How One App Transformed a 65,000-User Bank
Description
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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
If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.
Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith























