It was an excellent learning opportunity to be part of the first-ever Microsoft Power Platform Conference 2022 which concluded last week on September 22nd. The event brought together architects/product owners of Microsoft Power Platform who are advancing it to the next level, Power Platform enthusiasts, and practitioners who are building several thousand applications on the platform, along with partner companies evangelizing potential use cases. Here is my takeaway from the interactions that I had:
Growth of Citizen Developers and Need for Governance Framework
As software development has evolved over the last decade, with complex coding practices replaced by simplified programming frameworks, the number of citizen developers has steadily risen in enterprises. Citizen developers have helped many organizations to scale their need for business applications with lower investments. But, as revealed by many technology heads of these organizations, the downside is the emergence of an application swamp with low code quality, potential data breaches, and high-security risks. For organizations to continue to benefit from the contribution of citizen developers, a robust governance strategy has to be in place. Managing a Center of Excellence requires defined processes, resources, and employees to comply with and act upon this governance framework. Establishing a successful CoE can be costly for organizations with limited resources and hence will need a consulting partner to implement effectively.
The emergence of Dataverse
Dataverse was a great revelation to many developers as what it can offer to developers was presented over multiple demonstrations. With Dataverse, you can connect to Power BI to create interactive metrics and dashboards that help you make quicker, smarter decisions that grow your business. It can conveniently integrate data from Dynamics 365 apps and other sources into a centralized data store for Power Apps, Power BI, Power Virtual Agents, Power Automate, and more. Furthermore, it helps to keep everything in MS teams which is fast becoming the Enterprise Business Operating System.
Low code touching the Uncharted Waters
A very refreshing and eye-opening moment for me during the Power Platform Conference 2022 is the way Microsoft is democratizing the power of the low code platform. Empowering enterprises in the IT laggard category to quickly build customer-facing apps Microsoft Power platform is helping them transform into a new digital enterprise. Adding Power pages as the fifth player under the Power Platform, Microsoft provides a low-code way to create, host, and manage process-driven secure websites used by customers, partners, communities, and other external users.
All in all, I must say it is an exciting team to be Microsoft partner and work towards advancing it’s vision of helping enterprises to use technology as a strategic advantage.