A guide to Microsoft Power Platform
PowerApps, Power BI and more.
Microsoft Power Platform is a group of business intelligence, app development, and app connectivity software applications that sit within the wider Microsoft Eco-system.
Power Platform products are built using Power Fx, with the purpose of allowing employees at almost any level within an organisation to collaborate effectively and efficiently within departments, meaning increased productivity, modernized processes and solving tough challenges.
With the goal of working together to build solutions, analyse data and automate processes… Turning great ideas into impactful solutions.
What is Power Fx?
Power Fx is the low-code language that will be used across Microsoft Power Platform. It’s a general-purpose, strong-typed, declarative, and functional programming language. – Microsoft
Microsoft champions that the Power platform is ‘Powerful alone. Better Together’. Whilst the solutions are impressive on their own, they are incredibly powerful when integrated with Dynamics 365 Business Central and other apps. A selling point for the members within the Power Platform family is how they let you choose from a host of prebuilt connectors, build custom workflows, and create complex scenarios with Microsoft Framework.
The Microsoft Power Platform family of products include:
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Power BI
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Power Apps
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Power Automate
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Virtual Agent
Power BI
Power BI was created as a user-friendly, cloud based, self-service ad hoc reporting tool. Geared towards end users rather than IT professionals.
As an end user, Power BI allows you to create interactive reports without having to understand low-level computer programming. Access and present data displayed as dashboards of sortable, filterable lists and graphs on a web page. Share with others. All without the need of your IT department or consultants. Integrating Power BI with Dynamics 365 means you can access data from your all-important ERP and CRM systems.
Power Apps
Microsoft boasts PowerApps as a chance for users to create useful business applications, regardless of experience or software knowledge. The tool allows non-programmers, or non-technical end users, the opportunity to create their own computer programs. Giving your team the power to build apps they need, with advanced functionality and low code.
Although PowerApps has a portfolio of prebuilt templates and simplistic scenarios, users can build apps from scratch – starting with a blank template. PowerApps is designed to ‘bridge the gap’ between different applications within a business process.
Power Automate
Formerly known as Microsoft Flow, Power Automate is a technology created with the sole purpose of improving customisation, workflow, and integration in a world of loosely coupled applications.
Allowing you to streamline repetitive and paperless tasks within your business; your team can focus their attention on efforts which can help foster a competitive advantage and drive business growth. It also offers opportunities to enhance existing workflows by utilising the growing field of artificial intelligence.
Virtual Agent
Virtual Agent does what it says on the tin. VA enables users to create and manage powerful chatbots without the need to code and with an easy-to-use graphical interface.
Users can integrate chatbots with products and services, allowing them to look up records, personalize conversations, hand over conversations to live agents, and call APIs. Like other members of the Power Platform family, Virtual Agent lets you choose from prebuilt connectors, build custom workflows, or create complex scenarios with Microsoft Bot Framework.
Microsoft’s Virtual Agent also provides suggestions on topics to create personalized conversations using natural language, understanding, and entity extraction. There is also the capability to monitor and improve your chatbot’s performance using AI and data-driven insights.
Speak to an expert
Dynavics have hands on experience with Power Platform, ever since it came to be in 2018. Our experience includes building custom apps, analytics dashboards connected to multiple real-time data sources, and extensions for Business Central.
So, if you’d like to learn how Power Platform could empower your team, then why not get in touch? Speak to Dynavics to drive your business forward, gain competitive advantages, and benefit from solutions built on Power Platform.