From Fragmented Excel to a PowerApps Staffing Portal

Business problem

Time reporting, project allocations, availability and chargeability each lived in a separate Excel file. Every area had its own owner, its own update rhythm, and its own view of the data. Versions diverged, reconciliation was manual, permissions were inconsistent, and weekly reporting depended on someone stitching files together. The problem looked like a reporting one — it was a model-and-ownership one.

Data available

• People registry with role, level, country, Centre of Excellence and manager hierarchy
• Time reporting entries by period (working days, PTO/sick, training, BD)
• Project allocations with start/end dates, renewal probability, extension windows and alternative plans
• Certifications (achieved, in progress, status) and office presence declarations
• Manager–report relationships used to derive every visibility perimeter

Solution implemented

1. 1Consolidated the four Excel files into SharePoint Lists as the single source of truth — one canonical schema for people, allocations, TRs, certifications and availability.
2. 2Built a PowerApps canvas app as the unified experience layer: My Info, Update my TR, Certification, Reservation, Team Overview and Admin — the same base data, different surfaces.
3. 3Applied role-based visibility from the hierarchy: Self perimeter for Consultants and below; Team perimeter with staffing, availability and chargeability for Manager+; Governance perimeter for admin configuration.
4. 4Wired Power Automate flows for the recurring nudges the Excel model couldn't do: TR submission reminders per period, allocation expiry alerts, certification prompts, and a daily digest for managers.
5. 5Shipped analytics views on top of the same dataset — chargeability trends by country/CoE/period, working-days vs PTO/Training/BD breakdown, drill-down tables and Excel export — so reporting stopped being a consolidation job.
6. 6Designed forms with required fields, structured dropdowns and validation rules so the data is clean at input time, not corrected at reporting time.

Impact

What I learned

The UI was the easy part. The real work was collapsing four parallel Excel processes into one data model with ownership baked in. Once the model was right, role-based views and reminder flows fell out naturally — and the reporting stopped being a weekly archaeology exercise.