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What is the Power Platform?
The ‘Power Platform’ is a collective term for four Microsoft products: Power BI, PowerApps Power Automate (previously known as Flow), and Power Virtual Agent. They provide the means to help people easily manipulate, surface, automate and analyze data and can be used with Office 365 and Dynamics 365 (as well as other third-party apps and other Microsoft services). The Power Platform is possible thanks to the Common Data Service (or CDS), which is essentially the underlying data platform that provides a unified and simplified data schema so that applications and services can inter-operate.
PowerApps, Power Automate & Power BI explained
As mentioned, the Power Platform consists of three technologies - let's look at these three in more detail.
PowerApps is a low-code approach to custom app development, allowing users to quickly create apps with a ‘point and click’ approach. It allows you to:
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Build mobile-friendly apps quickly and without development knowledge and reducing pressure on busy IT teams
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Connect to and surface data from your business applications, such as Dynamics 365 and Office 365 (and also third-party apps)
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Surface key data into a user-friendly app to help data entry – meaning users only see the information they need to fulfil a particular task
Power Automate used to be known as Microsoft Flow. This allows you to create automated workflows between your Microsoft services or other third-party applications, which allows staff to avoid carrying out repetitive tasks and save valuable time. It allows you to:
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Use pre-built automation templates for common automations (within the Flow Gallery)
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Create you own automations by connecting various applications, such as Outlook, SharePoint Dynamics 365 or non-Microsoft apps like Twitter, Asana, Gmail, MailChimp etc.
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Set up triggers, alerts, automated emails, push notifications and much more – with no coding and in minutes
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Overall it allows you to save time, reduce human error and streamline your processes
Power BI is a business analytics tool which allows you to easily connect to data sources, create visuals and gain business intelligence quickly. It allows you to:
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Click and connect with Microsoft and third-party cloud services, as well as on-premise data sources
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Easily manipulate data and create visuals, such as charts, dashboards, maps and many more – so you can present your data in an easy-to-digest format
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Use natural language to query data and get results (i.e. “show me our sales pipeline for 2018 by month, by sales person”)
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Overall, allowing you to easily analyse and make sense of complex data to enable continual improvement
Adaptable AI chatbots, at your service
Solve common customer and internal-facing issues automatically, freeing up staff to focus on complex requests and high-value interactions.
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Easily create your own virtual agents
Create powerful chatbots—without the need for developers or data scientists—by using a guided, no-code graphical interface.
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Empower virtual agents to take action
Integrate Power Virtual Agents with the products and services you use every day using hundreds of prebuilt connectors, by building custom workflows using Power Automate, or creating complex scenarios with Microsoft Bot Framework.
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Measure performance
Monitor and continuously improve chatbot performance using AI- and data-driven insights available in an easy-to-read dashboard.
