And it couldn’t come at a better time, because technology has a talent problem. There’s just not enough high-tech talent in the pipeline to help organizations develop and maintain the complex software solutions they need to stay competitive.¹

Microsoft Power Platform

Embrace the benefits of AI and low-code with Microsoft Power Platform.

Learn how

And the work is indeed complex. Developers need to solve challenges around user interface design, storage requirements, security, compliance, and scalability in their work, and finding the right talent to meet challenges is difficult.

The problem is compounded with the amount of work that needs to get done. Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) have to manage growing app backlogs and pushed-back schedules for the development of the apps they know they need, and a general lack of resources for talent and software makes the outlook for new custom apps unclear. 

With more development work to be done than there are developers to do it, many CIOs and CTOs are looking to AI and low-code solutions to transform their application development approach and strategy.

AI and low-code are helping in three ways:

1. Increasing developer productivity
2. Automating repetitive tasks
3. Boosting the skills and abilities of non-developers who can now make meaningful contributions to development

Let’s look at those benefits in detail. 

Increasing developer productivity while remaining compliant and secure

The first thing that low-code can do for a team of developers is enable it to work more quickly with no tradeoff in attention to compliance and security.

As described in a recent white paper on generative AI disruption in software from McKinsey, putting AI and low-code into the hands of developers can improve productivity by as much as 45%, something which can lower code development costs considerably.

At Microsoft, we’ve observed the effectiveness ourselves. In a review of the first 126,000 organizations using Microsoft Copilot in Microsoft Power Apps, developers say using Copilot makes them faster (80%) and more satisfied with their work (65%). What’s more, the developers using Copilot have a 60% higher success rate than the developers who don’t.

But it’s not all about speed. Low-code solutions don’t just accelerate development—they ensure support of standards for security and compliance, so all the newfound speed doesn’t compromise safety. And low-code makes developers into better developers, too. It amplifies existing talent and experience to help developers identify roadblocks, find solutions, and dream up new innovations.

Visit the Microsoft Power Platform website to learn more.

Automating repetitive coding tasks   

AI-powered development tools excel at automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks that drain the fun out of development work. A routine chore like debugging code can make a developer do the same find-and-fix tasks repeatedly. And development work is filled with necessary but repetitive tasks.

With AI and low-code, writing boilerplate code, debugging, conducting routine software maintenance, performing code reviews, and managing deployments can be done by an AI assistant, allowing the developer to work on the interesting, creative challenges that drive business impact.

We’ve seen this ourselves at Microsoft. In a recent survey—quantifying GitHub Copilot’s impact on developer productivity and happiness—96% of respondents say AI increases their speed with repetitive tasks. They also say using AI makes them happier. Between 60% and75% of surveyed users said using the tool makes them feel less frustrated when coding and free to focus on more satisfying work.

Boosting the skills and abilities of non-developers

With AI and low-code, organizations can bring non-developers into the development process so they can help create apps and innovate alongside their developer colleagues. Democratizing development enhances an organization’s agility and flexibility.

Business users won’t need extensive coding expertise because AI and low-code let them contribute through natural language inputs, like “create a sales report dashboard” or “automate customer follow-up emails”. Additionally, business users can learn to build their applications faster than ever with the ability to query in-product assistants that can help them build in real time.

By equipping citizen developers with intuitive, low-code tools, they can autonomously create applications that address immediate business needs, such as a mobile app for onsite invoice submissions. This not only reduces the burden of manual tasks but also ensures more accurate data collection and enhances the efficiency of frontline workers. Meanwhile, professional developers can dedicate their expertise to more complex, strategic projects that propel the organization forward. This symbiotic relationship between low-code and traditional development practices fosters an environment where technical agility and innovation thrive, ultimately propelling the organization’s technical velocity to new heights.

When the AI and low-code development tools that an organization uses allow for simplified cross-platform integration as Microsoft Power Platform does, they can break down barriers and ensure business users receive the right oversight and collaborative inputs from colleagues’ developer and IT teams.

Next steps for CIOs and CTOs

If you want to fully embrace the benefits of AI and low-code by incorporating a solution into your tech stack at scale, consider a strategic plan that addresses the following:

• Identify high-impact use cases to begin testing. Determine what type of solutions would benefit your organization most: Do you need web or mobile apps for employees or customers? A website with customizable content management, styling, and data access requirements? Or perhaps custom AI agents that handle specific tasks? Once you’ve identified the best pilot project, implement the solution to deliver quick wins and demonstrate the value of AI and low-code. Document successes and share them to build momentum within your organization.

• Manage risks by ensuring data security and regulatory compliance. It’s important to choose an enterprise solution like Microsoft Power Platform that includes governance, management, and monitoring capabilities. With your solution in place, you can then establish a governance framework to maintain control, such as setting up regular review meetings to ensure compliance and having your IT department or risk management team conduct periodic risk assessments.

• Build a low-code center of excellence. With governance in place and some development wins under your belt, think about upskilling your workforce. Offer tailored programs to upskill both developers and non-developers, promoting continuous learning and cross-functional collaboration, such as hosting workshops and interactive training sessions, where your low-code users and developers can work together. The Microsoft Power Platform Adoption website has workbooks, best practices, and training materials to support organizations with this endeavor.

By following these steps, you can effectively integrate AI and low-code solutions like Microsoft Power Platform, bridging the development gap and driving innovation in your organization.

Visit the Microsoft Power Platform website to learn more.

Source:

¹ Forbes, Research: quantifying GitHub Copilot’s impact on developer productivity and happiness, March 6, 2023

The post Fast track development with AI and low-code appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

To help your team take on these complex challenges and drive your business toward future success, it’s essential to invest in the right technology.

