Power Platform has been part of Microsoft 365 for several years now, but many end users are unaware of its existence. In fact, many IT professionals don't know what Power Platform is either.
For them, Power
Platform has something to do with Dynamics 365, and so they ignore it.
Personally, I was aware of the existence of Power Apps,
Power Automate (formerly Flow), Power BI and the new kid on the block, Power
Virtual Agents. I knew them, but I didn't trust them.
To tell the truth, when I trained companies and
collaborators at all levels of the hierarchy, I explained to them that the
components of Power Platform were able to do incredible things, but that it
required a certain level of "mastery of the 'computer tool', maturity,
knowledge, or whatever buzzword you want to use with Microsoft Development firm.
While I live and breathe Microsoft 365, for a very long
time, I haven't touched any of these tools. I barely touched Power BI with my
fingertips, and still, it was only as a user. Everything seemed inaccessible to
me.
Power
Automate workflow
When I heard other MVPs talking about the solutions they had
created for conferencing from Forms, plus a Power Automate workflow, plus a
SharePoint list, plus email, plus more…all of this reminded me seemed too
complex for me to use, so for an end user...
Honestly, it's still kind of the case, but the alignment
between Microsoft Teams and Power Platform reduces complexity, makes features
easier to use and more accessible to average users, and ultimately gives them
more chances to be adopted and bring benefits to businesses.
Approvals
Let's start with the Microsoft Teams Approvals app. Some of
my co-workers, customers, and general users have been really happy that the
Microsoft Teams Approvals app is available to all users. This would finally
allow them to start creating message-based workflows in Microsoft Teams. A new
era was born!
In fact, Power Automate was originally released as a
connector for Microsoft Teams in mid-2017 (shortly after the launch of Microsoft
Teams).
Just 18 months later, the first triggers were launched .
Flows could thus be triggered based on an event that occurred on a team's
channel.
In fact, it was in early 2018 that the Flow app (now Power
Automate) was introduced to Microsoft Teams , allowing you to make approvals
without leaving the app.
I'm not saying this to spoil the party, but more to point
out that the concept of creating and working with approvals was not a
"mainstream" concept until the Approvals app was offered in late
preview. 2020. I rarely hear terms like 'citizen developer', 'business
analyst', 'workflow' and the like in discussions with my clients (and their end
users). The Approvals app took a powerful feature in Power Automate, simplified
it, and packed it into an easy-to-use app.
In a way, the Approvals app can be said to be comparable to
the “consumerization of IT” trend of a few years ago.
Power
Automate
Once users get a taste of how Approvals work, they're ready
to enter the world of automation.
While they're sometimes reluctant to install the Power
Automate app in Microsoft Teams, they quickly discover that its skills aren't limited
to automating approvals.
What Microsoft has done particularly well with the Power
Automate app in Microsoft Teams is its ability to surface applicable templates
when creating new flows. This dramatically shortens the learning curve a user
has to go through to create other types of workflows.
When the user creates workflows, he learns about the
available triggers and actions, which leads him to realize that approvals and
other workflows can be done outside of Microsoft Teams. He realizes that
workflows can be triggered by incoming emails or by downloading certain files.
And here we go.
The user is then ready to create amazing workflows and
automations. Does that make it a “citizen developer”? Not necessarily. It is
not necessary to put a label on it. It is simply a user who has taken a new
step in using Microsoft 365.
As a recently converted Power Automate user (in the sense
that I was just using it six months ago, and now I'm addicted), I understand
those who feel overwhelmed when it comes to acts to initialize variables,
formulate trigger conditions, send HTTP POST commands or use other advanced
functions. As I'm beginning to master these functions in the specific context
of my activity, I think that an average user can completely ignore these
functions for a while since he can do a lot of things without them. It's when
you start working with them that the term 'citizen developer' may become more
appropriate.
Power Apps
This is another powerful solution that I was also hesitant
to use before, especially when Microsoft advertised it as a "no-code"
solution. Admittedly, there is no specific code, but using it requires some
familiarity with Excel-style formulas and Access-like functions, which was not
my case.
Once again, Microsoft has done a great job of integrating
Power Apps with Microsoft Teams by offering a dedicated app that allows
context-specific apps to be created within Microsoft Teams itself.
Being able to create an app, associate it with a team, and
publish it to Microsoft Teams as an app without having to switch screens is an
incredibly powerful experience.
Unfortunately, unlike Approvals and Power Automate, the
simplicity stops there as the app then reverts to a standard Power Apps app.
Power BI
Power BI was already present in the private preview of
Microsoft Teams at the end of 2016 . Most recently, in late 2020, the Power BI
app received a massive upgrade with new features, allowing users to do more
things without having to leave Microsoft Teams, such as searching for reports,
commenting on dashboards, interact with reports in chats and channels, etc.
However, as with Power Apps, the simplicity ends there for
the end user. While the experience of Power BI allows us to work with it in
Microsoft Teams, this application does not offer a functionality comparable to
that of Power Automate/Approvals where we can create reports based on the
context of the current team.
Moreover, it requires a higher level license (Power BI Pro)
which is not very common in companies that still have to invest in Premium licenses
(i.e. Office 365 E5 or Microsoft 365 E5).
Power
Virtual Agents
A relatively recent addition to Power Platform and Microsoft
Teams, Power Virtual Agents aims to achieve similar results to the Approvals
app by making it easier for end users to create their own chatbot.
The wizard-guided chatbot creation process gives end users
the ability to offload the questions they get asked regularly, using a simple
interface to create the bot's conversation flow. End users can then easily add
it to Microsoft Teams and even submit it for approval to be added as a company
approved bot.
Power Virtual Agents brings together what was previously
only available if you used Microsoft QnA Maker, Azure Bot Service, and App
Studio simultaneously to help you build, train, publish and install your bot in
Microsoft Teams.
And like Power Automate and Approvals, this feature has been
around since November 2016 (before the widespread launch of Microsoft Teams).
However, its repackaging and democratization under the Power Virtual Agents
label makes it simple enough for an average user to create their own bot in
Microsoft Teams and publish it to make it accessible to their entire company.
Do you have
the power?
If you're reading this article, chances are you're an IT
professional. However, it is the end users that we would like to convince
because they are ultimately the driving force behind the company for Al Rafay Consulting.
If these powerful solutions are made accessible and
supported, it opens up endless possibilities for what can be done to improve
the work performance of individuals, as well as teams and more broadly
businesses.
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