Tag: Rapid Application Development, Workflow Automation, Power Platform Architecture

Introduction

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, ADAMS Center—one of the largest mosques on the East Coast—needed a fast, reliable system to manage prayer-time attendance while protecting community health. The goals were clear:

• Control crowd size to comply with state and county guidelines
• Maintain liability and waiver compliance
• Enable rapid contact tracing in case of confirmed exposure
• Scale easily across multiple mosque branches

The solution needed to be deployed within 24 hours, work on everyday devices, and support thousands of attendees across locations.

The Solution

Our company designed and deployed a complete end-to-end attendance and tracing system using Microsoft Office 365 PowerApps, Power Automate (Flow), and SharePoint.

The system provided a safe, efficient check-in process and real-time visibility into attendance while fully supporting the health protocols required at the time.

Key Features

Registration & QR Code Generation

• Attendees registered through a form using their email address.
• They submitted required liability waivers electronically.
• The system auto-generated a QR code and emailed it to the attendee for future check-ins.

Contactless Check-In Process

• Volunteers used a PowerApp scanner on any iOS/Android phone to scan attendee QR codes.
• The app verified registration, confirmed liability compliance, and logged check-ins.
• Temperature checks were performed manually and recorded as part of the flow.
• The system blocked additional entries if capacity limits were reached.

Administrative Dashboard

• Real-time dashboards displayed attendance counts per prayer time.
• Staff could view registered users, search attendee profiles, and track entry logs.
• PKI-style identification was used to support unique attendee verification.

Contact Tracing & Communication

• In the event of a known COVID exposure, administrators could trigger mass email notifications to all attendees who checked in during the affected time window.

Architecture & Technology

Platform: Microsoft Office 365 Power Platform

• PowerApps – mobile check-in scanner, volunteer workflow
• Power Automate (Flow) – registration, QR code generation, email automation, tracing workflow
• SharePoint Online – secure data storage for registrations, check-ins, and audit data
• Power BI – reporting and attendance dashboards
• Azure AD – role-based access and security enforcement

Why Power Platform?

The solution leveraged Power Platform’s strengths:

• Zero external software deployment — everything ran inside Office 365
• Cross-platform mobile support — iOS and Android worked out-of-the-box
• Rapid development — fully designed, built, tested, and deployed in 24 hours
• Role-based access control — volunteers, admins, branch leads
• Scalability — instantly expanded to multiple ADAMS locations
• Audit trails & compliance — full logging for legal and safety requirements
• Privacy & security built into Office 365
• Easy to maintain by the organization after handoff

Each smartphone effectively became a compliant check-in scanner without additional hardware costs.

Impact

The system enabled ADAMS Center to:

• Safely reopen for limited congregational prayers
• Automate attendance logs and liability tracking
• Provide peace of mind to congregants during a difficult period
• Respond instantly in case of exposure through automated contact tracing
• Scale the solution to multiple branches and dozens of volunteers
• Maintain compliance with evolving public health regulations

This rapid-deployment solution demonstrated the power of leveraging Microsoft Power Platform to solve urgent, real-world problems efficiently and securely.