Business Applications Launch Event

The latest updates across Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform

Learn what's new

Discover the next generation of intelligent business applications

The future of business starts today—and we’re excited to invite you to get a first look at what you need to get ahead at the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event. Watch product leaders guide you through the new capabilities. See hundreds of new product features, advancements, and innovations to help you drive revenue, delight customers, increase visibility, and strengthen collaboration across your organization.

Learn about the new features and capabilities being released across Microsoft Power Platform, including: 

• Updates across Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, and Power Pages to help you analyze, automate, and make data-driven decisions. 
• Enhancements to governance, collaboration, and analytics tools to empower individuals, teams, and organizations to work faster.  
• New platform capabilities for low-code app and website development focused on reducing risk and costs, increasing visibility, and providing users with more efficient tools.  
• Advancements in intelligent assistance, including prebuilt AI models, virtual agents, robotic process automation, and cloud flows to drive collaboration, low-code adoption, and productivity.  
• More tools and insights focused on manageable governance and administration, pro development, ISV experiences, and data integration. 

And there’s much more in store. You’ll also see how these solutions work for businesses like yours with demos hosted by Microsoft product experts. You’ll hear from Charles Lamanna, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Business Applications and Platforms, about how to innovate with business applications to grow your business faster than ever. The team behind the Microsoft Power Platform 2023 release wave 1 will also share insights and guide you through how all these updates, advancements, and new tech will help you:

• Expand visibility, reduce time, and enhance creativity in your departments and teams with unified, AI-powered capabilities.
• Empower your employees to focus on revenue-generating tasks while automating repetitive tasks.
• Connect people, data, and processes across your organization with modern collaboration tools.
• Innovate without limits using the latest in low-code development, including new next-generation AI capabilities.

AI innovations

A major theme of this digital event is the evolution of AI. Leaders in the field will show you some of the latest developments in AI that are leading the next generation of business applications. You’ll also join us for a special session that includes a deep dive into the tech behind language models hosted by Dr. Walter Sun, Microsoft Vice President, AI in Business Applications. Throughout the event, you’ll receive expert guidance on how to build more agile, customer-focused teams by empowering your solutions with AI and see firsthand how to get more value out of your data, collaboration, and tools.

Brand new insights from the experts

Find out how to enhance your customer experiences across your business with a look at real-life scenarios in expert-led demos of new capabilities and features. Gain valuable insights for overcoming your current challenges from other Microsoft customers who will share their journeys. And get answers to questions from the experts during a Q&A chat.

For a range of key best practices, strategies, and insights applicable to organizations across many industries, you don’t want to miss this digital launch event.

Watch product leaders guide you through the new capabilities. We hope you’ll join us. 

Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event 

Tuesday, April 4, 2023 

9:00 AM–10:30 AM Pacific Time (UTC–7) 

The post Attend the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event to explore new capabilities in Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

The first step is to register today for Microsoft Ignite to create your own session schedule and stay up to date prior to the event. Then, join the event on Wednesday, October 12, 2022, starting at 9:00 AM Pacific Time to start the Microsoft Ignite journey with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The packed lineup will stream to you live and on-demand, at no cost.

Why attend Microsoft Ignite?

Every year, thousands of people, from students to experienced IT professionals, converge on an event designed to provide you with action-ready skills to use Microsoft Power Platform and the Microsoft Cloud. At this year’s Microsoft Ignite event, you can:

• Learn the tools and technologies that help you create solutions you can build today: Join technical sessions to get inspired and learn the essentials for developing solutions across Microsoft technologies. Keep reading for our list of must-see sessions below.
• Participate in Connection Zones: Grab a chair at Table Topics for live discussions on camera, and in chat. Get inspired by community experts, learn best practices, and discover helpful resources with other attendees.
• Connect with the community: Even in a hybrid format, the event offers you great opportunities to engage with the global community of developers who share your role and interests. Plus, you will hear firsthand engineers’ tips, tricks, and best practices to make the most of the digital tools you and your team use every day.

4 keynote sessions to attend at Microsoft Ignite

Day one activities kick off on Wednesday, October 12, 2022, with preshow content at 9:00 AM Pacific Time, followed by an incredible lineup of sessions and activities. If you want to build your skills by developing amazing experiences with Microsoft Power Platform, be sure to add the sessions below to your schedule.

Then set the stage for the technical sessions on Microsoft Power Platform with the Microsoft Ignite opening keynote presented by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and drill down further on Microsoft Power Platform with keynotes by Corporate Vice Presidents (CVPs) Charles Lamanna, Jared Spataro, Rohan Kumar, and Jessica Hawk.

1. Microsoft Ignite opening presented by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Debuts Wednesday, October 12, 2022, from 9:00 to 9:50 AM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times.

Satya Nadella will highlight how Microsoft is helping customers do more with less across the Microsoft Cloud.

2. Deliver efficiency with automation and AI across your business

Debuts Wednesday, October 12, 2022, from 11:05 to 11:30 AM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times.

Learn how organizations across industries are applying AI, automation, and mixed reality to streamline business processes, enhance collaboration, and improve customer and employee experiences.

3. Reenergize your workforce in the office, at home, and everywhere in between

Debuts Wednesday, October 12, 2022, from 11:05 to 11:30 AM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times.

In today’s shifting macroeconomic climate, there is a real opportunity to help organizations in every industry use technology to overcome challenges and emerge stronger. From enabling hybrid work to bringing business processes into the flow of work, Microsoft 365 helps organizations deliver on their digital imperative, so they can do more with less.

4. Accelerate innovation with the world’s most complete cloud developer platform

Debuts Wednesday, October 12, 2022, from 11:05 to 11:30 AM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times.

Learn how every developer can achieve more with less using their favorite low-code and pro-code tools. Modernize and scale application development with cloud-native architectures and fully managed databases. See how fusion teams rapidly build, deploy, and manage secure apps at scale.

Day one breakout sessions

Take a deeper dive into topics that matter most to you. Be sure to add the sessions below to your schedule to learn valuable skills, techniques, and resources to develop exceptional experiences for Microsoft Power Platform.

