Care and Lowcode

This past weekend. Same desk. Same drink. New mission. After over 10 years supporting children and families through fragmented systems, I know what it looks like when missing information means missed interventions. A student's anxiety isn't flagged because systems don't talk to each other. A family's language support need falls through the cracks. Two Worlds, One Weekend Experiment I used Power BI to build two prototypes, combining real statistics with simulated data. The goal was testing whether the analytical approach I use in social care could reveal anything meaningful in e-commerce. I'm still learning whether that actually works. And I'll be honest, it was genuinely fun. There's something satisfying about watching messy data transform into something clearer, even when you're not sure what you're doing yet. The Learning Curve (Emphasis on Curve) Here's what I'm discovering: Power BI is enjoyable, until it humbles you. I spent Saturday mor...

On 17 January 2026, I passed PL‑200! This desk. Same spot. Same time. Same drink. Every single day. Pink sticky notes = my daily minimums. Laptop = 45 minutes of focused work. No exceptions. Coming from social work, my job has always been to design systems that still work when people are tired, stressed, or having a bad day, so I applied that same mindset to learning.   Instead of relying on willpower, I built a system around my motivation, which let me catch mistakes before they snowballed. The core idea: Govern the process, not just the output. Step 1: make discipline measurable (SMART) I didn’t set a vague goal like “study more.” I needed structure and hands-on experience, so I joined the Microsoft Power Up Program (Cohort 28, Fall 2025), a free program designed to help people build practical skills through guided, hands-on learning. For three months, I deep-dived into Power Apps with one clear outcome: build an end-to-end Smart Parking & Permit Management solution whil...

Unlocking Hierarchy Security in Dataverse . 3-minute read | Power up journey|PL-200 Study Notes I’ve recently gained my Dataverse explorer badge from Power Up Program, and I wanted to share a specific feature that stood out to me: Hierarchy Security . It’s a documented way to solve a very common problem how to give managers visibility into their team's data without over-complicating security roles. Here is the traceable theory I’ve gathered from Microsoft Learn.  The Core Theory: Beyond Basic Roles In Dataverse, we usually think of security in terms of Security Roles (which define what actions you can take, like Read or Delete).  Hierarchy security is a documented additive layer that defines which records you can see based on your place in the organizational structure.   Verification:   It does not o verride Roles: You still need a Security Role with "Read" access to the table.   The Two Documented Models According to Microsoft documentation, there are two ...