Microsoft is always innovating, updating and releasing new products and solutions. Although it can sometimes be challenging to keep up with, this frequent pace of innovation makes Microsoft always at the forefront of digital transformation. One of the most exciting suite of tools is the Microsoft Power Platform.
The Microsoft Power Platform is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) that enables businesses to analyze, act on, and automate their data and gain insights to drive intelligent business processes. The platform is designed for everyday use in businesses regardless of size and sector and you do not need to be a programmer or technical expert to utilize the Power Platform. These applications handle your data using Microsoft’s Common Data Service (CDS). The Common Data Service is a cloud-based tool hosted on Azure and is essentially the underlying data platform that provides a unified and simplified data schema so that applications and services can inter-operate.
What Does The Power Platform Include?
The Power Platform is comprised of 4 core modules:
Power BI
Power BI delivers meaningful and insightful visualizations of your data. It enables users to easily create their own custom reports and dashboards bringing their data to life.
It allows users to:
Transform data into stunning visuals and share with colleagues within Sharepoint, Teams, Mobile and more.
Visually explore and analyze data – on premise and in the cloud – all in one view.
Collaborate on and share customized dashboards and interactive reports.
Ultimately, Power BI is a powerful analytical tool that can turn your complex data into detailed insights through real-time dashboards and reports.
Power Apps
Power Apps is an insightful platform that allows you to create custom desktop and mobile apps with no code. With Power Apps, users can:
Build the user interface with pre-designed templates as well as easy to use drag and drop features. This includes text boxes, choice fields, media options and more.
Quickly build apps. Power Apps acts like a platform-as-a-service, which enables the quickly built apps to run on any web browser like Chrome and Firefox as well as mobile apps using Windows, Android, and IOS.
Store data inside the custom business app or connect to external data sources either in the core platform or to several online and on-premise sources such as Office 365, Dynamics 365, SharePoint, SQL Server, Excel and more.
Power Apps allows for feature-rich custom Apps to be built without writing code, which will provide your business with workflow capabilities, plus, digitize and automate manual business processes.
Power Automate
Power Automate, previously known as Microsoft Flow, allows business users to automate workflows between apps and services without having to write any code. With Power Automate, users can:
Choose to build a custom workflow from scratch or use the workflow templates. This includes individual tasks and large-scale systems with flawless integration from the use of prebuilt connectors.
Automate various manual time-consuming repetitive tasks with point and click simplicity and built in AI capabilities to streamline business processes. These can include automatic reminders, computing data in excel, a schedule for moving data between systems and more.
With businesses creating an automated faster environment to replace mundane manual tasks, they can boost productivity and focus on critical business strategy.
Power Virtual Agents
Power Virtual Agents is the newest addition to the Power Platform which allows users to build a virtual agent or “chat bot” without having to write code. Power Virtual Agents:
Handles the whole life cycle of the virtual agent including the creation, dialog, logics, deployment, etc.
Is extremely sophisticated; some features include natural language understand, FAQ bot made with the QnA maker, and adaptive features in the bot to make the user interface more perceptive and understanding.
Is integrated with the other Power Platform tools like Power Automate, therefore, the virtual agents can trigger workflows in order to solve a problem.
Allows for automatic quick and effective responses to customers creating a better experience and saving staff time.
The Microsoft Power Platform provides all the tools you need to automate your business and gain valuable insights in order to help your business run more efficiently and smoothly.
If you would like to find out more about the Power Platform, please get in touch with us today. One of our experienced consultants would be happy to help. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter to keep updated with industry news and software tips and tricks.