Innovate faster and achieve greater agility with the Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform

Debuts Wednesday, October 12, 2022, from 12:00 to 12:30 PM Pacific Time.

The Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform empowers organizations to invest more time in creating value rather than integrating and managing their data estate. In this demo-rich session, we’ll show you the latest innovations to power new applications at any scale, get actionable insights from all data, and properly govern data, wherever it resides.

Unlock new customer experiences with natural language processing at scale

Debuts Wednesday, October 12, 2022, from 12:00 to 12:35 PM Pacific Time.

Organizations around the world use Microsoft’s natural language processing capabilities to simplify tasks and support human connection—from helping employees better understand customer needs to helping customers find information more quickly. Learn why technology leaders are doubling down on natural language processing, and get a deeper understanding of natural language processing capabilities available across Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services that can help transform customer and employee engagement at scale.

Scale hyper-automation in the cloud with Microsoft Power Automate

Debuts Wednesday, October 12, 2022, from 1:00 to 1:20 PM Pacific Time.

Power Automate is making it easier to scale hyper-automation across your enterprise. With new innovations for unattended robotic process automation (RPA) in the cloud, AI assistance, and starter kits to streamline your center of excellence (CoE), this is a session you won’t want to miss.

Automate your document processes with the power of AI Builder

Debuts Wednesday, October 12, 2022, from 2:00 to 2:35 PM Pacific Time.

AI has transformed the way we intake and process data. Intelligent document processing (IDP) is a key use case for RPA, allowing you to capture and automate data extracted from documents. In this session, learn how AI Builder can simplify data extraction and make your business smarter with no coding required.

From low-code to pro-code: Building and buying collaborative apps to power an evolving workplace

Debuts Wednesday, October 12, 2022, from 3:00 to 3:30 PM Pacific Time.

Join us to learn how organizations of every size and shape can unlock the creative power of their teams to remain focused, flexible, and agile. We’ll share how you can empower your people with the tools they need to build amazing apps that can power new workflow and collaboration patterns and integrate beautifully with Teams—without compromising security and compliance.

Microsoft Power Pages: Low-Code Web Development

Debuts Wednesday, October 12, 2022, from 12:00 to 12:30 PM Pacific Time.

In this session, learn how to take web app development to the next level with Microsoft Power Pages. Quickly and easily build secure, responsive business websites using a low-code design studio and data workspace. We will show you how you can set site administrative configuration, and enable developers of all backgrounds to achieve more, including pro developers who can leverage cloud-native integrations, API/APIM, Azure Functions and more.

Day two breakout sessions

Streamline low-code governance in your organization

Debuts Thursday, October 13, 2022, from 10:00 to 10:30 AM Pacific Time.

As organizations continue to expand low-code adoption, IT resources are being stretched to manage the growing number of low-code applications being developed. Learn how Microsoft Power Platform provides security, governance, and compliance options for organizations of all sizes to easily and responsibly scale low-code without increasing requirements from IT.

Land low-code as a critical tool for skilling today’s workforce

Debuts Thursday, October 13, 2022, from 3:00 to 3:30 PM Pacific Time.

Take steps to insulate your organization from economic uncertainty by implementing a low-code skilling initiative. As developers struggle with capacity to build and manage new solutions, IT is struggling to recruit the necessary skills to support and scale. Learn how to find your makers and skill them on low-code to keep up with demand and unleash creativity and innovation in places you didn’t think possible.

Day two Into Focus sessions

Microsoft Ignite Into Focus: AI

Debuts Thursday, October 13, 2022, from 12:30 to 1:00 PM Pacific Time.

Join Eric Boyd, Corporate Vice President (CVP) of Microsoft Azure AI, as he takes a closer look at how organizations can build on the data and technical skills they already have to spur innovation and growth with AI. This demo-packed session includes live Q&A with Eric and a special guest to get your questions answered—so make sure you tune in!

Microsoft Ignite Into Focus: Innovating with Microsoft Power Apps and Azure

Debuts Thursday, October 13, 2022, from 1:30 to 2:00 PM Pacific Time.

Join Julie Strauss, General Manager, Business Applications & Platform; Scott Hunter Vice President Director, Azure; and Ashmi Chokshi, General Manager, Azure Applications Development, for a discussion on accelerating enterprise innovation with Microsoft Power Platform and Azure. You’ll learn how Microsoft empowers developers to collaborate and modernize line of business applications faster by using low-code capabilities with Power Apps combined with cloud services on Azure. You’ll also hear from Ernst & Young on how they accelerated line of business app modernization with fusion teams along with demos of the latest features for low-code application development.

Microsoft Ignite Into Focus: Business applications 2022 release wave 2 launch

Debuts Thursday, October 13, 2022, from 3:00 to 3:40 PM Pacific Time.

Join us for a preview of what’s new in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. You’ll hear from Charles Lamanna, Corporate Vice President, Business Applications & Platform, along with other product engineers as they guide you through the new capabilities in 2022 release wave 2. Learn how you can use the latest features to adapt to change as new business priorities, market conditions, and opportunities emerge. Innovate everywhere with solutions that ease collaboration and integrate seamlessly. Improve customer experiences by modernizing your processes and gaining actionable insights.

Seattle, Washington in-person expert meetups:

Day one meetups

Expert meetup: Accelerate with Microsoft Power BI

Wednesday, October 12, 2022, from 12:00 to 1:30 PM Pacific Time.

Join Microsoft, Informatica, and Profisee experts at any time during these 90 minutes to get your questions answered on Power BI.

Day two meetups

Expert meetup: Innovation with Power Apps

Thursday, October 13, 2022, from 10:00 to 11:30 AM Pacific Time.

Join Microsoft and Kyndryl experts at any time during these 90 minutes to get your questions answered on innovation with Power Apps.

