Hi
I’m hoping someone can help me with some advice in the best proprietary database to use for the remote data capture on tablets that allows for quick and easy production of printed reports and an online dashboard. We currently undertake on site tablet based surveys in our clients offices. We are looking for a good online database system or combination of systems that connect to allow us to:
  1. Capture data on tablets in pre-designed forms like MS PowerApps
  2. Access that data to produce automated printed reports
  3. Allow us to give our clients access to the data via a powerbi Type online Portal. Ultimately we want to be able to embed the portal in our website our a linked sub domain

We have so far tried the following but none work well:

MS PowerApps: we had a freelancer develop us a PowerApps app, it looks great but there are issues with the workflow and have had major problems with speed of access to data and data load times. We have had great difficulty with the offline mode. Perhaps it would work better with MS azure.
Zoho Creator: data capture is easy and forms work well but it needs good internet access as there is no offline mode. For reporting the online reports are good as they allow forms and sub forms but printed reports do not. I transcend the data to MS Access for the printed reports but this meant cutting and pasting a lot of image files as they could’nt be exported into a csv.
PowerBI: great for online reports but awful export / print capability
Excel and Powerpoint: very labour intensive dong manual cut and paste.
We are only a small business and don’t have the money or volume of work to develop our own bespoke systems so are looking for a database / app builder framework like MS PowerApps with a connected back end which is good for both detailed printed reports and online dashboard type reports.

We would be very grateful for any advice on the systems we should use and how to get help in development ng our apps.

Thanks Colin