Microsoft is bringing more Power platform to Teams

3 years ago 318

New features for low-code improvement purpose to marque the operation of Teams, Dynamics 365 and Power level amended unneurotic with collaboration among tools arsenic good arsenic people.

Although Microsoft Teams gets astir of the attraction arsenic the instrumentality organizations person turned to for hybrid and distant enactment during the pandemic, the Power level has besides seen important maturation successful usage successful the past 12 to 18 months, often manus successful manus with Teams. There are present 10 cardinal progressive users connected Power Apps alone.

"People person been figuring retired to bash things quicker, faster, beryllium much agile, utilizing little to bash more," elder manager for Power level selling Richard Riley told TechRepublic. "We've seen customers bash unthinkable things that they historically conscionable wouldn't person been capable to do—at least, not arsenic rapidly and surely the radical that did it wouldn't person been capable to do."

The app that T-Mobile utilized to reopen stores much rapidly aboriginal successful the pandemic by allowing unit to commercialized shifts arsenic they moved betwixt antithetic locations would person taken pro developers 1 oregon 2 months to make utilizing accepted developer tools, Riley estimates—by which clip the accidental would person passed. Using Power Apps, helium said, "a concern expert and a developer managed to constitute that successful virtually a week."

Similarly, Marks & Spencer said the table booking instrumentality it created successful Power Apps to enactment societal distancing arsenic employees returned to offices and different app for assistance table requests volition prevention betwixt fractional a cardinal and a cardinal pounds.

SEE: Microsoft Power Platform: What you request to cognize astir it (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

Talk portion you work

Increasingly, Teams is becoming a hub for app integration arsenic good arsenic a spot to chat and stock information; since the opening of 2020, monthly usage of apps wrong Teams (including prebuilt third-party apps similar Jira Cloud oregon SAP Sales & Service Core and customized Power level apps) has accrued astir tenfold portion the fig of apps disposable has doubled implicit the past year. Over the adjacent fewer months, Microsoft volition beryllium introducing a scope of caller features to marque gathering your ain apps for Teams done the Power level easier and much powerful.

The Fluid real-time collaboration technology—which Microsoft is renaming Loop—is portion of that, arsenic is integration with Dynamics 365 (which nary longer needs everyone looking astatine accusation to person a Dynamics licence).

Some Power Apps are astir information collection, but communicating the information collected means turning to Teams oregon making telephone calls. In the adjacent fewer months, you'll beryllium capable to embed Teams chat into a Power Apps app; United Airlines is already investigating that with apps utilized by formation crews and operations staff.

"It connects the radical who are refueling planes and changing the tires with the unit inside," Riley explained. "If there's an contented the idiosyncratic connected the tarmac tin IM the idiosyncratic lasting astatine the check-in table to archer them something's not close oregon they request to adjacent the doors. In the past, they'd beryllium moving astir picking up the phone. But they've got an app that they usage to negociate their workflow and present they tin conscionable deed a fastener and instantly fto radical cognize [what's happening]."

You volition besides beryllium capable to commencement Teams chats and calls wrong Dynamics 365, arsenic good arsenic hunt for accusation from Dynamics 365 similar lawsuit records from wrong Teams chats; this volition beryllium successful nationalist preview adjacent year.

The thought is to link aggregate tools wherever radical get enactment done and person accusation travel done them. So you tin look up Dynamics 365 information wrong Teams, nonstop that arsenic a Loop constituent that colleagues tin edit successful Office apps similar Outlook and OneNote to adhd ideas and details, and past embed the chat wrong the archetypal Dynamics 365 record, wherever you tin spot it with the remainder of the lawsuit information for the adjacent clip idiosyncratic is looking up that customer.

SEE: Learn the skills to beryllium a information expert with courses connected Python, Excel, Power BI and more (TechRepublic Academy)

Power Virtual Agents (a no-code enactment for gathering bots connected the Power platform) tin besides instrumentality accusation from 1 strategy to another, starting with caller options that Riley said volition "bring the bot acquisition straight into Teams."

"We are enabling you to stock bots wrong Teams. In the past that's been a spot tricky to do. But present if I make a bot I tin stock it with you and you tin deploy it into different team's channel." That's the benignant of sharing you tin already bash with Power Apps and Power Automate workflows.

Instead of bots lone responding to idiosyncratic users, you tin adhd them straight to a Teams channel. "Now you tin adhd a bot arsenic a subordinate of the squad successful a substance chat successful a transmission with aggregate people; you tin each speech to the bot and the bot tin speech backmost to you." That would beryllium a speedy mode to retrieve information from Dynamics 365, helium suggested.

"For a income team, erstwhile you privation immoderate speedy accusation similar 'who's the interaction idiosyncratic for the CTO, what gross did we marque with them past quarter' you tin conscionable inquire [the bot] those benignant of questions."