Expert meetup: No-code/low-code

Thursday, October 13, 2022, from 1:00 to 2:30 PM Pacific Time.

Join Microsoft and Kyndryl experts at any time during these 90 minutes to get your questions answered on no-code/low-code.

Learn Live sessions

Design Power BI reports

Debuts Thursday, October 13, 2022, from 10:00 to 11:00 AM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times.

Because Power BI includes more than 30 core visuals, it can be challenging for a beginner to select the correct visual. This session will guide you through selecting the most appropriate visual type to meet your design and report layout requirements. You will learn about the structure of a Power BI report, learn about report objects, and select the appropriate visual type to use. This session is delivered live, so come prepared with questions for our expert presenters to address and learn in real time with them.

Use developer tools to extend Microsoft Power Platform

Debuts Thursday, October 13, 2022, from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times.

This session will focus on the available developer tools that can help you perform development activities with Microsoft Power Platform. You will install NuGet packages available for Microsoft Power Platform development, work with the Configuration Migration tool, work with Package Deployer, leverage Solution Packager to isolate features, and run the Plugin Registration Tool. This live session encourages questions from the audience, where expert presenters are eager to engage with you and help you learn alongside them in real time.

See you at Microsoft Ignite

We look forward to seeing you at Microsoft Ignite so you can start or grow your Microsoft Power Platform practice with the enhancements we unveil.

The post Your guide to Power Platform at Microsoft Ignite 2022 appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Get started by watching the “Innovate with collaborative apps and low code” keynote—it’s a great overview of new and upcoming capabilities for building low code solutions with Microsoft Power Platform and collaborative apps with Microsoft Teams.

Build enterprise-grade low code websites at scale faster than ever with Microsoft Power Pages

At Microsoft Build, we enabled you to build low code business websites faster by introducing Power Pages.

Power Pages is a low code way to create modern, secure, and responsive business websites to rapidly engage your customers, partners, and communities. In the preview of Power Pages, users can leverage a host of features and capabilities. The Design Studio makes it easy to design, style, configure, and publish modern business websites. The Templates Hub hosts full-featured websites with demo data, so you can jumpstart your journey to managing scheduling, registrations, application submissions, and more. Using the Learn Hub, you can explore guides, tutorials, and quick videos to learn how to build websites, model and visualize business data, work with code components, and of course configure sites.

Read a deep dive on the Power Pages blog and watch the Microsoft Build session to see these capabilities in action.

Build enterprise-grade low code apps easier than ever using express design in Microsoft Power Apps

Express design in Power Apps is the ability to instantly generate low-code apps directly from design files and images. In just a few clicks, users can now create web and mobile apps from a broad range of inputs—including paper forms and PDFs, sketches on a whiteboard, and even professionally designed assets in Figma. Express design adds to the many ways in which Microsoft Power Platform is applying advanced AI to assist more people in driving innovation for their teams and businesses.

Read a deep dive on express design on the Power Apps blog and watch the Microsoft Build session to see these capabilities in action.

Create customized and robust conversational AI bots with the evolved Microsoft Power Virtual Agents authoring canvas

This year at Microsoft Build 2022, we announced a set of transformative and new capabilities for Power Virtual Agents.

Power Virtual Agents’ new intelligent bot authoring experience now unifies the sophistication of Microsoft Azure Bot Framework Composer’s pro-code capabilities with the simplicity of Power Virtual Agents’ low-code platform—making it even easier for professional developers and subject matter experts to collaboratively build a bot in one unified Microsoft bot building studio. As part of this evolution, we’ve also expanded Power Virtual Agents from a bot builder to a complete interactive voice response (IVR) builder by adding end-to-end support for telephony.

Read a deep dive on the Power Virtual Agents blog and watch the Microsoft Build session to see these capabilities in action.

Enable data self-sufficiency with datamarts in Microsoft Power BI

At Microsoft Build we announced the preview of datamart in Power BI, a new Power BI Premium self-service capability that enables users to perform relational database analytics and uncover actionable insights from their data. This out-of-the-box feature empowers business analysts to build a datamart over any data warehouse or multiple data sources that can be centrally governed and managed. Datamarts in Power BI accelerate time to insight while alleviating demands on IT.

Read a deep dive on the Power BI blog and watch the Microsoft Build session to see these capabilities in action.

Auto-scale with hosted robotic process automation (RPA) bots with Microsoft Power Automate

At Microsoft Build we announced the next step in Microsoft’s RPA journey with the preview of hosted RPA bots, now available in Power Automate. As a true software as a service (SaaS) for RPA, unattended RPA bots can now be created and automatically scaled across hosted virtual machines that are powered by Microsoft Azure.

Gone are the days of strenuous approval cycles and costly deployment. With Power Automate’s hosted RPA bots, just create a group of bots by setting up basic parameters and use it to get virtual machines scaled automatically for your unattended RPA scenarios—with no Azure subscription required.

Power Automate will handle every aspect of machine management for you, helping you focus your time where it is needed most.

Read a deep dive on the Power Automate blog and watch the Microsoft Build session to see these capabilities in action.

Read more announcements from Microsoft Build

Be sure to catch up on all the announcements and sessions from Microsoft Build, now available on-demand—including downloadable videos of sessions, transcripts, and related resources. If you need a roadmap, check out our guide to Microsoft Build.

The post Microsoft Build recap: Power Platform announcements you may have missed appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

The first step is to register today for Microsoft Build to create your own session schedule and stay up to date prior to the event. Then, join the event on Tuesday, May 24, 2022, starting at 8:30 AM Pacific Time to start the Microsoft Build journey with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The packed line-up will stream to you live and on-demand, at no cost.

Why attend Microsoft Build?

