Microsoft Power Platform

Thanks to Microsoft you can now build a business app, analyze and visualize your data, automate your monotonous tasks and build a bot for easy communication, all in a single platform.

Gone are the days when you must learn how to code before you can build an app. You can build an app with no or low code tools, analyze and visualize data, build business solutions and communicate better with your customers through chatbots.

In this article, you will learn about the overview of the Microsoft Power Platform and its benefits.

What is Microsoft Power Platform?

Microsoft Power Platform is a group of products that work towards analyzing and developing visualizations, creating business solutions, automating repetitive tasks, and building an intelligent chatbot for prompt responses.

Microsoft Power Platform has been of high benefit to businesses. It has made it easy to draw insights from data for better decision-making. It has reduced or eliminated inefficiencies at workplaces through the automation of recurring tasks. It has improved the quality of service of organizations by allowing them to build customized apps that deliver their operations. These apps are built at a relatively lower cost compared to traditional mobile and software development.

Features of Microsoft Power Platform

Four principal applications constitute the Microsoft Power Platform. They are:

1. Power Apps

2. Power Automate

3. Power BI

4. Power Virtual Agent

Let's get started and dive into these applications:

1. Power Apps

Microsoft Power Apps ****is a product of the Microsoft power platform that enables you to build custom apps with no or low code to address business needs. It allows you to build and customize an app based on a specific template without having to dispense many resources as done by software developers.

You can increase the productivity of your business by building a quick app and having it connected to your data source using Power Apps. You can maximize the use of Power apps by integrating them with different data sources.

Simply put, Power Apps is a low-code platform that allows users to create custom business applications for web and mobile devices.

Some of its unique and excelling features include:

• No-code/low-code development: Power Apps makes it easy for non-technical users to create and customize business applications without needing to write code.
• Connectivity: Power Apps can connect to a wide range of data sources, including cloud-based services like Office 365, Dynamics 365, and SharePoint, as well as on-premises data sources like SQL Server.
• Integration with Power Automate: Power Apps can be integrated with Power Automate, a workflow automation tool, to create powerful business automation solutions.
• Customizable UI: Power Apps provides a wide range of customizable UI components, such as forms, galleries, and charts, which can be easily configured to meet the specific needs of the application.
• Mobile-first design: Power Apps is designed to be mobile-first, allowing users to access and interact with the applications on their mobile devices.
• Multi-language support: Power apps support various languages that can be used to develop the apps.
• Extensibility: Power Apps can be extended using custom connectors and APIs to connect to other systems and services.

Thanks to Power Apps you can build a custom app for your business to assist your business. You can as well change the manual operations in your business to digital and automated processes.

Microsoft Power Apps can be in either of these forms:

a. Canvas Apps

Canva apps do not necessarily have to be built with a Dataverse database. Building a canvas app requires that you start from a blank screen and then manually lay out each screen. With this, the app creator designs the interface of the app as he/she wants. Choose a canvas app when you are mostly concerned about the user interface of the app.

b. Model-driven Apps

Model-driven apps are built on top of the data model in the Microsoft Dataverse database. It requires little time to create as it doesn't require you to build the user interface yourself. A model-driven app in Power Apps is a type of app that is built on top of the Common Data Service (CDS) for Power Apps. CDS is a cloud-based data platform that provides a centralized repository for storing and managing business data. Model-driven apps leverage the data and logic stored in CDS to provide a rich set of out-of-the-box functionality for creating business applications.

2. Power Automate

Power Automate is a platform that allows users to automate routine workflows. It was formerly named Microsoft Flow. These workflows could be in form of file synchronization, email notifications, data updates, etc.

Power Automate helps streamline an organization’s repetitive tasks and increase productivity. It allows users to maximize their time when dealing with time-consuming tasks as it reduces the time meant to be spent on such tasks.

It boosts user productivity by allowing them to carefully address the important issues and then automate the rest. It is a platform that accommodates both technical and non-technical users. It has made it such that everyone can increase their productivity by creating solutions to their problem themselves.

