The short version
- A Power Apps desk booking app on a SharePoint list is a sensible first version for one office. Most of the templates work, and the licences are usually already paid for
- It strains in predictable places: double bookings under load, half-day and recurring bookings, floor plans, check-in, and anything beyond desks
- Microsoft Places covers desks and rooms inside Microsoft 365, but check the licence it needs and whether it handles visitors and parking before you plan around it
- Moving to a platform does not mean throwing away Power Automate flows or Power BI reports. Keep them and connect them
Plenty of IT teams built their own desk booking app in 2021. It was the right call. The office was half empty, nobody knew if hybrid would last, and a Power App on a SharePoint list cost nothing extra and took a week.
Several years on, the same app is often still running, maintained by whoever built it, carrying requirements it was never designed for. This is where those builds usually run out of road, and how to move without wasting the work.
What the Power Apps build does well
For a single office with a few dozen desks, a canvas app over a SharePoint list does the job. People open it in Teams, pick a date, pick a desk, done. It uses the Microsoft 365 sign-in you already have, and standard connectors are covered by most Microsoft 365 licences. If that describes your situation and nobody is complaining, keep it.
Where a Power Apps desk booking app runs out
These five come up again and again in the comment threads under popular desk booking templates.
| Requirement | What happens in the DIY build |
|---|
| No double bookings | Two people submit the same desk within a second of each other and both succeed. A SharePoint list has no booking-level lock, so you add a Power Automate check that runs after the fact and emails an apology |
| Half days and recurring bookings | The data model was one row per desk per day. Adding time slots means rewriting the availability query and every screen that uses it |
| More than 2,000 rows | Queries that Power Apps cannot delegate to SharePoint only look at the first 500 to 2,000 records. The app works in testing and silently misses bookings a year later |
| Floor plans | An image with hand-placed buttons. Every desk move is a developer task |
| Check-in and release | Not in the templates. Without check-in, booked desks sit empty and utilisation numbers mean nothing |
Then the scope grows. Someone asks for meeting rooms, then visitor sign-in, then parking. Each one is a new app, a new list and a new set of permissions, maintained by one person who also has a day job. When that person leaves, the office depends on an app nobody else understands.
Where Microsoft Places fits
Microsoft Places adds desk and room booking to Outlook and Teams, and it is the natural next thing to look at. It is improving quickly, so check the current position rather than relying on a forum thread. Three questions to settle before planning around it: which licence your users need for the features you want, how much of the setup is PowerShell for your team to maintain, and whether it covers visitors and parking or only desks and rooms. Microsoft moved individual desk booking and auto-release to per-space licences in April 2026, so price the rooms and desks as well as the people.
If you are fully on Microsoft 365, need desks and rooms only, and have the admin time, Places may be enough. If you need one system across desks, rooms, visitors and parking, or you have offices outside the Microsoft tenant, it will not be.
Keep, connect or hand over
Moving to a platform is not a rebuild of everything. Sort what you have into three piles.
| Piece | Decision | Reason |
|---|
| Power BI reports | Keep and connect | Your leadership already reads them. Point them at booking data from the platform instead of the SharePoint list |
| Power Automate flows for approvals and notifications | Keep where they touch other systems | A flow that raises a facilities ticket is still useful. A flow that prevents double booking is not, because the platform does that |
| Microsoft 365 sign-in and groups | Keep | Use single sign-on and SCIM so the same directory drives the platform |
| Booking screens, availability logic, floor plan | Hand over | This is the part that costs you maintenance time and is a solved problem |
| The SharePoint list | Archive | Export it once for history, then retire it |
Planning the connection
The handover goes well when the integration is scoped before the switch, not after. Write down which systems need booking data, whether each one reads or writes, and how often. For most teams the list is short: identity, calendars and a reporting tool.
The HybridHero developer portal is built around that scoping exercise. It covers people and identity, bookings and spaces, check-ins and devices, and workplace reporting, and it starts you with a read-only request in a test environment. HybridHero works with Microsoft Teams, Outlook and Microsoft 365 calendars, and custom API and third-party integrations are part of the Enterprise plan. Plan on a scoped API connection agreed with the team, not a drag-and-drop connector.
Frequently asked questions
Can you build desk booking in Power Apps?
Yes. A canvas app over a SharePoint list handles basic Power Apps desk booking for one office, and several free templates exist. It gets harder with half-day bookings, floor plans, check-in and more than a couple of thousand booking records.
Do users need a premium licence for a Power Apps desk booking app?
Not if the app uses only standard connectors such as SharePoint and Office 365 Users, which most Microsoft 365 plans cover. Dataverse or any premium connector requires premium Power Apps licensing for every user of the app, which changes the cost at scale.
How do you prevent double booking in Power Apps?
You check availability immediately before writing the record and again in a Power Automate flow afterwards. It reduces collisions but does not remove them, because SharePoint lists do not lock a slot while someone is booking it.
Is Microsoft Places a replacement for a Power Apps desk booking app?
For desks and rooms inside Microsoft 365 it can be. Check the licence requirement, the admin effort and whether you also need visitor management or parking, which sit outside it.
When should we move from Power Apps desk booking to a platform?
When the app needs a second office, a floor plan that changes, check-in, or a second maintainer. Each one adds maintenance that lands on whoever built the app, so cost that time honestly before deciding.
Can we keep our Power BI reports if we move off Power Apps?
Yes. Power BI does not care where booking data comes from. Replace the SharePoint list source with a scheduled pull from the platform and keep the report pages your leadership already uses.
Where this fits
If reporting is the reason you are reviewing the app, office occupancy data in Power BI covers the data model. If you are comparing platforms, start with desk booking tools with SSO and SCIM. When you know which systems need to connect, the developer portal explains how to request access.