Microsoft Build 2022 – Microsoft Power Platform redefines Low code

Microsoft is discovering the possibilities with low code. This year at Microsoft Build, they rolled out exciting features and capabilities to the Microsoft Power Platform. While many organizations continue to embrace the benefits of low code, these improvements and new features in the Microsoft Power Platform will be a win-win for enterprises too.

Check out the latest features,

Image Source – docs.microsoft.com

Power Apps

Power Apps has a new feature, the Express design. Nourished with AI capabilities and 675+ prebuilt connectors, express design can help anyone design applications instantly and connect with multiple data sources. It can turn almost any information into an app, from hand-drawn sketches to digital files making room for creativity to flow in and helping seamlessly connect to all your data. This will speed up the digital transformation making Gartner’s prediction that ‘500 million apps will be created in the next five years using low code’ a reality.

How does this new feature work?

1. Power Apps express design is an AI-powered co-pilot that will assist you when you create the application.
2. Advanced AI scans your files in PDF, screenshot, paper form, etc. It is trained to recognize typical applications using cognitive AI models and creates applications with a working user experience and data schema in Microsoft Dataverse.
3. You are free to do any adjustments and editing till you get the expected version.
4. With the help of prebuilt connectors, connect your data and integrate with existing systems like Salesforce, SAP, and SQL.
5. Using the low code Power Apps studio, add as many screens as you desire by uploading your additional files.

Microsoft, in partnership with Figma, offers Power Apps Figma UI Kit. This bridges the gap between the designers and developers and provides an optimal experience to the user, saving time and having complete control over the end-to-end application creation experience.

Power Virtual Agents

Power Virtual Agents’ new bot authoring experience facilitates building intelligent conversational AI bots in a single unified studio integrating Azure Bot Service and Power Virtual Agents. This will help fusion teams build conversational bots inside a single software as a service (SaaS) solution.

Advanced Authoring Features

• It makes conversations more interactive with images, videos, quick replies, and adaptive cards.
• Integrated Power Fx editor enables connecting builders to connect to custom API using Microsoft Power Platform connectors to get back a response, parse it, and get information.
• Uses advanced conversational logic and flows
• It gives the bot the ability to react to events.

Interactive Voice Responses (IVR) and telephony:

Now you can build powerful IVRs for your contact centers with Power Virtual Agents. The IVR builder enables organizations to publish a bot behind telephones and interact with the users.

Power Automate

Microsoft has launched Power Automate for Desktop, which is now available for free in the app store for Windows 10 and Windows 11. This will help users avoid tedious and strenuous tasks and auto-scale using RPA bots right on their desktop.

Power Automate with a pay-as-you-go plan and Software Development Kit (SDK) makes it more flexible for customers and independent vendors to embed Power Automate with third-party apps and pay for what they use.

Power BI

Power BI with Data marts – accelerate time to insights. It enables users to perform database analytics and extract actionable insights over a database warehouse or multiple sources that can be managed and governed centrally. Benefits include

• No code experience
• Zero user intervention- offers self-tuning Power BI datasets
• Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) to define BI measures/rules/relationships
• Integrated Governance
• Easy to use

Metrics in Power BI – provides a data-driven, adaptable, and collaborative way to measure the business metrics directly on top of Power BI. Microsoft will launch improved features and add-ons soon.

Data storytelling in PowerPoint – with the Power BI storytelling add-in, the PowerPoint presentations become live and interactive. 

Integration with Outlook and Office Hub – By integrating the Power BI personal app with outlook and office hub, users can create Power BI content and add it as adaptive cards in outlook emails. This integration will make the everyday workflow easier.

Power Pages

Microsoft launches a new wing to the Microsoft power platform, Power Pages, as a standalone product. It can help organizations create modern, interactive, and secure websites for their businesses with the best aesthetics and advanced customization on the fly, making the process simple and easier. It concentrates on the low-code makers and professional developers alike. It can be seamlessly integrated with Visual Studio Code, GitHub, and Azure DevOps. These integrations help developers achieve advanced business requirements, automate workflows, and adopt continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) practices.

The other features of Power Pages include,

• Design Studio provides ready-to-use designs for your pages with texts, videos, images, etc.
• Templates Hub hosts full-featured websites with demo data and kickstarts your journey in managing and scheduling, registration, application submission, and much more.
• Learn Hub provides guides, tutorials, and videos to help you learn to handle your site efficiently.
• Visual studio code enables new capabilities to code using JavaScript, Liquid templates, code components, and web APIs. With the help of these tools, developers can develop customized business logic.
• Power Platform’s command-line interface helps developers quickly download and upload their customized projects.
• The ‘Center of Excellence’ toolkit will help organizations maintain site creation and management processes at ease.
• Microsoft Dataverse is an intelligent and secure platform that securely collects and shares business information with site visitors. Power pages run on Microsoft Azure and connect with Microsoft Dataverse to provide security capabilities, including
  • Advanced Encryption
  • Role-based access controls
  • Microsoft Azure front door support
  • Web application firewalls
  • Microsoft Azure DDoS protection

With the Microsoft Power Platform, organizations can build an efficient center, AI-optimized, and data-driven with minimal effort, accelerating time to value.

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