One of the biggest challenges that we face when building apps and automations is the decision on where to store my data. Sometimes this choice may be dictated to us based on licensing and architectural factors, however, if you have a choice of options then this blog post is for you.

Think about the way that cars are advertised. Most car manufacturers have a super mini, family hatchback, cross-over, and SUV offering, and each one from an adoption perspective acts like a steppingstone towards the next model up next time as your wants and needs become more sophisticated! Great for us, but also great marketing for the supplier!

We all want the Audi RSQ8, but right now we might only be able to afford the Audi S1, or we might not want to commit the investment of the most expensive one right now. Note: Other car manufacturers are available of course!

Anyway, back to the technology, the most used data sources for Power Apps and Power Automate are usually Excel, SharePoint, Dataverse for Teams, and Dataverse, so let’s compare the options and understand how our needs can be met within Microsoft 365.

Microsoft Excel, the super-mini.

I have an ‘I 💖 Spreadsheets’ mug for my morning tea, and for some reason the world just can’t get enough of spreadsheets! Many organisations around the world are run on spreadsheets and nothing else. It was revolutionary at the time it was released.

Microsoft Excel is a hugely popular and fulfilling software tool, providing us with a quick way to format lists, calculate information, and visualise data. It’s formula functionality is so successful, that Power Fx, Microsoft’s language for developing Power Platform components, was inspired by it!

Excel is not a relational database though, and unless you have already defined a digital adoption strategy, spreadsheets are still saved locally on team member devices leading to a loss of business data over time.

When to use spreadsheets:

• Quick lists
• Personal recording of information
• Extraction of data from another system into a universal format

When to seek one of the alternatives in this post:

• When data is shared across multiple people or departments
• When data repeats the same information multiple times, such as contact details

Lists (SharePoint), the hatchback.

Microsoft Lists has become a more prominent feature of SharePoint and has been rebranded as such to position the product as a feature primarily for use within Microsoft Teams. Lists combine the familiarity of Microsoft Excel, whilst also introducing concepts from relational databases and centralising of information to help increase quality by a significant proportion in comparison.

Microsoft Lists can allow categorisation, links to users, and formatted fields with extraordinarily little effort. They won’t solve every problem, but they will help to keep sight of business data, and you can even generate apps and automation from Lists directly too.

Microsoft Lists is a well-received solution to our hybrid working scenarios where Microsoft Teams plays a huge part in operations.

When to use Lists:

• Track information and progress within a team
• Organise work and assign owners
• Indirect benefit of preparing our business for modern cloud solutions that integrate across all of Microsoft 365

When to seek one of the alternatives in this post:

• When sensitive data requires better security considerations
• When your data needs to flow into another process in another system, or with another department

Dataverse for Teams, the crossover.

Following the release of Dataverse (previously the Common Data Service, or the on-premise Dynamics CRM SQL database to some of us older folk!), Microsoft also released Dataverse for Teams. This has been a fantastic middle-ground, offering organisations a step into the world of relational databases within the Power Platform, without having to initially commit to a licensing investment. The benefits of taking a relational database approach for this are huge.

There are some significant caveats in comparison to Dataverse, but you can set up your own database within a Microsoft Team, and build apps and automations on top of it, to service your end users. Remember, this is entirely free!

When to use Dataverse for Teams:

• Small operational processes that require a team scope that can be defined within a Microsoft Team
• When you need to build appetite for further Power Platform delivery in the future to demonstrate the art of the possible with little investment
• When you plan to invest in Dataverse in the future, as the upgrade path from Dataverse for Teams to Dataverse is much more seamless than a migration project

When to seek Dataverse as an alternative:

• When you need to retrieve data from sources outside of the Microsoft Team your Dataverse for Teams environment lives in
• When you need to deliver Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and utilise the concept of ‘development’ and ‘production’ for your solutions.
• When you want to start utilising Dynamics 365 apps using the same database as your custom solutions.

Dataverse, the SUV.

We now look towards our final data source for review. I love describing Dataverse as the SUV. We see a nice car on the motorway with all the extras, we look up to it for inspiration on our next purchase, and one day we can finally make it to buy this dream car and it just works.

Dataverse is the same, it’s a full database offering with a comprehensive list of functions that require no expertise in SQL, just a theoretical understanding of relational databases and normalisation.

Dataverse helps us to create a single source of the truth, and it helps us to share data from one record and relate it to others. Over time as multiple users build upon the quality of the data, you gain a significantly better understanding of how your business operates, which will help you to further improve your efficiency and services in the future. It’s worth the investment, and it’s worth setting up a free developer account to explore the possibilities if you haven’t already.

Conclusion

As we’ve discovered, there are so many tools at our disposal, even just within the Microsoft 365 stack when we’re delivering apps and automations.

My recommendation would always be to ‘climb down’ rather than ‘climb up’. We all know how easy it is to set up a spreadsheet and often we talk ourselves out of using another tool.

If we step back for a moment and consider our audience, our data model, and the impact across the organisation, it may be far better to rule out Dataverse first rather than having to justify its purpose 3-levels away from our currently proposed ‘easy’ solution which could cause maintenance issues in the future.