Bots volition beryllium capable not conscionable to respond but to nonstop chat messages to users erstwhile triggered by rules that look for a acceptable of conditions, similar a scheduled formation being delayed oregon a Power BI extremity that's falling down target, utilizing adaptive cards and the caller Loop components. So alternatively of conscionable a notification that your formation has been delayed oregon canceled, you mightiness get a database of alternate flights that you tin prime from, and your prime volition beryllium added to the radical papers wherever your colleagues tin spot the details.

Power Virtual Agents volition adjacent beryllium capable to reply the telephone erstwhile customers call, moving with Dynamics 365 Customer Service to supply interactive dependable effect (IVR) systems that you don't request a specializer IVR solution to create.

Although the idiosyncratic features are each useful, they volition beryllium much almighty erstwhile radical enactment them unneurotic to grip their ain circumstantial premix of tasks. "A Power app could beryllium discrete Power Automate components, discrete Power Virtual Agent components, Loop components, but they each enactment together," Riley said.

"The full is greater than the sum of the parts erstwhile you commencement to bring each of these components unneurotic and constitute them into apps."

That works peculiarly good successful Teams due to the fact that it has the aforesaid Dataverse data store arsenic the Power level and Dynamics 365. "You've got that communal information model. There's semantic meaning successful there: We cognize that a lawsuit is simply a customer, and we cognize what that means. We cognize that a telephone fig is simply a telephone fig and we cognize what that means; we tin bash astute worldly with it. All the entities are good understood, truthful it makes it a batch easier to commencement creating those composable apps due to the fact that you're moving from a azygous information model."

But with Loop, this volition enactment with accusation that lives successful Office, helium noted. "It's not conscionable the Power platform; you're not conscionable bringing apps with workflow, with concern analytics, with bots but erstwhile you commencement to bring it unneurotic with Teams and adaptive cards and Office Graph and Azure components, it each starts to adhd up to thing overmuch much peculiar than you could person done with immoderate 1 of those successful isolation."

Office won't conscionable beryllium a spot to get information from; it volition besides beryllium determination you volition spot Power Apps amusement up alongside existing Office features. "Over the adjacent six months oregon truthful this benignant of composable attack to apps… is thing we're moving connected making a world crossed each the surfaces successful Office, not conscionable Teams and Power [platform]."

SEE: How instrumentality learning speeds up Power BI reports (TechRepublic)

Combining debased and pro code

Low codification enables the radical who person a occupation to physique an app to assistance them. "The radical that are closest to the occupation and get poked successful the oculus each time by the crisp instrumentality and they cognize what tin hole it but they don't cognize the close words that archer IT to accelerate the improvement that is going to hole it. A batch of the problems that we've seen that caller class of developers lick has virtually been concern changing."

But it can't grip everything, truthful determination are besides much features for what Microsoft calls "fusion teams," wherever pro developers and concern unit collaborate connected apps that don't person to beryllium built from scratch by the pro developers but request to bash much than a low-code concern adept tin bash connected their ain with the Power level tools.

Over the past year, much tools person emerged to assistance developers enactment together, similar GitHub codespaces that fto aggregate developers enactment connected the aforesaid codebase from the improvement situation they already use. Business users don't enactment successful those kinds of integrated improvement environments, but they are utilized to collaborating with colleagues successful Office utilizing comments successful documents.

Now you tin permission notes and feedback and person a speech utilizing Word-style comments with @mentions successful the Power Apps, Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents canvas. "If I'm gathering an app with you, I tin permission comments successful the authoring acquisition truthful you tin spot wherever I'm stuck, oregon I tin @mention you and accidental 'can you alteration this successful the Azure Functions codification you wrote truthful it does specified and such'. You commencement to get a overmuch richer, much collaborative experience."

For concern users, Power level tools are aforesaid service; they physique their ain apps and workflows and their Power Apps licence covers the outgo of moving them. When pro developers are gathering apps for oregon with concern users, having to acceptable up prepaid subscriptions erstwhile the apps are deployed has been an other step. Earlier successful the twelvemonth Microsoft made the Azure API Management connector a modular alternatively than premium connector for apps moving successful Teams; not needing a premium licence to people Teams makes it a much charismatic option. Now, developers tin besides usage the aforesaid benignant of "pay arsenic you go" enactment for Power Apps they're utilized to with Azure. "They tin bargain Power Apps the aforesaid mode they bargain Azure services and they wage erstwhile idiosyncratic uses it the aforesaid mode they wage erstwhile they rotation up a virtual instrumentality oregon constitute a relation and it gets used."

SEE: Microsoft's caller Power Fx is an open-source connection based connected Excel (TechRepublic)

There volition besides beryllium updates to the Excel-like open root Power Fx language that underpins Power Apps expressions (as good arsenic customizations successful SharePoint Lists and Dynamics 365). "Our extremity is to marque that the de facto modular logic exemplary for immoderate enactment of concern app and we've already got ISVs picking that up." One CRM vendor is experimenting with Power Fx due to the fact that it volition beryllium truthful acquainted to Excel users. "If you request to make a caller view, caller rows and columns, calculated columns oregon calculated fields, you tin usage Power Fx to bash it, truthful if you cognize Excel, you tin instantly commencement utilizing that."