Get to know Power Platform,  the Microsoft business applications suite

The Power Platform, Microsoft’s line of business applications for enabling business intelligence, app development, and app connectivity, has come a long way since its initial release more than 4 years ago. It has evolved into an enterprise trusted toolset, currently used by 97% of the Fortune 500. Remarkably, the tools appeal to not only large enterprises but provide great value across the board to include SMBs, non-profits, and emerging organizations.

The Power Platform consists of 4 primary tools:

Power BI

Named a Leader in the March 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence, Power BI (released in 2015) enables organizations to make informed business decisions through data-driven insights.

Power Apps

Named a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Platforms, Power Apps puts the power of building and sharing low-code apps in the hands of professional and citizen developers alike, supporting innovation.

Power Automate

Formerly known as Microsoft Flow, Power Automate is the workflow engine of the platform, helping organizations to streamline repetitive tasks and replace paper processes for improved efficiency.

Power Virtual Agents

Identified by Forrester as a key technology to drive business transformation, Power Virtual Agents empowers everyone to easily create conversational bots – no coding required.

Power Platform Maturity

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a great deal of maturity in the Power Platform, especially as it relates to performance, scalability, software development life cycle (SDLC), and governance, all key considerations for building, deploying, and supporting enterprise-grade applications. Microsoft, recognizing the cost barrier to expanding usage of the Power Apps at an enterprise scale, has adjusted the pricing a few times, as well. Current pricing models for subscriptions can be purchased per app, per use, and a pay-as-you-go plan.  We imagine the pricing model will continue to evolve as the functionality of the platform does as well.

We’ve included a few of the innovations most useful to our clients in the platform in the blogs listed below:

Develop a Power Platform Strategy

Any digital transformation initiative starts with developing a strategy. Microsoft has created a plethora of adoption, best practices, and governance resources on the Power Platform Adoption site. As you begin your journey with the Power Platform, we recommend getting started with the Adoption Workbook which walks you through the first steps of creating a successful Power Platform roll out.

“The design of this solution with Compass365 is so user-friendly for our network and team. I gave them my vision, our branding guidelines, and what we believe in - they got to work and reflected everything in the solution they built for us. We love it.” Matthew Thompson, Director of Financial Contract Compliance, Acting Title X Director, and Co-CEO, Every Body Texas

Power Platform Case Study: Innovation Leads to Automation of Mission Critical Processes for Every Body Texas

How our team worked with non-profit Every Body Texas to improve the efficiency of manual and tedious yet critical tasks for their network of providers and internal operations with Microsoft Power Platform and SharePoint Online.

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Ready to take advantage of the Power Platform in your organization?

As always, the Compass365 team is here to assist you in improving the way your organization operates and your employees work with SharePoint and the Microsoft 365 platform. If you have a vision for driving improvements with Power Platform, please reach out at any time to discuss Compass365’s Power Platform Consulting Services.  We are happy to help. Please see more on this and all of our Services or reach out directly to Cathy Ashbaugh, cashbaugh@compass365.com to arrange for a complimentary consultation.

Compass365, a Microsoft Gold Partner, delivers SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and Power Platform solutions that help IT and Business leaders improve the way their organizations operate and how their employees work.