Microsoft’s Power Platform are a suite of apps and services that allows anybody to quickly and easily create custom apps which would fulfill their business needs.
But what is an App ?
An App which is derived from the shortened form of the word application, is a software application that can be used to fulfill a goal. Examples of some apps include Sales Ordering Apps, Banking Apps and Ticketing Apps.
In the past it took a lot of time, money and manpower to be able to create a fully functioning app but the world is changing and technology is supporting that change by providing ways to create apps with a few clicks of a button.
One of these technologies that is supporting this technological growth is Microsoft’s Power Platform.
What is Microsoft’s Power Platform ?
Microsoft Power Platform is a suite of applications that include four main products which are:
- Power Apps : Power Apps can be used to create customized applications that can fulfill numerous business needs. It comes prebuilt with standardized data connectors and services that enable business users to create apps that can run on numerous devices such as phones, tablets and computers. It is commonly used in organizations to build forms that can be used in business process improvements and automation.
- Power Automate: Power Automate is a workflow application that allows business users to automate their business processes. It can be use independently of other applications in the power platform suite or it can be used with them to enhance the business process. For example, once a Power Apps business user has built a power apps form, they can automate the form with the help of power automate so that it automatically move the form from one approver to the next based on approval decision made.
- Power BI : Power BI is a business intelligence tool that is used to analyze the organizational data. It can be used to transform data into visually pleasing reports and dashboards that are easy to create and understand. It is used by the organizations make strategic decisions that help with their growth and profitability. Power BI It can be use independently of other applications in the power platform suite or it can be used with them to help the organization attain its business goals.
- Power Virtual Agents: Power virtual agents applications are used to create powerful chatbots that can be used to help enhance the organization’s business processes. A chatbot is an application that is used to mimic a live human agent’s on-line chat conversation. They can be used in numerous ways including customer service support, to trigger an action in a power automate workflow and to start a new workflow process based on some preset trigger.
So you can see that the Power Platform suite of applications can be used to fulfil a range of business needs.
They are easy to use, configure and understand and they can be used by the organization’s business users because of its no or low code user interface design.