What is Microsoft Power Platform?

Power Platform is a collaborative platform developed by Microsoft designed for quick creation of apps and  processes automation using low-code/no-code approach. It aims to facilitate inclusive and accessible technologies for any size of business, enabling advanced users and software developers to develop new end-to-end solutions that add value and drive growth.

This platform comprises five key applications: Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Pages, and Power Virtual Agents. Combined, these applications help organisations automate processes, store and analyse data, and develop apps, websites, and virtual agents using Artificial Intelligence.

Power Platform integrates seamlessly with existing Microsoft Cloud services like Azure, Dynamics 365 CRM, and Microsoft 365, allowing organisations to maximise their cloud investments and technologies.

Each component of Power Platform can be used individually or together to innovate and create efficient solutions. The platform's built-in security, management, and compliance features ensure a secure environment for development and deployment.

Power Platform's common data model powered by Microsoft Dataverse enables easy sharing of data across applications and processes, adding intelligence to data for better use in applications, machine learning, and AI algorithms. This model saves time, lowers costs, and increases productivity across teams and businesses.

Power Apps

Power Apps is a suite of low-code development tools that allows users and developers to quickly build custom business applications. These applications can range from simple apps for data collection to complex apps that integrate with various data sources and services.

Hera are some use cases that can be implemented with Power Apps:

Sales Lead Tracking: Create a tool for sales teams to track leads, manage contacts, and analyse sales data.

Service Management: Develop an app to help field service technicians access customer information, update job statuses, and capture signatures on-site.

Expense Reporting: Create a custom app to streamline the expense reporting process. Employees can easily submit expenses, and managers can approve them quickly.

Production Control: Develop an app to plan and track production orders, and make them available to the operation on a Kanban board.

Inventory Management: Build an app to track inventory levels, manage stock, and automate reordering processes.

Customer Feedback: Develop a survey app to collect customer feedback and analyze responses to improve products or services.

Employee Onboarding: Build an app to guide new employees through the onboarding process, including training modules and HR forms.

Event Management: Create an app to manage event registrations, schedules, and attendee information.

Quality Inspections: Build an app for conducting quality inspections, capturing photos, and generating reports.

Power Automate

Power Automate is a no-code automation tool set to automate business processes and streamline repetitive tasks. It features drag-and-drop tools, as well as pre-built connectors, templates and an AI assistant for fast, secure automation. Connectors simplify processes across the business and expand the functionality of all Power Platform low-code solutions.

Power Automate's process advisor facilitates process and task mining so business users can record and visualise end-to-end processes. It also provides guided recommendations to create flows without having to guess what to automate. Its advanced low-code AI Builder helps enhance workflows and makes automation smarter. Users can create intuitive flows with AI Builder by embedding powerful language models and build unique scenarios for various business tasks.

Here are some common use cases for Power Automate:

Automation: Automate repetitive tasks, such as content approvals, email notifications or publishing workflows.

Integration: Integrate with other Microsoft tools, such as SharePoint or Teams, for seamless content management, and other standard applications.

Power BI

Power BI is the Power Platform's analytical tool. Enterprise teams can use it to discover useful, intelligent and timely insights from diverse data sets to help make informed business decisions. The tool captures real-time data from other tools in the Power Platform, including Power Apps, Power Virtual Agents and Power Automate.

Power Pages

Power Pages provides a simple way to build low-code, secure business websites. With its ready-made templates, data forms, lists and sample data, any business user can create a professional website that delivers engaging site experiences.

Power Pages also includes tools for professionals like website developers. These tools, such as Visual Studio Code, GitHub and Azure DevOps, add deeper functionalities and more advanced capabilities into websites.

In addition to design and development tools, Power Pages includes role-based access control (RBAC), compliance and governance capabilities to maintain its security profile. Also, Power Pages integrates with Microsoft Dataverse, allowing users to collect, manage and store data from site visitors and share it with external audiences.

Power Virtual Agents

Power Virtual Agents is a tool set to build intelligent chatbots that can engage conversationally with a firm's customers and employees. No coding is required to build chatbots.

Built-in AI capabilities and an intuitive graphical interface help speed up building bots, testing and publishing. These bots can be customised for many use cases and created in multiple languages. They can also be deployed across multiple digital channels, including websites, mobile apps, social media, Microsoft Teams and any channel supported by the Azure Bot Framework.

Power Platform's common data model

The Power Platform operates using a single data model, simplifying the sharing of data across various applications and business operations. This model enhances data with intelligence, enabling its effective utilisation by applications, machine learning, and AI algorithms to provide comprehensible and actionable insights. Additionally, the platform employs metadata definitions for all data, facilitating interoperability among applications, solutions, and teams.

The data model is accessible to all, offering time savings, cost reduction, and increased productivity for individuals, teams, and businesses. It can also be utilised to build contemporary applications and analytics that share a common understanding of data and utilise a standard schema to consolidate data and enhance insights.

At AGCM we design and build business solutions using Microsoft Power Platform technology. In addition, we help businesses to define governance, develop skills and adopt Power Platform. If you want to know more about our services and what Power Platform can do for your business get in touch with us.