Using .NET, Dynamics365, and PowerApps: A Real World Case Study

As the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines ramped up in February and March of 2021, we were asked to partner with a number of local healthcare organizations to assist in providing vaccinations to underprivileged areas of our community. Their goal was to start holding weekend clinics starting a little over 3 weeks from our first discussions. Unable to find a suitable platform that fit our needs with regards to registration and data tracking we built a solution from the ground up in less than 3 weeks.

This presentation will provide a detailed walkthrough of how we designed and implemented a full solution built using .NET and Angular, Microsoft Dynamics 365, PowerApps, and DataVerse. We will demonstrate how these technologies were tightly integrated to provide a robust and integrated platform that addressed the specific needs of the people being vaccinated as well as the onsite data tracking requirements necessary for checking-in patients and recording vaccinations.

If you are new to some of these technologies this will be a great opportunity to get a developer walkthrough of what they are and how they can be utilized to quickly solve complex business problems as well as allow for great flexibility for adjustments along the way.

From Code to Canvas: Mastering Microsoft Power Platform for C# Developers

Join us for a four-hour workshop titled "Empowering C# Developers: A Comprehensive Workshop on Microsoft Power Platform," designed specifically for software developers skilled in Microsoft Azure, C#, and .NET. This intensive session aims to provide a thorough grounding in Microsoft Power Platform, encompassing its primary components—PowerApps, Power Automate, Power BI, and DataVerse.

Starting with the basics of setting up data in DataVerse, participants will learn how to build a Model Driven Power App from scratch, creating robust reports and dashboards in Power BI along the way. The workshop will also cover the automation of workflows using Power Automate, and detail the steps for deploying apps to mobile devices. Key deployment strategies and security configurations will be discussed to ensure a comprehensive understanding of application rollout.

Furthermore, the session will delve into how .NET developers can effectively utilize C# to interact with DataVerse, demonstrating both read and write operations from external systems. This part of the workshop will bridge familiar development environments with new integrative tools, enhancing participants’ ability to craft interconnected solutions.

Designed to be highly technical, this workshop is perfect for developers looking to expand their expertise into the rapidly evolving domain of Microsoft Power Platform, ensuring they are equipped to leverage these tools in their corporate projects. Attendees will leave with not only deeper knowledge but also practical skills that can be immediately applied to their development tasks.

From Naysayer to Believer: My Conversion to Blazor Enthusiast

Join Kevin, a seasoned developer with roots tracing back to the 1980s and a rich history with Microsoft technologies since the late 1990s, as he shares his transformative journey from Blazor skeptic to enthusiastic advocate. As a Microsoft MVP for over a decade and a former Silverlight MVP, Kevin has spent years championing and teaching UI development using frameworks like TypeScript, Angular, and React. Initially, Kevin was hesitant about Blazor and advised against it, both to developers and clients. However, his perspective has radically changed, leading him to embrace Blazor as a powerful and efficient platform for modern web development.

In this engaging and demo-heavy session, Kevin will recount his initial introduction to Blazor and detail the pivotal moments that shifted his view. He will highlight the tools and development environments that have enhanced his Blazor experience and demonstrate how he leverages AI to streamline UI development. Attendees will gain insights into the Blazor platform through practical demonstrations, making complex concepts accessible even to those new to Blazor. Kevin’s talk aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of Blazor's capabilities and offer valuable resources to ease the transition for developers exploring this cutting-edge technology.

Join me as I introduce you to Blazor and why I now love it. You will hear a bit about my background and my initial concerns on the platform and how I have come to embrace Blazor and it's ecosystem.

Developer Potluck: Useful tools, APIs, services, and other toys every developer should know about

This talk is designed to quickly introduce developers to a wide range of useful tools and services we have found extremely useful in helping us provide better solutions, improving our development process, and generally just making our lives easier.

These tools range from sites that provide useful services for developers, APIs we frequently utilize within our applications to provide more capabilities, SDKs and libraries we commonly leverage, and utilities we find useful.

Our goal with this talk is to quickly demonstrate a large number of useful tools, utilities, and APIs and leave attendees with the resources they need to find out more. Some of these tools are free/open source and others are commercial, but we find them all extremely useful and can’t wait to share how we use them.

We will discuss:

Developer utilities (all the way down to our favorite command prompts)
3rd party APIs
Productivity software
IDEs and plugins
Useful NPM and NuGet packages

Document databases vs. Relational Databases: An honest comparison and things to consider

Many developers still struggle to understand which application scenarios might benefit from utilizing a document database or a relational database. Both of these options are powerful and many vendors have great products ready to build on. Unfortunately not one size fits all and there are definite scenarios where choosing one or the other will give your application architecture a leg up. There are also scenarios where a hybrid of using both a document database and a relational database might be the best choice.

We will discuss the benefits and tradeoffs of each option, how they differ, and give real-world design tips to consider when building on either. We will also discuss the current options available for database platforms in both the relational and document DB space. Many examples of real code and architectures will be given.