Neilson Kids Club App: Power Apps and Dataverse for Beach Club Childcare
How we built and support an offline iPad app in Power Apps and Dataverse for Neilson Kids Clubs, managing registrations, attendance and medical forms.
- 1 tap to sign a child in or out, with a timestamp
- 3 core tasks that work fully offline: registration, attendance and medical checks
- 4 personas, from Kids Club leaders to head office
- ~6 months from discovery to the first season's rollout
Project at a glance
- Client
Neilson Active Holidays, a UK tour operator running Beach Clubs in the Mediterranean, with supervised Kids Clubs for children in age-based groups - Solution
The Kids Club app, a canvas Power App on iPads with Microsoft Dataverse as its data store. It pulls bookings from SuiteCRM and works offline. - Engagement
Business analysis, solution design, build and ongoing support, delivered remotely from Canada - Duration
About 6 months from discovery to the first season's rollout, followed by continuous support and seasonal enhancement releases - Our role
Business Analysis Canada led analysis, design, development and support. We worked with Neilson's Kids Club operations managers, resort managers, Kids Club leaders, the IT team, and the data protection lead. - Scope
Requirements, process design, data model, SuiteCRM integration, offline design, security and data protection requirements, testing, staff onboarding, and second- and third-line support
The challenge
What problem was the client trying to solve?
Kids Club staff look after other people's children on holiday. They needed accurate, up-to-date information about every child, and they needed it on the beach, not in an office.
- Printed lists out of date
Child details came from bookings in SuiteCRM, but Kids Club teams worked from printed lists that went out of date as soon as guests changed plans. - Queues on the first morning
Parents completed registration and medical forms on paper at the start of each holiday, which created queues on the first morning. - Medical details in paper folders
Allergy and medical information sat in paper folders, so staff running an activity away from the club room could not always see it quickly. - Paper attendance registers
Attendance and sign-in and sign-out were recorded on paper registers. That made it hard to confirm who had collected a child and when. - Unreliable signal at the beach
Wi-Fi and mobile coverage at beaches and activity areas was unreliable, so any digital tool had to keep working without a connection. - Sensitive data on paper
Children's personal and medical data is sensitive, and paper records were hard to secure, retain and dispose of correctly under UK GDPR.
Our business analysis approach
How did we approach the engagement?
We designed the app around a Kids Club leader's day: arrival week registrations, daily sign-ins, activities across the resort, and sign-outs to approved adults.
- Discovery and observation
We interviewed Kids Club operations managers, resort managers and club leaders, and walked through a typical changeover day and a typical activity day. We mapped the as-is process in BPMN, from booking to registration, daily attendance, incidents and end of stay. - Personas and use cases
We defined personas for Kids Club leaders, club managers, resort managers and head office operations staff. Use cases covered pre-arrival preparation, first-day registration, daily sign-in and sign-out, checking allergies before snacks and meals, logging incidents, and handing over between shifts. - Data protection by design
With Neilson's data protection lead, we classified the data (child details, parent and guardian contacts, authorised collectors, allergies, medical conditions and consents). We defined access rules, retention periods and deletion rules before any build started. Health data was treated as special category data under UK GDPR. - Data model
We designed the Dataverse data model: guests, bookings, children, guardians, authorised collectors, club groups, sessions, attendance records, medical and allergy records, consents and incident notes. Each table had defined ownership, relationships and retention rules. - SuiteCRM integration
We specified a scheduled integration that pulls relevant bookings and guest details from SuiteCRM into Dataverse for each resort. Specs covered field mappings, matching rules for returning guests, handling of amendments and cancellations, error logging, and which system owns each data element. - Offline design
We defined which data each iPad holds offline, scoped to its resort and current guests. Offline actions included registration, attendance and medical checks, with sync on reconnect and rules for conflicting edits. - User stories and prototypes
We wrote user stories with acceptance criteria and built clickable prototypes of the home screen, group register, child profile, sign-out check and medical form. Club leaders tested the prototypes before full development. - Build and testing
We built the canvas app with large touch targets and simple flows for busy staff. We tested every function online, offline and on reconnect, on the iPad models used in resorts. Club leaders ran user acceptance testing before the season started. - Rollout and support
We prepared short guides and video walkthroughs for seasonal staff, supported resorts through the first weeks, and moved into ongoing support with a monitored integration and a prioritized enhancement backlog.