There are five different types of Power Automate Flows:

1. Schedule flow: This will allow you to automate tasks that are carried out at some certain date and time.
2. Automated flow: Automated flows are run when some predefined conditions are met.
3. Instant flow: This is a common type of flow that runs immediately whenever an action is performed.
4. UI flow: This type of flow best suits the automation of recurring tasks in basic applications. It works by taking a record of your actions for applications and replaying it to other users.
5. Business process flow: With business process flow, you can create a format that your employees will use consistently in attending to the customers.

3. Power BI

Power BI s a business intelligence and data visualization tool that allows users to connect to, analyze, and visualize data from a wide range of sources into interactive dashboards and reports to draw insights from data.

Power BI is a platform that allows users to develop captivating data visualizations. It is a business analytics service that allows users to analyze and visualize data from different sources.

Some of its unique and excelling features include:

• Data Connectivity: Power BI allows users to connect to a wide range of data sources, including cloud-based services like Azure, Dynamics 365, and SharePoint, as well as on-premises data sources like SQL Server.
• Data modeling: Power BI provides a powerful data modeling tool that allows users to create relationships between different data sources, create calculated columns and tables, and clean and transform data.
• Data visualization: Power BI provides a wide range of visualizations, including charts, tables, maps, and gauges, that can be easily customized to meet the specific needs of the analysis.
• Dashboards and Reports: Power BI allows users to create interactive dashboards and reports that can be easily shared and collaborated on with others.
• Real-time data: Power BI allows users to connect to real-time data sources and create visualizations that update in real-time.
• Mobile support: Power BI is designed to be mobile-first, allowing users to access and interact with their dashboards and reports on their mobile devices.
• Integrations: Power BI can be integrated with other Microsoft tools like Power Apps, Excel, and Power Automate to create more powerful and sophisticated business intelligence solutions.
• Automation: Power BI can be automated using Power Query and Power Automate, which allows to schedule the refresh of data and automate the distribution of reports.

Power BI has made it easy to draw insights from data. Users can drive more strategic outcomes regardless of their domain, be it technical or not since they do not need to write any code. Through interactive dashboards and reports, Power BI guides organizations in better decision-making.

4. Power Virtual Agent

Power virtual agent is used in creating AI-powered chatbots that are adopted for a range of requests. These requests could be; sending an ID number to a new user, answering questions from customers, and so on.

These chatbots can be created without necessarily having to be a data analyst. The virtual agents can be in form of standalone web apps or as a discrete apps within Microsoft Teams.

Responding to business questions by customers, sales help and support issues, and provision of ID numbers to learners are some of the use cases of power virtual agents.

In short, Power Virtual Agent is a chatbot development platform that allows users to create and deploy intelligent chatbots for customer service, IT support, and other business scenarios. It provides a drag-and-drop interface, natural language processing, pre-built templates, integrations with other Microsoft tools, customizable UI, multi-language support, analytics, and extensibility.

Power virtual agent makes it easy to build bots quickly. It also works towards improving created bots over time.

Note: Power virtual agent is not licensed to give consultation and medical advice to its users*.***

How Microsoft Power Platform can benefit you

1. It allows you to manage all your business processes in a single platform.

Microsoft Power Platform is the only platform that offers no and low code tools for the members of an organization to

2. It can be used by users of varying domains.

It is built in a manner such that technical and non-technical users can handle the products well and amass its benefits. It also allows technical users to answer complex business problems.

3. It makes it easy for you to work across different devices

Power Apps, Power BI and Power Automate can be used on your laptop, iPad, phone, or Tablet. With this, you can work collectively with your team anywhere, onsite or remote, and ensure no one misses out on anything.

4. It simplifies everyday business tasks

Tasks that have to be done every day can be automated and allowed to run effectively on their own with little or no supervision

5. It increases business productivity

From eliminating redundancy through Power Automate to deriving insights from data through Power BI, organizations maximize their resources and increase their productivity in little time.

6. It increases customer service

Through power virtual agents, you can solve some basic customer issues automatically and have the complex ones handled by the staff. This will reduce queues of customers with common issues and improve the quality of service given to those who have to meet with the staff.

Conclusion

The advent of the Microsoft Power Platform has improved the well-being of customers, staff, and business owners. Businesses are also recording more profits and improving their services. It has also bridged the gap between technical users and non-technical users by allowing them to interact with the interface of the applications.

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