What Microsoft’s Power Platform Can Do For You
July 16, 2024|
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Let’s break down how each element of Microsoft’s Power Platform can be used in a company’s processes and operations to help you visualize the possibilities:
Power Automate (Microsoft Flow):
- Automating email responses: If a company receives frequent customer inquiries via email, Power Automate can be set up to automatically send a response email, acknowledging receipt (Data Push).
- Document approval processing: Documents and list items can be routed to managers, executives, peers for approval and publishing
- Data backup: Power Automate can be set up to automatically back up files uploaded to a SharePoint site to a cloud storage service like OneDrive (Data Pull).
- Task creation: If a form is submitted on a company’s website, Power Automate can create a task in Microsoft Planner or Trello (Data Push).
Power Apps:
- Inventory management: A company can create a Power App that allows employees to update inventory counts in real-time (Data Push). The app can also display current inventory levels (Data Pull).
- Employee feedback: A company can create a Power App to collect employee feedback. The feedback can be stored in a database or SharePoint (Data Push).
- Customer service: A Power App can be created to allow customer service representatives to pull up customer information during a call (Data Pull).
- PTO requests: A Power App can be created to function online or offline to gather information and hold it until a device is connected to the internet.
Power BI:
- Sales analysis: Power BI can pull sales data from an SQL database, transform and clean it, and then visualize it in a way that allows the company to make informed decisions.
- Website analytics: Power BI can be used to pull website traffic data from Google Analytics, clean and transform the data, and visualize it in a dashboard.
- Inventory dashboard: Power BI can pull inventory data from a database and display it in a dashboard that shows current inventory levels, sales trends, and predicts when stock will run out.
Power Virtual Agents:
- Customer support: A company can use Power Virtual Agents to build a chatbot that answers frequently asked questions, pulling information from a knowledge base (Data Pull).
- Order tracking: A chatbot can be built that allows customers to track their orders. The chatbot pulls tracking information from a database or API (Data Pull).
- Feedback collection: A chatbot can be used to collect customer feedback and store it in a database (Data Push).
Common Data Service (CDS):
- Data sharing: If a company has multiple Power Apps, the CDS can be used to share data between them.
- Centralized storage: The CDS can store data from various sources, making it easily accessible for Power Apps and Power BI.
- Collaboration: If a company has a Power App for data entry and a Power BI dashboard for data visualization, the CDS can store the data entered through the Power App and make it available for the Power BI dashboard.
Dynamics 365 Connectors:
- Customer data sync: A company can use a Power App to capture customer data and push it to their Dynamics 365 CRM. The same app could pull data from the CRM to display to the user.
- Order management: A Power App can be used to manage orders in Dynamics 365, allowing users to create, update, and view orders.
- Customer service: A Power Virtual Agent can be used to pull customer information from Dynamics 365 to assist in customer service.
Custom Connectors:
- API integration: If a company uses an API that isn’t supported out-of-the-box by the Power Platform, they can create a Custom Connector for it.
- Data push/pull: A Custom Connector can be used to push data to, or pull data from, an external system.
- Third-party services: A Custom Connector can be created to integrate with third-party services like Slack or Trello.
Power Query:
- Data cleaning: Power Query can be used to clean data, for example, to remove duplicates, change data types, or handle missing values.
- Data transformation: Power Query can be used to transform data, for example, to pivot or unpivot columns, split columns, or merge tables.
- Data integration: Power Query can be used to integrate data from various sources, making it easier to analyze in Power BI.
In summary, Microsoft’s Power Platform provides a suite of tools that can move, transform, and integrate data. By leveraging these tools, companies can streamline processes, enhance collaboration, and make data-driven decisions, leading to improved performance and efficiency. I hope these examples help in visualizing how the Power Platform can be implemented within a company. Remember, no extensive coding is required, so even if you’re not technical by role, you can still achieve amazing results with Microsoft’s Power Platform.
Posted in Microsoft Consulting