Every year, thousands of people, from students to experienced developers, converge on an event designed to provide you with action-ready skills to leverage Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Cloud. At this year’s Microsoft Build event, you can:

• Learn the tools and technologies that help you create solutions you can build today. Join Technical Sessions to get inspired and learn the essentials for developing solutions across Microsoft technologies. Keep reading for our list of “must-see” sessions below.
• Connection Zones: Grab a chair at Table Topics for live discussions on camera, and in chat. Get inspired by community experts, learn best practices, and discover helpful resources with other attendees. Product Roundtables offer two-way discussions between you and our product teams to share insights that will help shape the future of the products you use.
• Connect with the community: Even in a digital format, the event offers you great opportunities to engage with the global community of developers who share your role and interest. Plus, you will hear first-hand engineers’ tips, tricks, and best practices to make the most of the digital tools you and your team use every day.

Keynotes

Day one activities kick off on Tuesday, May 24, 2022, with pre-show content at 8:00 AM Pacific Time, followed by an incredible line-up of sessions and activities. If you want to build your skills by developing amazing experiences with Microsoft Power Platform, be sure to add the sessions below to your schedule.

Then set the stage for the technical sessions on Microsoft Power Platform with the Microsoft Build opening keynote presented by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, then drill down further on Microsoft Power Platform with a keynote by Corporate Vice Presidents (CVPs) Charles Lamanna and Jeff Teper.

Microsoft Build opening presented by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Debuts Tuesday, May 24, 2022, at 8:30 AM to 9:10 AM Pacific Time.

Satya Nadella will share how Microsoft is creating new opportunities for developers across our platforms.

Innovate with collaborative apps and low code

Debuts Tuesday, May 24, 2022, at 10:50 AM to 11:10 AM Pacific Time.

Build collaborative apps that connect people, data, and processes to help over 270 million Microsoft Teams users thrive in hybrid work. Rapidly build powerful apps, bots, and flows with a single integrated development stack that seamlessly blends low and pro code with Microsoft Power Platform.

Accelerate innovation and achieve agility on a trusted, integrated platform with hybrid and multicloud capabilities

Debuts Tuesday, May 24, 2022, at 10:10 AM to 10:30 AM Pacific Time.

Accelerate innovation with the only cloud data platform that empowers you to focus on what matters most, your business. Create frictionless customer experiences, transform products, and pivot faster to respond to dynamic environments with meaningful integrations that power hybrid and multicloud capabilities. Build how you want, deploy responsibly where you want, and gain fast, continuous insights.

Day one Breakout Sessions

Take a deeper dive into topics that matter most to you. Be sure to add the sessions below to your schedule to learn valuable skills, techniques, and resources to develop exceptional experiences for Microsoft Power Platform.

Power up your development efforts with the latest low code innovations

Debuts Tuesday, May 24, 2022, at 12:30 PM to 1:15 PM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times.

Microsoft Power Platform provides the market’s most complete set of low code development tools empowering all developers to build better apps and co-create effectively. Join us to hear about the latest product and enhancements.

Day two Into Focus session

Into Focus: Low Code solutions using Microsoft Power Platform

Debuts Wednesday, May 25, 2022, at 11:15 AM to 12:00 PM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times.

Please join Julie Strauss and Karuana Gatimu Goggin for a can’t miss deep-dive conversation on fusion development. During this session Karuana and Julie will speak with ZF Friedrichshafen, a German car parts maker and Microsoft Power Platform customer, about their fusion team practice, bring to the stage Microsoft Power Platform engineers to demo the newest fusion development enabling features, and showcase said features in an end-to-end demo.

Day two Breakout Sessions

How to accelerate cloud automation and conversational bot development for developers

Debuts Wednesday, May 25, 2022, at 12:00 PM to 12:45 PM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times.

Join us to hear about the latest announcements to Microsoft Power Platform for developers and unlock the power of automation and conversational bot building tools for your organization. Learn how fusion teams of developers and subject matter experts can collaborate, deploy and scale using powerful Azure capabilities with Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents.

Democratize your data at scale with Power BI

Debuts Wednesday, May 25, 2022, at 1:00 PM to 1:45 PM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times

Learn how Power BI can further empower Data Engineers and Business Analysts to collaborate more effectively through the introduction of a new self-service capability. Organizations can scale a culture of data-driven decision making by leveraging experiences users already know and integrating with Power BI’s existing solution creation capabilities.

On-Demand Breakout Sessions

Watch these pre-recorded sessions any time for insights, best practices, and tips to develop great experiences using Microsoft Power Platform and related technologies.

What’s new in the world of Microsoft Power Apps

Announcing the preview of new capabilities that will significantly accelerate app development, by unlocking a variety of new ways for everyone to build apps quickly and easily. Scale your UI development team with ease and empower professional developers to focus on strategic and high value work, by leveraging this new technology. Join us for an in-depth coverage and demo of these exciting new developments.

What’s new for Microsoft’s Conversational AI and Power Virtual Agents

Join us to learn about the new features that enable fusion bot development teams to drive faster innovation, optimize costs, and achieve improved customer outcomes. See how you can meet customers where they are and deliver compelling experiences while maintaining security and governance of your infrastructure.  

Expedite application delivery with low code and fusion teams

Are you tired of building front end for your apps? Microsoft Power Platform is the premier destination that enables professional developers to seamlessly incorporate low code into the tooling you use every day. Learn how to create fusion teams to deliver applications to your business in record time. With low-code components, Visual Studio, VS Code, GitHub, and Codespaces, you can deliver front end for your apps in no time. Can’t figure out the right backend for your app? Learn how to build and use custom connectors with Azure API Management and Dataverse to consolidate your data in a low-code system of action.

Seamlessly scale RPA with Power Automate and hosted RPA bots

Join us for this deep-dive session on how you can leverage robotic process automation (RPA) in Power Automate with Azure. Virtual machines (VM) in Azure help you deploy unattended RPA with ease while enabling centralized management for your organization.

