Some of our previous blogs have detailed the basic functionality of Power Apps and Microsoft Flow. In this blog, we will highlight a couple of significant challenges that we experienced with a password reset PowerApp for the PowerObjects workforce.

Our Operations department requested a self-serve app that employees could use to change their Active Directory domain passwords. A micro-app to perform this discrete functionality would provide a high degree of convenience for our mobile workforce.

The basic requirements were: 

1. Password validation matching current requirements (lower case, upper case, number, special character, at least 15 characters in length, and no consecutive characters of 3 or more).
2. Commit password and user information to Azure.
3. Provide onscreen instructions, including a momentary wait for the change to take place.

The first significant challenge was to find a way to validate the input text strings. Note that the Power Apps development environment does not does not offer looping functionality to parse text inputs. Therefore, we had to rely on regular expressions for text searching, like those supported by JavaScript. We formulated a regular expression literal that used a substring to check for the three consecutive repeating characters.

The second significant challenge concerned the end-user experience. We used Microsoft Flow to send the password and user information to an Azure Service Bus message queue. While this worked great for the app owner, it was a poor experience for the end-user. Power Apps requires each user to run embedded Flows using their unique credentials. While the Flow owner has a seamless experience, other users receive system prompts for user credentials and the Service Bus connection string.

This Microsoft Flow limitation required a redesign to improve usability critical to user adoption. We removed the Service Bus Flow, added a connection to an Azure SQL database, and used the Patch() function to save the data directly to the target table.

Here is the finished PowerApp:

Congratulations! You can now tackle two significant challenges with designing and building a Password PowerApp!

Other micro apps that we created for our mobile workforce include:

• A BitLocker recovery key app to allow our users to quickly get back into their computers after a BitLocker lockout.
• A vacation request and approval app for quickly requesting and getting approvals for days off.
• A soon to be released, fully functional time entry system interfacing with our Dynamics CRM and SAP environments.

Want to learn more about the Dynamics 365 Spring 2018 Update for PowerApp? Check it out!

Happy Dynamics 365'ing!