Online Order Forms - Best way to proceed?

[westyghs]

Hi,

 

I have promised to create an online order form for our new finance office as until now we have always had to complete forms to begin processing orders.

 

The problem is, I offered without stopping to think what the best way to proceed would be. I thought "between access, Office 365 and our VLE I'll be able to rustle up something", except I've got to the point now where they've included it into next year's academic guide book making it policy (despite me even giving them a pilot or demo; which just gives you an idea of the drag-you-through-a-hedge-backwards-without-thinking-or-planning philosophy in the school).

 

So, here I am; with 3 weeks to rustle up a solution and I'm not sure about the best way to proceed. Ideally I'd like to combine it with Office 365 in some way, as that already has usernames and account I can use for access; it also has integration with Excel, SharePoint and PowerApps; but I might be biting off more than I can chew with this approach.

 

Would a simple set of Access tables and forms be the best way to do this still? I know that wouldn't take too long to develop, but it does seem a bit 2006....

 

Any idea or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

[HPlum78]

I did a stationary ordering system for my old finance office in SharePoint had all the workflows and the like.

[westyghs]

That sounds good, can you help point me in the right direction to get started please.

 

e.g. Which components of SharePoint did you use to get started? Did you just create lists for data and then edit a page to act as the form etc.

 

Thanks

[HPlum78]

So here we go (from memory) I used share point lists for the stock lists and used InfoPath to create a form that pulled the info from the SP lists to give the user nice drop down boxes and quantity fields and the like. After the user had selected all of the items they required this was then saved in to another SP list, using SP designer I then setup some workflows that would look up a users manager/ budget holder and make some decisions about what authorizations where required and the like. After these workflows had been completed a mail would be sent to a stationary order mailbox that all the finance team had access to and the user that made the request (and anything in between like if the users manager/ budget holder refused the request and the likes...) finally the finance team would mark the order as ready to collect and this would again kick of a workflow that sent an email to the user who made the request.

 

Now we are in the world of SharePoint online (365) I think that some of the products I used to create this system have been changed rebranded to PowerApps and Flow, but I am sure that this is more than possible and easier than it was back in the days of SP 2010/13.

[HPlum78]

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/tutorials/getting-started/

https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/

[westyghs]

Cheers, thanks very much. Needed some reassurance I was on the right track, and you've done just that. You're help is much appreciated.