Exciting innovations in Power Automate

Discover the latest updates across Power Automate that continue to empower automation for all. Learn about the newest capabilities in Power Automate for desktop, independent software vendor (ISV) opportunities with cloud flow connectors, and how innovations in process advisor unlock more opportunities for deeper process analysis.

Implement Microsoft Power Platform with Architecture Best Practices and Fusion Development

Scalable out-of-the-box guided governance workflows, reference architecture, and deployment blueprints, combined with opportunities to explore accelerated trust-building by simplifying the process of establishing proven, trusted controls for Microsoft Power Platform (Landing Zones). Join this session to learn how to scale Microsoft Power Platform at the Enterprise level to enable fusion team development across your organization.

Building Teams apps that bring value quickly through low-code

Do you want to use Teams to massively expand the footprint of your apps? Are you interested in using low code to get your apps out more quickly? Learn how to use Microsoft Power Platform to build apps leveraging Azure API Management and Dataverse for Teams to extend your data and bring automation to your apps in record time.

Enhancements to administration, security, and governance in Power BI

In this session, we will explore enhanced administrative granularity and control capabilities, the release of new Data Loss Protection (DLP) policies, and recent Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) enhancements.

Best practices for deploying and scaling Power BI Embedded Analytics

Quickly embed interactive reports and visualization into your application. With the serverless architecture, you can automatically scale embedded analytics capabilities from a few to hundreds of thousands of users without the need to build, set up, and manage your own analytics information.

Integrating Power BI deployment pipelines into Azure DevOps and Azure Pipelines

Power BI deployment pipelines are a release tool that enables any BI creator to manage their updates to items in production in a fast and high-quality process. With the new Azure Pipelines extension, professional developers can integrate deployment pipelines into their existing Azure release pipelines and automate the release of new items in Power BI to production. Watch this session to learn how you can easily integrate deployment pipelines and improve your automated releases of Power BI content across the organization.

The Future of Enterprise Semantic Models– Power BI Premium

Power BI is the leading platform for both self-service and IT-managed enterprise BI. We have taken great strides to fold in Azure Analysis Services (AAS) capabilities into Power BI Premium. Join us for this session where we will discuss the roadmap for enterprise semantic models on the Microsoft BI platform, how we’re making migration from AAS to Premium easier, and exclusive ‘Premium only’ capabilities that are particularly relevant to enterprise semantic models.

Transform how business intelligence is used with Power BI in PowerPoint and Outlook

Business intelligence reports and dashboards have become an expected part of many conversations today. However, most users struggle to bring the insights discovered in their BI tools to the places where they need it—that important email or presentation. Most often, end-users’ resort to copy/paste or exporting the data, which causes confusion, lack of accuracy, and ends up diminishing the impact of the data story. In this session, we will discuss how exciting new integrations with Office 365, BI analysts can ensure they always share the most-up-to-date and compelling insights with their important stakeholders.

See you at Microsoft Build

We look forward to seeing you at Microsoft Build so you can start or grow your Microsoft Power Platform practice with the enhancements we unveil.

The post Your guide to Power Platform at Microsoft Build appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Building a more agile future

That’s why we’re excited to invite you to the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event on April 6, 2022. Register now for your first look at hundreds of new features, enhancements, and innovations to transform your business into a more agile, customer-centric organization.

Catch all the latest advancements across Microsoft Power Platform being unveiled, including:

• New updates across Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents, to help you collaborate with ease and innovate everywhere.
• Deeper insights from Microsoft Dataverse data with Azure Synapse, simplified sharing with Azure Active Directory, and enhanced data modeling to build new types of applications.
• Enhanced capabilities for governance and administration, ISV experiences, and data integration.
• Document automation capabilities that extract insights from contracts or e-mails and process them automatically in an end-to-end flow using AI Builder.

And that’s just the start. You’ll also learn how new features across Microsoft business applications are already helping our customers navigate change and seize opportunities. You’ll hear from Charles Lamanna, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Business Applications and Platform, about how your business can innovate by modernizing processes and uncovering game-changing insights. Then listen in as senior Microsoft engineers and experts behind the technology guide you through the latest advancements in Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform 2022 release wave 1 and how they’ll help you:

• Adapt quickly to change as new business priorities, market conditions, and customer opportunities emerge.
• Innovate everywhere by solving problems with solutions that ease collaboration and work seamlessly together.
• Deliver more value to your customers in less time by quickly adopting or enhancing solutions that accelerate results.
• Create more memorable customer experiences by modernizing your processes and uncovering insights into your supply chain.

Real-life innovation

Your inside look at business applications goes even more in-depth with demonstrations of real-life customer scenarios, led by the experts who know Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform inside and out. See new capabilities in action—and learn what’s possible—for organizations big and small, across every industry. You’ll be the first to find out how new features are aligned with customer needs to help solve pain points across organizations, ease everyone’s workload, and take on today’s toughest business challenges.

Fresh insights

Innovation in AI, mixed reality, and industry solutions is enabling a new generation of agile organizations. Understand the why and how behind the trends with insights and best practices from industry leaders on how to accelerate results. Have questions for the experts? You’ll have a chance to ask them during the live Q&A chat. You don’t want to miss this digital launch event packed full of ways to help you adapt fast, collaborate with ease, innovate together, and make a positive impact. We hope to see you there.

The post See what’s new for Microsoft Power Platform at the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Get started by watching the keynote, “Microsoft Ignite into Focus: Business Applications” session—it’s a great overview of new and upcoming capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.

Build enterprise-grade low code applications at scale faster than ever

At Microsoft Ignite, we further enabled you to build enterprise-grade low code applications faster by introducing pay-as-you-go for Microsoft Power Apps and Power Apps mobile apps.

