Building Performant PowerApps

The master class on building performant apps presentation from Mehdi Slaoui Andaloussi, was one of the highlights of the recent Microsoft Business Applications Summit.  Here are some of my notes from the session.

When you load your data is important.

Do not load collections on App Start.  Adding collections on the OnVisible of the first screen will make the first screen display faster and the app will appear to load quicker. 

Preloaders help the user feel the app is working correctly.

Use a preloader, so users can see that data is indeed loading.  This will ensure they don't have to 'panic' and hit the refresh button just in case. 

Don’t load your data all at once

Only load the data you absolutely need in your preloading session.  If you don’t need to load the data immediately, then load this outside of the preloader.  This will make the app appear to load faster.

Create Local Collections

If possible, use Local Collections for data to save on network calls.  Local collections load really fast!  If your data will not change during the use of the app (conference session times, locations, speakers, product names, office locations etc) then you can pull the content into a local collection when you start your app rather than making lots of network calls to the outside data source throughout your app.

Concurrent

User the Concurrent() function.   Concurrent allows data sources to be loaded in parallel rather than sequentially.  This will speed up the load time of you data.

The Concurrent function evaluates multiple formulas at the same time. Normally, multiple formulas are evaluated by chaining them together with the ; operator, which evaluates each sequentially in order. When the app performs operations concurrently, users wait less for the same result.

App Assets

Make sure your app assets (images, logos etc) are web optimized.   Making your images and logos are as small as possible will improve load times on the app.