Over recent years Microsoft has been integrating various database and business application technologies together into one big interconnected system. That system is now known as the Power Platform.
Why use the Power Platform?
Microsoft Power Platform seamlessly combines Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Flow, PowerApps and Power BI.
Microsoft's efforts to create new applications, and combine previously discrete technologies into a single platform has delivered new levels of simplicity, integration and functionality to customers that translate directly into cost savings, decreased frustration and meaningful rich output from discrete data repositories.
The three key components below (Microsoft Flow, Power BI and Power Apps) give developers and administrators the ability to cross boundaries between data systems, mobile/desktop, and between different software systems, creating new opportunities to improve the ROI on your software and data systems.
With further assistance from software specialists, greater time and cost savings can be delivered via automation, dashboards and improved business intelligence.
Microsoft Flow
Traditionally, much time is wasted dealing with data systems where human intervention is required to transfer data between systems, in consolidating data or manually launching processes in sequence.
Microsoft's Flow is a workflow automation service designed to address this, and much more. Flow enables users of all skill levels easy access to automating processes, and acting as a glue to combine separate systems into a single process through a suite of pre-built connectors.
The list of Connectors available to Flow is enormous, and in addition to the full suite of Microsoft products connectors are available for social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc), online communications tools (Survey Monkey, Gmail, Disqus) and a diverse range of 3rd party business applications (Salesforce, ToDoist, Basecamp 3).
Power BI
Microsoft's Power BI takes your information and makes the human connection. Power BI is a powerful tool for providing an informative visual interface for users to digest their data quickly and easily through interactive visualisations and tables – readily surfacing business information otherwise invisible in conventional reports or spreadsheets.
Power BI enables rich reports and interactive dashboards customised to your needs, whether they be operational, strategic, financial or management-based.
You can read more about Power BI in our blog.
PowerApps
Microsoft describes PowerApps as "a suite of apps (applications), services, connectors and a data platform that provides a rapid application development environment to build customer apps for your business needs". In practice, they are this and much more.
“Canvas” PowerApps is application development environment for both mobile and browser-based applications. It allows organisations to bridge the gap between mobile and other business systems by providing a connected and easy-to-use system to mobilise your data.
“Model-driven” PowerApps are the big brother – enabling custom development of fully-fledged line of business applications. For example, Microsoft’s key Dynamics 365 applications (Customer Engagement [CRM], Business Central [Enterprise Accounting], Marketing and Talent) are all model-driven PowerApps.
This capability to build Enterprise grade applications is now in the hands of any business!
We put the pieces together
Our software development team excel in harnessing your data into a usable form, and distributing it via systems like Power BI, PowerApps and Flow to the people who need it. Keep visiting our blog for more about the Power Platform along with related technologies such as Dynamics 365 and more..
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