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Over the past little while at Geoson, my focus has shifted from initial onboarding to actively applying what I’m learning in more practical, real-world scenarios. Building on the foundation I described in my first post, I’ve had the opportunity to deepen my understanding of Microsoft’s Power Platform, AI tools, and how these technologies come together in a production environment.

A major part of this phase has been working through several Microsoft Learn paths related to AI and application development. I’ve been exploring how AI agents are designed and how Microsoft 365 Copilot can be extended using tools like Copilot Studio and Azure. These modules helped me better understand how generative AI fits into enterprise workflows, including concepts like orchestration, agent design, and when AI adds real value versus when traditional automation is a better fit.

Alongside this, I’ve been learning more about AI Builder and how AI models can be integrated into business applications. This included understanding common use cases such as text recognition and data extraction, as well as how these models interact with Dataverse, Power Apps, and Power Automate. Seeing how AI capabilities are packaged in a way that’s accessible to app makers and business users has been especially interesting from a systems design perspective.

One of the most valuable technical areas I’ve focused on recently is Power Apps development itself. I spent time learning imperative development techniques for canvas apps, diving deeper into Power Fx and understanding the differences between declarative and imperative logic. Concepts like global variables, contextual variables, and collections became much clearer once I started using them in real applications rather than just learning about them in isolation.

That learning came together when I started working on canvas screens for the EzExpense Pro version. Being able to contribute in a production environment pushed me to think more carefully about app structure, data flow, and maintainability. I gained hands-on experience writing Power Fx for real use cases, designing screens with actual users in mind, and understanding how small design or logic decisions can impact usability and performance.

Beyond the technical skills, working in a production area has given me a better appreciation for how professional teams build, review, and iterate on solutions. I’ve learned how development decisions are influenced by business needs, how documentation and standards help keep projects scalable, and how collaboration plays a key role in delivering reliable solutions.

As I continue my co-op term, my goal is to keep building on this momentum. I want to keep strengthening my technical skills while gaining more exposure to how AI, automation, and low-code tools are used to solve real business problems. I’m excited to keep learning from the team at Geoson and to continue contributing in meaningful ways as the term progresses.

In 2026, Geoson is expanding customer‑experience applications on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform.

At Geoson, we’re increasingly integrating AI into our daily Power Apps development to deliver smarter, more efficient applications. Within the Power Platform, AI capabilities generally fall into several key areas;

📄 Document Processing: Automated extraction and handling of complex documents.
✍️ Text Analysis: Understanding and deriving meaning from unstructured text.
🖼️ Image Recognition: Interpreting and extracting data from visual information.
📊 Structured Data Interpretation: Enhancing insights from existing business data.

We achieve efficiency by first leveraging Microsoft's prebuilt AI models for standardized, high-volume scenarios. This provides immediate value for common tasks like basic text recognition and general document data extraction.

However, to meet specific business process demands, we design and train custom AI models. This tailored development is essential for increasing accuracy in specialized, real-world data capture—for example, fine-tuning image-based data extraction to handle the unique layouts and fields found on specific vendor invoices or proprietary internal documents. By strategically combining these out-of-the-box and customized models, we streamline data workflows and significantly improve the precision of data capture within Power Apps. This dual approach allows us to build intelligent business applications that accurately reflect and automate complex, real-world operational requirements.

First Few Days at Geoson 

A reflection on my first few days at Geoson, including how I got here and how I want to grow. 

Hi, my name is Ethan, and I’m a Computer Engineering student at the University of Alberta. I recently joined Geoson as a co-op student, and over my first few days, I’ve already had the opportunity to dive into new tools, workflows, and ways of thinking about real-world software development.

My academic background has given me a strong foundation in programming, problem-solving, and systems thinking, but one of my main goals coming into this co-op is to bridge the gap between classroom learning and industry application. Early on at Geoson, I’ve been working through Microsoft Power Platform learning paths, including Power Automate and Power Apps. This has given me hands-on exposure to building automated workflows, monitoring and troubleshooting flows, and developing custom Power Apps components using the Power Apps Component Framework. Going through these modules has helped me better understand how low-code and no-code tools can be used to build scalable, real business solutions efficiently.

Beyond the technical onboarding, I’ve already started getting familiar with how teams collaborate in a professional environment. Seeing how documentation is structured, how tools are used to manage work, and how problems are approached from both a technical and business perspective has been extremely valuable.

Throughout this co-op term, I’m hoping to gain deeper experience applying my technical skills to real projects with real users. I want to continue learning industry tools and workflows that aren’t always taught in school, improve my ability to communicate ideas clearly, and grow more confident contributing meaningfully to a team. I’m also looking forward to learning from experienced professionals through mentorship and feedback and gaining clarity on the types of roles and technologies I’m most excited to pursue long-term.

So far, my experience at Geoson has been welcoming and engaging, and I’m excited to build on what I’ve learned as the term continues.

In today's digital age, keeping a website fresh and engaging is key to attracting and retaining visitors. Recently, I made some exciting updates to my website to improve user experience and functionality. Here's a look at what I've been up to: 

Recently I have been tasked with updating Geoson Solutions very own Contract Management extension. This task required me to learn the new and exciting tool D365 Business Central (BC) and programming in AL.

During the past 2 weeks at Geoson Solutions I got to finally wrap up a project I have been working on since joining. This involved adding some last-minute additions and changes that were requested. It has been a worthwhile experience and I’ve learned a lot. It will be nice to finally have the final version out there.

This week required me to put all the skills I have learned in my past month here to the test as I tackled new features and various bug fixes. I continued developing a lookup feature followed by setting default values when the form is launched. As we began to put the form into production, I also received bug fixes and other small tweaks that I would need to resolve.

The highlight of my week had to be finally meeting the team. After meeting virtually with them for weeks it was quite nice seeing them in person. The camaraderie built will not only help us enjoy our time working together more, but also help us be more effective as a team. I cannot wait to meet with them again next month!

Recently, I have been working on implementing a filter on a Visual Studio Integration Toolkit (VSIT) Custom Form in Microsoft Dynamics GP as well as solving an underlying bug that would delete the first row of the form’s scrolling window whenever a user clicked on it. The filter would only show data that was matched and another filter which showed if the data had been submitted. The difficulties faced with creating this filter stemmed from how scrolling windows function inside of GP. While it is straightforward to set up a scrolling window for data to be manually entered and saved, importing the data, and modifying it on the fly was fairly challenging.