Pay-as-you-go for Power Apps is a more flexible way to pay for Power Apps and Microsoft Power Platform related services. Customers can use a Microsoft Azure subscription to cover their Power Apps based on actual usage. With the new pay-as-you-go plan, customers only pay for what they use, making it even easier to get started with low code with low risk and then scale their investments over time based on the usage patterns of their solutions. Read more about pay-as-you-go for Power Apps.

To deliver a seamless app experience for users, Power Apps mobile apps (preview) will enable makers to easily package canvas apps as Android and iOS mobile apps for corporate end users. Power Apps mobile apps will allow makers to deliver a completely branded, end-to-end experience for their mobile apps—distributed natively through popular tools such as Microsoft Endpoint Manager or similar third-party MDM solutions, and private enterprise app stores like Microsoft App Center, Apple Volume Purchase Program, and Managed Google Play. Read more about Power Apps mobile apps.

Read a deep dive on the Power Apps blog and watch the Microsoft Ignite session to see these capabilities in action.

Streamline collaboration and communication with intelligent virtual agents

At Microsoft Ignite we also released a variety of updates that make it easier to collaborate with teammates leveraging your intelligent virtual agents. Several of those collaborative enhancements were updates to Microsoft Power Virtual Agents bots in Microsoft Teams, such as Microsoft Teams proactive messaging, sharing bots with colleagues via security groups, and direct mention and interaction capabilities with bots in Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft proactive messaging unlocks a rich set of scenarios from notifying users that their expense report has been approved to reminders to update their emergency contact information. The best part is you can include topics in Power Virtual Agents to reply to their follow-up questions such as “How is my emergency contact information privacy protected?”. Learn more about how to notify Microsoft Teams users with proactive message.

Sharing bots with colleagues via security groups enables users to find and install the shared bot directly from the Microsoft Teams app store in the “Built by your colleague” section, or directly install the bot via installation link and email notifications. There is no need to worry about data leakage as only members of the shared security groups will be able to install and chat with the bot. Learn more about the share your bot feature.

Lastly, Power Virtual Agents now allows bots built-in Microsoft Teams to be directly added to the team that the bot is created in. Team members can directly interact with the bot via @mentioning the bot’s name in their team’s channel where everyone can see the bot’s response. In a product design team and need to share product design best practices with your teammates? Simply ask the bot in the channel and everyone can see the response.

Read a deep dive on the Power Virtual Agents blog and watch the Microsoft Ignite session to see these capabilities in action.

Optimize how you work with RPA and process mining in Power Automate

We announced the next evolution of process advisor with the preview of process mining. Process mining is part of process advisor and provides direct data insights across the business processes many organizations use daily to identify inefficiencies across workflows.

Process advisor is comprised of two powerful capabilities, the existing task mining capability for capturing user interactions on a desktop, and now with process mining it uses business data to provide a holistic view into bottlenecks across the business.

With process mining, organizations can do the following to easily get started: Quickly create a new process with the intuitive interface in process advisor and upload your data from the appropriate system of record to select your key data sources for analysis.

Additionally, customize your data with deeper analytics: Customize your insights by selecting from an array of attributes that you define—such as regions, invoice types, and more—and filter down to identify bottlenecks in your processes. You can review the process maps and analytics to glean insights across your business processes.

Lastly, discover inefficiencies and improve productivity: From these insights, you can quickly identify which activities are most time-consuming, discover commonalities in their business practices, and improve efficiencies by identifying bottlenecks—ultimately streamlining workflows and boosting productivity.

Read a deep dive on the Power Automate blog and watch the Microsoft Ignite session to see these capabilities in action.

Enable data-driven decisions everywhere collaboration happens with enterprise-grade analytics

Microsoft Power BI heavily invested to create a rich experience within your collaboration platform infused with AI to drive insights everywhere.

One such example is the Power BI App for Microsoft Teams making data more accessible across your organization. It helps everyone seamlessly include data in chats, meetings, calendar invites, and teams’ channels. By making data more accessible, organizations can easily bring teams together, have insights-based discussions at the point of collaboration, and make better decisions faster.

Read a deep dive on the Power BI blog and watch the Microsoft Ignite session to see these capabilities in action.

Read more news from Microsoft Ignite

Be sure to catch up on all the news and sessions from Microsoft Ignite, now available on-demand—including downloadable videos of sessions, transcripts, and related resources. If you need a roadmap, check out our guide to Microsoft Ignite.

The post Microsoft Ignite recap: Power Platform news and announcements you may have missed appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

The first step is to register today for Microsoft Ignite to create your own session schedule and stay up to date prior to the event. Then, join the event on Tuesday, November 2, 2021, starting at 8:15 AM Pacific Time to start the Microsoft Ignite journey with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The packed line-up will stream to you live and on-demand, at no cost.

Why attend Microsoft Ignite?

Every year, thousands of people, from students to experienced IT professionals, converge on the event designed to provide you with action-ready skills to leverage Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Cloud. At this year’s Microsoft Ignite event, you can:

• Learn the tools and technologies that help you create solutions you can build today. Join Technical Sessions to get inspired and learn the essentials for developing solutions across Microsoft technologies. Keep reading for our list of “must-see” sessions below.
• Connection Zones: Grab a chair at Table Topics for live discussions on camera, and in chat. Get inspired by community experts, learn best practices, and discover helpful resources with other attendees. Product Roundtables offer two-way discussions between you and our product teams to share insights that will help shape the future of the products you use.
• Connect with the community: Even in a digital format, the event offers you great opportunities to engage with the global community of developers who share your role and interest. Plus, you will hear first-hand engineers’ tips, tricks, and best practices to make the most of the digital tools you and your team use every day.

Keynotes

Day 1 activities kick off on Tuesday, November 2, 2021, with pre-show content at 8:00 AM Pacific Time, followed by an incredible line-up of sessions and activities. If you want to build your skills by developing amazing experiences with Microsoft Power Platform, be sure to add the sessions below to your schedule.