Solution
What did we deliver?
Area
Problem
What was delivered
Booking integration
Printed lists out of date
Scheduled pull of bookings and guest details from SuiteCRM into Dataverse, with amendments and cancellations applied automatically
Digital registration
Paper forms and first-morning queues
On-iPad registration with child details, guardians, authorised collectors and parent signatures
Allergies and medical forms
Paper folders not always to hand
Digital medical and allergy forms, with clear allergy flags on every child's profile and on group registers
Attendance
Paper registers
Group registers for each session, with one-tap sign-in and sign-out and timestamps
Safe collection
Hard to confirm who collected a child
Sign-out checks against the list of authorised collectors, with the collector's name recorded
Club groups
Groups managed on paper
Children assigned to age-based groups automatically from their date of birth, with manual overrides for siblings or special requests
Incidents and notes
Notes in notebooks
Incident and observation notes linked to the child, visible to club and resort managers
Offline operation
Poor connectivity at beaches
Full offline use for registration, attendance and medical checks, with sync when the iPad reconnects
Reporting
No overview across resorts
Views of daily attendance, children by group and open incidents for each resort, plus summaries for head office
Data protection
Paper records hard to secure
Role-based access, device management, audit history, and automatic deletion of child records after the retention period
Data protection
How did we handle security and data protection?
The app holds children's health information, so security and privacy requirements were tested as carefully as any feature.
- Access was based on roles and limited to each resort's current guests, so staff saw only the children in their care.
- Medical and allergy details were visible to Kids Club staff who needed them, with changes recorded in an audit history.
- iPads were managed centrally, with passcodes, remote wipe and controlled app distribution.
- Data held offline was limited to what each resort needed and was removed from devices once guests checked out.
- Retention and deletion rules ran automatically, so child records were not kept longer than the agreed period.
- Consent capture and privacy information for parents were reviewed with Neilson's data protection lead before launch.
Which BA techniques and tools did we use?
Techniques
- Stakeholder interviews
- Process observation
- BPMN process modelling
- Personas and use cases
- Data classification and privacy-by-design requirements
- Data modelling
- Integration specification
- Offline and sync requirements
- User stories with acceptance criteria
- Prototyping
- UAT planning
- Support and release planning
Tools
- Power Apps
- Microsoft Dataverse
- Power Automate
- SuiteCRM
- Microsoft Intune
- Azure DevOps
- Figma
- Microsoft Visio
Support
How do we support the app?
The app runs every day of the season across several resorts, so support was planned as part of the solution, not added afterwards.
Monitored integration
Integration runs with SuiteCRM are monitored, and failed records are flagged for review before they affect resort teams.
One agreed support channel
Resort issues come in through an agreed support channel, with priorities and response targets set for the season.
Improvements before each season
Before each season we review feedback from club managers, update the enhancement backlog, and release improvements before staff training starts.
Guides for every new intake
Release notes and refreshed guides are prepared for each new intake of seasonal staff.
Results
What were the results?
- 1 tap to sign a child in or out, with a timestamp
- 3 core tasks that work fully offline: registration, attendance and medical checks
- 4 personas, from Kids Club leaders to head office
- ~6 months from discovery to the first season's rollout
Allergy and medical information available instantly wherever staff are, including during activities.
- Kids Club teams working from current booking data instead of printed lists.
- Faster first-day registration, with forms completed on the iPad instead of on paper.
- Clear, timestamped attendance and collection records for every session.
- Reliable use at beaches and activity areas with poor connectivity, thanks to offline mode.
- Better protection of children's personal and health data, with controlled access and automatic deletion.
- An app supported season after season, improved each year from staff feedback.
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Lessons learned
What can other teams learn from this project?
- Design for where the work happens. A childcare app used on a beach must work offline and be usable with one hand.
- Settle data protection rules before building. Retention, access and consent decisions shape the data model.
- Decide which system owns each piece of data. Bookings belong to the CRM, and care records belong to the app.
- Plan for seasonal staff. Simple screens and short guides matter more than features when new teams arrive every season.
- Treat support as part of the product. A daily operational app needs monitoring and a release rhythm, not just a launch.
Is your team still working from printed lists?
Talk to a senior business analyst about a Power Apps solution that works offline, pulls live data from your CRM and keeps sensitive records secure.
Neilson Kids Club App: Power Apps and Dataverse for Beach Club Childcare
