different categories:

Excellent User Experience:

Our entire idea before the ACDC was that we wanted to create something that gives everyone that struggles with the user experience in F&O a better workday, every day! The solution we now have created will give all the Planners out there a new, innovative and very user friendly way to plan their pirates and other resources with the data that is already in place in F&O. And, for every pirate and other employee in the company, their experience with the brand-new mobile app for Self-Service, they difference from what they experience now in F&O is almost impossible to describe! This is so much more user friendly, cool and awesome that they will be amazed!

Most Extreme Business Value:

As we have said before, this work is not easy for companies using it today. We know that for example with planning, many companies have a excel sheet that they update manually with data from F&O to do raid/project planning. All of these companies will be thankful that we created this Model driven app these days, as it really will both save them time, make sure they always have the correct data to work with, and give the company a much better up-to-date overview over how their pirates and employees are booked the next weeks.

And if that wasn’t good enough (to be honest, we first only planned to create the solution over, but we also wanted to do something very good for all the pirates, not just the planner), the Canvas app will give a huge business advantage to all companies using F&O! Even if they don’t do Planning for their resources, they can of course still use the Pirate app for all their employees, where they can show and give the employees the possibilities to do everything they do in F&O as Self-Service today, and we can include whatever other data or solutions they use directly in the mobile app so that the employee gets all the information and possibilities they need in one place instead of having to go several places! And, the app will of course be teamed with the companies logo and colors, so that for the Employee, the experience will be that this is an app only for them!

Rock Solid Geekness:

When we are three low-code and two no-code pirates going to a Hackaton, then something we really wants to learn more about is code and Geekness. We have learned a lot and used react and Node.js as you will see in the solution under, and all the time we have spent drilling into how to use the data from F&O correctly in POwerPlatform… Phu, we now know a lot more about many more tables and data coming out from F&O and how we can use it than what we did before. And, that ladies and gentlemen, is rock solid geekiness in the ERP world!

Killer App:

The way all components in this solution is tied together, really is what makes it a Killer App! We have connected F&O to a Model driven app and to a Canvas app, and the canvas app updates data back in F&O. In addition to this, PowerBI collects data both from F&O and the Model driven app, to show the reports we want. We have also extended the Canvas app to have so much more information that is relevant for the Pirate (and remember, the canvas app also shows information from the Model driven app regarding how they are planned!). When all of this is connected in a solution we now only have used 3 days to build, yeah, this deserves a lot of point! If you haven’t worked with F&O data in PowerPlatform before, then it’s hard to know, but this not straight forward.

Screenshoots of the Pirate Planner app and the technology used to fill it with data (with explenations under the pictures):

For the captain to check the various available project raids
Once the project/raid is selected, you set what assignement you want to rederve hours for
And then you reserve the pirate
PowerBI report that shows the info needed from the model driven Planner app
To save time without a datalake when gathering data from F&O we use the old and lovely tool PowerQuery inside Dataflows

Screenshots of the Pirate app and the technology used for that app (with explenations under the pictures):

Frontpage of the app
View your calendar and meetings
View your bookings coming from what the planners has done in the new Planner app
View your information from F&O and directly update the infor in F&O when you submit changes
OpenAI embedded chat for the Pirate to use to whatever!
PCF code used to integrate a PowerApps Custom Control to run the Node.js (shown under)
React and Node.js web app on Azure used for the OpenAI chatbot
Custom connector for Microsoft Graph API we have built to get picture and other data for the logged in user of the Canvas app.
Custom connector code
PowerAutomate to give you the greating of the day
PowerAutomate to find jokes/insults

And what has this even given us?

Why we have clamied the badges we have in this post:
ACDC Craftsman: For the entire solution, how it all is connected and works!
Dash it out: The PowerBI report for the data fra F&O and model driven app
Client side salsa: For the OpenAI embedded chat using react and node.js
Retro: For using PowerQuery to collect data from F&O
Feature bombing: For this fun screen in a canvas app that gives you a lot of features at the same time:

Thank you all for an amazing event!! This has been so much fun and we will definetly be back next year!

Microsoft could api <3

Let’s face it first rather than later, we do work with Microsoft technology, and what is better than combine a lot of them together in the same solution? Look at the screenshots under, with the text to every picture, and we’re sure you also think this is a stairway to heaven!

First of all, the canvas app we have created is connected to AD so I get my profile picture from AD when I open the app
And then we have a live sync with my Office account so I can se my calendar and shedule for the days i select.
And, of course we use PowerAutomate to update my personal information directly to the F&O tables so I can be used as it’s needed by the P-level management!

If it wasn’t for the team, then what would we be?

To keep up the energy and team-feeling throughout the day, we really need to make an efford together. No one should feel left behind and everyone is included. For us, we have done this by dressing the same way, make sure everyone always have something to drink (either with or without the fun in it). And, we have played music all night to make most of stay up late to work with the solution and to give all the other team-members still here at 3am to have as much fun as they can! 🙂

It’s all about that glossy app

Our main solution is an app for the Pirates to use on their phone when they are out on their raids. So, it might not be a shock that we will claim the bagde for an App. But, of course it needs to be shiny and glossy as well. We are here to create the besgt user experience for the Pirate as we ca, and even if pirates come out as rough and hard-core, they still want their tools to be as easy and up-to-date as they can 🙂

External data, external data, external data!

When we’re creating an app for everyone one to use for their everyday Pirate activites coming from F&O, we might as well include som external data as well to make the experience for the Pirate even better. We have never, and never will, argue that you will get all the information you need every day from F&O, so we have given every Pirate a bit more data they can use every day in their canvas app:

  1. When you first log in to the app in the mornig, it’s handy to get a little greeting just “welcomming” you to a new day, right? We have created a PowerAutomate that uses OpenAI to find a new Pirate greeting just for you (if using AI to cheer up your Pirates isn’t an innovative use of AI, then what is?):

2. If you feel down, and just want some text to make you laugh a little, you don’t need to go to the internet, we have created an Insult of tha day feature in your app. Just click it and start feeling better, at least if you think that this insult is regarding you bunk-buddy 🙂

3. And then, if you want to know what kind of weather it is, look no further, it’s already right there in you Pirate app:

A dirty hack to the first Head2Head challenge?

Okey, we do agree that solution that won is a bit better than this, but that’s why we think this is a dirty hack! Instead of doing what you should do with the challenge, we ended up creating a canvas app that could run offline and add that to the Power Page. It still solves the challenge, doesn’t it?

And, you might as how we got this brilliant idea.. What is more innovative use of AI if it’s not asking these questions you don’t have the answer for yourself? So we asked ChatGPT how we could solve this challenge, and this is the answer we got: