How an Aerospace Engineering Firm Simplified CAPEX Approvals with Infowise Ultimate Forms

How an Aerospace Engineering Firm Simplified CAPEX Approvals with Infowise Ultimate Forms

An aerospace engineering firm replaced a stalled Power Apps implementation with a no-code CAPEX approval solution built in Infowise Ultimate Forms, allowing a sophisticated approval process to be configured quickly without writing custom code.

"We tried to use Microsoft's Power Apps platform but found it time consuming and confusing to work with. Power Apps needed special programming to accommodate basic business requirements."

Challenge

Capital expenditure (CAPEX) requests require careful review before funding can be approved. To support this process, an aerospace engineering firm wanted to modernize its approval workflow by replacing a manual process with a centralized SharePoint solution. The new application needed to capture all of the information required for each request while automatically routing approvals through multiple stages and enforcing consistent business rules.

Each request needed to collect information including the requester, business, site, justification, priority, classification, requested amount, anticipated spend date, supporting documentation, approval history, notes, and attachments. The system also needed to support separate Site Approver and Executive Approver review stages while adapting the form based on each approval decision.

The company initially chose Microsoft Power Apps because it was already part of its Microsoft 365 environment. However, the project quickly became more challenging than expected. As additional business requirements were introduced, the form required an increasing number of Power FX formulas to support dynamic behavior, conditional validation, and approval logic. After spending 35 hours developing the application, the required functionality was still incomplete.

The organization wanted a faster and more maintainable approach that would allow the business process to be implemented without the complexity of custom programming.

Solution

The company selected Infowise Ultimate Forms to build the CAPEX approval system directly within SharePoint. Instead of writing formulas, the entire application was configured using Ultimate Forms' visual designers and no-code business rules.

The form itself was created quickly, allowing the project to shift from development challenges to solving the actual business problem.

Ultimate Forms provided all of the functionality required for the application, including:

• Dynamic forms that respond automatically to user selections.
• Conditional visibility and required field validation without programming.
• Automatic assignment of Site Approvers based on the selected facility.
• Multi-stage approval workflows for both Site and Executive Approvers.
• Secure document attachments and complete approval history.
• Automatic creation of a corresponding Spend Tracking record after final approval.

One of the most important requirements involved conditional approvals. During the Site Approval stage, reviewers can mark a request as Approved, Rejected, or Incomplete. When Rejected or Incomplete is selected, an additional notes field immediately appears and becomes required before the reviewer can complete the approval. The Executive Approval stage follows the same pattern, ensuring that every rejection or incomplete decision includes the necessary explanation while keeping the form simple during normal approvals.

Ultimate Forms also simplified approval routing. When a requester selects one of the company's four sites, the designated Site Approver is automatically populated on the form. This eliminates manual approver selection and helps ensure that every request follows the correct approval path.

After the overall CAPEX request reaches Approved status, Ultimate Forms automatically creates a corresponding record in a separate Spend Tracking SharePoint list. This automation eliminates duplicate data entry while seamlessly transitioning approved requests into the organization's financial tracking process.

Throughout the project, every business rule was configured through Ultimate Forms' intuitive interface. Dynamic visibility, required fields, approval routing, and validation were all established through simple configuration rather than custom development.

Impact

By replacing its Power Apps implementation with Infowise Ultimate Forms, the aerospace engineering firm significantly accelerated delivery of its CAPEX approval system while reducing implementation complexity. The overall development time was decreased by more than 400%. The overall development time was reduced to under 10 hours.

Rather than continuing to develop and troubleshoot formulas, the team was able to configure sophisticated business rules through Ultimate Forms' visual interface. The resulting application delivers a streamlined experience for both requesters and approvers while remaining easy to modify as business requirements evolve.

Automatic approver assignment, dynamic forms, conditional validation, and downstream Spend Tracking integration reduced manual effort while ensuring every request follows a consistent and well-documented approval process.

The project also demonstrated that sophisticated SharePoint business applications do not require custom programming. By configuring business rules instead of writing code, the organization delivered a powerful approval solution in far less time than the original Power Apps implementation.

"We installed Ultimate Forms into our environment and were able to complete the process easily without any programming needed at all. Setting up rules is easy using simple dropdown inputs."