Then set the stage for the technical sessions on Microsoft Power Platform with the Microsoft Ignite opening keynote presented by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, then drill down further on Microsoft Power Platform with a keynote by CVPs Charles Lamanna and Alysa Taylor.

Microsoft Ignite opening presented by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Debuts Tuesday, November 2, 2021 at 8:15 AM to 8:50 AM Pacific Time

Our economy and society are undergoing a sea change of digitization. Satya will talk about emerging technology trends and innovations across the Microsoft Cloud that will transform every business and industry going forward.

Build a hyperconnected business

Debuts Tuesday, November 2, 2021 at 9:30 AM to 9:55 AM Pacific Time

Organizations need the agility to respond rapidly and predict what’s next, and that requires a new approach to business solutions – one that harnesses data as a resource and turns its potential into power. Join us to learn how to build a digital foundation with the Microsoft Cloud that will carry your organization into the future.

Innovate anywhere from Multicloud to Edge

Debuts Tuesday, November 2, 2021 at 10:00 AM to 10:25 AM Pacific Time

Discover how our latest innovations will help you secure, operate, and govern infrastructure, data, and applications across hybrid and multicloud; how to innovate at scale with end-to-end data capabilities in Azure; how to deliver the next gen of cloud-native applications, and how to empower cross-functional fusion teams of developers and employees to build productively with developer and low-code tools.

Day one Breakout Sessions

Take a deeper dive into topics that matter most to you. Be sure to add the sessions below to your schedule to learn valuable skills, techniques, and resources to develop exceptional experiences for Microsoft Power Platform.

Empower data-backed decision making with Power BI, Power Automate, and Azure Synapse Analytics

Debuts Tuesday, November 2, 2021 at 1:30 PM to 2:00 PM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times.

Join us to learn how Microsoft’s seamless solution empowers you to unlock limitless insights throughout your business at the pace of your business with Dynamics 365; Power BI; Power Automate; Azure Synapse Analytics; Azure Purview and Power BI Embedded.

Day two Breakout Sessions

Accelerate innovation with low-code applications using Power Platform

Debuts Wednesday, November 3, 2021 at 12:30 PM to 1:00 PM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times.

Leverage fusion teams across your organization to build apps faster than ever before. Fusion teams allow you to accelerate innovation with applications by including representatives throughout your businesses, developers who own those experiences, and your IT leaders and admins managing them.

Learn how Power Platform orchestrates this entire process, see some great new features, and hear how our customers are succeeding with low code.

The future of business is seamless collaboration – how Teams and Power Platform engage your entire workforce

Debuts Wednesday, November 3, 2021 at 1:30 PM to 2:00 PM Pacific Time. See session details for alternate times.

Microsoft Teams offers your employees the ability to connect and collaborate. When Teams is combined with the Microsoft Power Platform, you can create unique, custom business solutions that can be utilized by everyone, offering competitive advantages that will help you reach the top of your industry, or level the playing field with larger competitors. This session will exemplify the potential of what Teams and Power Platform can do for you.

On-Demand Sessions

Watch these pre-recorded sessions any time for insights, best practices, and tips to develop great experiences using Microsoft Power Platform and related technologies.

Big data analytics with Power BI

This session will dive into the latest Power BI investments for analytics over big data. Use hybrid tables for blazing fast query performance over multi-billion row datasets combining real-time capabilities – without the need to refresh the dataset. Learn how to unlock massive datasets for interactive analysis, accelerating time to insight, and reducing TCO.

Create compelling visual analytics experiences in your applications

Create compelling visual analytics experiences in your applications that add value and inspire users to make better decisions. Learn how to leverage Power BI Embedded and Azure App Services to white label analytics into your own apps without having to license every report consumer.

Take an in-depth tour of all the new announcements for Power Apps at Ignite

With key features covering the spectrum of professional and citizen developers, Power Apps allows teams to be more productive than ever before. Check out in-depth overviews and demos.

Empower your organization to build apps faster fusion teams

By combining your IT owners, along with your pro developers, along with makers in the business, you can enable fusion teams in your organization with features to enable app delivery unlike anything you’ve done before.

With built-in security out of the box, extensibility with IDEs and developer tools across the board, and a broad range of low code features, teams can come together to build apps fast.

Empower your organization to build more solutions with Power Platform

Microsoft developed the Power Platform to empower problem-solvers to build those backlogged solutions, from simple applications to return to workplace processes. Join this session to understand the 5 technologies that comprise the Power Platform and how to use those tools for a range of solutions.

New ways to add intelligence to your business with AI Builder

Accelerate your digital transformation by using AI Builder’s no-code capabilities to bring intelligence to your apps and workflows. See the newest features added to automate document processing. And learn how you can now bring your own custom models, like those trained in Azure ML into Power Platform.

Optimize how you work with RPA and process advisor in Power Automate

The new era for business requires every organization to find faster ways to deliver results, simpler ways of working and to reduce costs. With Power Automate, there are endless ways that organizations can streamline day-to-day business processes.

Join this session to learn about new robotic process automation capabilities (RPA) and updates in process advisor to see how organizations can reduce churn and streamline how they work.

Return to the workplace confidently with low-code solutions built using Power Platform

Empower your organization to remain agile and adapt to changing hybrid working circumstances using the Power Platform Return to the Workplace solution. Reopen and keep your business open responsibly by monitoring intelligently and protecting your employees continuously with the Return to the Workplace solution.

Build secure solutions fearlessly in Power Platform
Empower your organization to build robust and secure solutions while adhering to governance policies. Using the Power Platform Admin Center and Center of Excellence starter kit, learn how your organization can grow adoption of Power Platform while following governance best practices and maintain visibility in your organization’s low code solution development.

See you at Microsoft Ignite

We look forward to seeing you at Microsoft Ignite so you can start or grow your Microsoft Power Platform practice with the enhancements we unveil.

The post Your guide to Power Platform at Microsoft Ignite appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.