Asset management automation for a real estate company

Solution

Itransition delivered a comprehensive solution for managing the customer’s asset hierarchy based on Microsoft Power Platform. The solution is a table editor built on Power Apps and Dataverse, with key data update processes automated with the help of Power Automate. Our Microsoft Power BI consultants also embedded a Power BI report into the app to deliver tailored insights for various employee groups, improving the visibility into physical property assets.

Application design

The new tool enables direct, real-time editing of property data without the need for complicated spreadsheets or scripting. The solution supports automatic building and updating of the asset hierarchy and provides comprehensive information on properties, including unit addresses, latitude and longitude values for every active unit, and links to information about the estate, such as the corresponding customer website page, media library, and Google maps. Since the customer has a Microsoft-based corporate IT infrastructure, the solution was built entirely on the Microsoft Power Platform, in particular Power Apps, Dataverse as an integrated database, and Power Automate.

Power Apps was used to build the user interface for employees, enabling them to manage the geographical hierarchy and navigate seamlessly across tabs. The interface also enables users to interact with multiple interconnected tables that reflect the geographical hierarchy, create new entities, and link them to existing ones within the hierarchy, with all changes automatically reflecting in the relationships between entities. To ensure secure and managed access to data, we also implemented multi-tier access controls, enabling different permission levels based on user roles.

The solution’s key functionality includes:

• Adding and editing various types of assets
• Moving units across different levels of the asset hierarchy
• Searching, filtering, and sorting asset records
• Viewing asset changes on a map in real time

Data integration & processing

We used Microsoft Dataflows to enable easy retrieval of data from the master database and its ingestion to Dataverse. The retrieved raw data consists of the lowest-level entities not linked to any hierarchy, so users can assign it to higher-level entities within the app and thus build and update the existing hierarchy dynamically.

Once the changes are made, the application returns the updated data back to the master database. To maintain data consistency, we implemented regular synchronization between Dataverse and the master database by integrating Azure Data Factory API for triggering the pipeline.

Workflow automation

By integrating Power Automate flows into the editing app, we managed to significantly streamline database updates. These flows automatically handle the creation and modification of hierarchical relationships whenever changes are made to property records within the app.

We also used Power Automate to implement a status-based approval workflow that helps ensure that all newly added or edited units are reviewed and approved and their status is updated accordingly, since only approved data is eligible for synchronization back to the master database.

Additionally, Power Automate enabled change logging, with each stored procedure creating an audit log entry for every change they processed. We created a dedicated change log table to note essential tracking information such as timestamp, user making the change, and before and after values.

Reporting

To provide a clear and accurate view of physical property assets based on the data from the app, we developed and embedded a Power BI report to serve the needs of different employee groups, such as regional directors, asset managers, data consultants, etc. Each major report section is represented by its own page in the navigation panel containing relevant filters and explanations. The report provided the lists and maps of:

• All assets
• Estates
• Land bank units
• Units under construction