How One App Transformed a 65,000-User Bank

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👉 Full Show Notes
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/742

Michael De Abreu shares his journey from IT infrastructure to building enterprise-grade solutions on the Microsoft Power Platform. He discusses the evolution of his consulting firm, Third Floor Solutions, and dives into large-scale implementations, including a 65,000-user deployment for a Canadian bank. The episode explores practical frameworks, offline capabilities, and the transformative potential of Copilot in form design.

🎙️ What you’ll learn 

• How to architect scalable Power Platform solutions for enterprise use 
• Ways to rethink form design using Copilot and dynamic logic 
• Strategies for building reusable frameworks with Dataverse 
• Approaches to offline capability in Canvas and Model-driven apps 
• How to position yourself with FastTrack credentials and PL-600 certification 

✅ Highlights 

• “I got addicted to the Power Platform… building so many apps.” 
• “We went from no Power Apps to close to 70 apps in 8–9 months.” 
• “We built a reusable framework that runs 350 forms off 4 tables.” 
• “Offline capability was key - we saved collections locally to the device.” 
• “FastTrack helps credential yourself and shows real enterprise experience.” 
• “We built a mining app for underground drill logging with offline sync.” 
• “Copilot can prompt users with missing info and SME knowledge.” 
• “I hate seeing a gallery trying to look like a table - grids are essential.” 
• “Plugins are powerful - many forget they run even on imported data.” 
• “We’re transferring problems from PDFs to Power Apps without rethinking.” 
• “Copilot is more than a chatbot - it can perform tasks and visualise data.” 
• “The biggest thing is building so users can maintain without white-glove support.” 

🧰 Mentioned 

• Microsoft Power Platform - https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/power-platform/ 
• FastTrack for Power Platform - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/guidance/fasttrack/overview 
• Dataverse - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/data-platform/data-platform-intro 
• Power Apps - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/ 

✅Keywords 
power platform, canvas apps, dataverse, fasttrack, copilot, offline capability, enterprise architecture, reusable frameworks, fusion developer, model-driven apps, PL-600, form design 

Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption is a Microsoft Press book for leaders and consultants. It shows how to identify high-value use cases, set guardrails, enable champions, and measure impact, so Copilot sticks. Practical frameworks, checklists, and metrics you can use this month. Get the book: https://bit.ly/CopilotAdoption

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Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith