All of these announcements are entering preview by December 2024: 

• Plan designer is ready for preview. In September 2024, we opened early access for select users to a new AI-powered workspace for turning requirements into a robust Microsoft Power Platform solution—including user stories, data model, apps, and automations. In the next weeks, we’re expanding access to a full preview. Designing a solution plan with Microsoft Copilot will make it easier than ever to upgrade existing apps and processes into intelligent applications.   

• Makers can generate custom AI agents directly from Power Apps using the knowledge, logic, and actions built into existing apps to jumpstart the building of a Microsoft Copilot Studio agent. These custom agents will get work done on behalf of employees, which can reduce repetitive work, supercharge individual productivity, and drive overall business efficiency.¹ Makers will also be able to tune the out-of-the-box agents in Power Apps with custom knowledge and actions using Copilot Studio.

• Introducing managed security and managed operations in Power Platform. Just as we have simplified governance with managed environments, we are now making it easier than ever for organizations to apply advanced security to their Power Platform solutions and manage mission-critical workloads at scale. A completely redesigned admin experience now features focused capabilities for managing security, deploying solutions, monitoring telemetry, and more. 

Together, these advancements represent a major disruption to the traditional “build versus buy” tradeoff of business apps. By generating intelligent applications on a fully managed platform, technology leaders can get the best of both worlds—solutions that are purpose-built for exactly their needs but without the long-term costs of maintaining full stack projects. Forrester’s John Bratincevic argues that this is the beginning of a substantial shift.

“AI-powered enterprises will “build” software instead of “buy” it—and many applications in enterprise portfolios will consolidate onto low-code AppGen platforms.”

John Bratincevic, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Let’s dig into the details of how Power Platform is leading the AppGen transition with new capabilities rolling out now.

Build enterprise solutions, start with a plan 

In September 2024, we opened early access to a new Copilot-powered workspace in Power Apps that enables makers to design and generate a robust solution to nearly any business problem. With highly positive feedback from customers, we’re excited to bring the plan designer capabilities to preview.

Now developers will be able to start working on a business problem in an iterative process with Copilot, and keep better connection between the business requirements and the solution they are building.

The entire process of building a plan and generating solution components is iterative and collaborative. At any point makers can make changes to defined user roles, requirements, data model, or the proposed user experiences. The plan will live alongside the solution, changing with it and ensuring the understanding of the problem and requirements persist.  

The new plan designer experience will make a powerful tool for creating well-structured, adaptable, and collaborative solutions using Power Apps and Power Platform. 

Generate custom AI agents from existing app capabilities  

Makers can now easily generate agents from existing apps using the logic, knowledge, and actions built into those apps. Makers can leverage Copilot Studio capabilities directly in Power Apps to build custom agents that get work done on behalf of employees. Once these agents are deployed, users can review activity, manage complex cases, and focus on higher value work.

For instance, in a reimbursement management app, a maker takes existing process—categorization, compliance check, or rejecting requests—and builds an agent to execute these tasks. Makers can start from an existing app, and agent builder will suggest actions based on the app’s construction, like activating flows or running Power Fx functions. This significantly shortens the time to get to user value and makers can continue expanding agent functionality in Copilot Studio. For example, they can add the ability to process receipt images using the pre-built prompt with GPT-4o. 

For users, the benefits are clear: instead of requiring each request to be reviewed by a person, an agent handles it. Makers can also allow users to see which rows have been recently modified by the agent and view previous agent sessions. This transparency ensures that users can intervene when necessary, maintaining visibility and control. This functionality will be available to makers starting next month.

Improved in-app agents for data entry and summaries 

In addition to generating new custom agents, we’re also improving the out-of-the-box agents that end users leverage within Power Apps to get work done more efficiently.

Data entry is one of the tasks that many people consider tedious, and it’s no surprise that the Power Apps data entry agent, which helps users fill out forms, is highly valued by customers. At Power Platform Community Conference 2024, we announced the ability to copy text and let AI suggest form inputs from the clipboard. In a study with information workers, this Copilot assistance enabled 29% faster form filling, with 95% preferring it over manual entry.² Now, users in model-driven apps can also directly add an email or file and get field suggestions from them. The new context control lets users see what data is used to predict fields, giving them more control. In canvas apps, entering long text input with Copilot now allows for custom prompts and presents multiple options to choose from—just like people are used to from Microsoft Word.

Quickly find what you need and understand a summary of complex records. Searching, sorting, and filtering of records using natural language with the help of the Power Apps data exploration agent is now available to all users in preview. And to give users easy insights, makers can add custom AI summaries to apps with a summary card—the performance of which they can review in the monitoring page.   

Copilot chat in apps can also now be customized—starting from the app designer, makers can open Copilot Studio, provision an agent responsible for the app chat experience and add new topics, knowledge grounding, domain-specific glossaries, and actions. A customized chat agent is then ready to help users with more relevant and helpful answers. 

Introducing managed security and managed operations 

In 2022, we introduced managed environments, a suite of governance capabilities that brought more visibility and control to administrators of Power Platform. We see every day how these capabilities allow IT teams to efficiently govern hundreds of thousands of assets, making well-governed use of Power Platform available to millions of users around the world, including for customers like Deutsche Bahn, Lerøy, and Lumen. 

Today, we take another step forward. We know that large-scale app modernization and the transition of existing business processes onto intelligent solutions in Power Platform and Dynamics 365 will require even more than great governance. That’s why we’re introducing two additional, closely related capabilities: managed security and managed operations. This means that Power Apps, Power Automate, Microsoft Copilot Studio, and Dynamics 365 are now delivered on a fully managed platform. 

• Managed governance helps organize and administer professional and citizen development with more visibility, more control, and less effort on the part of central teams.  

• [New] Managed security makes it easier than ever before to apply advanced threat protections across the platform, helping security professionals assess and improve the security footprint of their business applications. Managed security includes industry-leading capabilities for proactive threat detection, access management, compliance, and more. Learn more in the Power Platform security and governance blog. 

• [New] Managed operations makes it easier for advanced development teams to deploy and operate mission critical applications to maximize an organization’s productivity. This suite of capabilities is designed to safeguard and tune your production workloads with the ability to safely deploy updates, detect service degradations, and provide recommendations to improve production health. Learn more about managed operations.  

All managed capabilities are benefits of existing licenses and surface directly in existing products. This includes the Power Platform admin center (PPAC), which has now been completely re-imagined around a set of new highly productive workspaces for specific tasks—including reviewing inventory in managed environments, configuring and monitoring managed security, and leveraging managed operations capabilities for deployment and oversight.

These workspaces will also now be visible in focused ways in maker experiences. For example, developers will be able to observe and improve on the active usage of their applications in the monitoring workspace. They will see apps with low app open success rates and drill down on reasons why users can’t open the app, or they can see high latencies for showing the initial screen or data and understand what’s contributing to the problem. This will help makers find and address apps that require attention for improved performance.  

Today, we’re also making an important clarification to the licensing requirements for managed environments. Managed platform capabilities are a benefit of existing premium licenses, and any environment with managed features requires the users of any of the assets in that environment to have a premium license. We’re clarifying that as long as each individual user in the environment is appropriately licensed with at least one premium license—Power Apps or Power Automate—managed features will work and customers will be compliant.

Learn all about the updates to governance, scale, security, and data management capabilities in the breakout session Enterprise Scale: The Future of Power Platform Governance + Security. 

Apps that help users with line-of-business tasks 

Power Platform boasts a massive 1,400+ connector ecosystem, many of those connecting to the line-of-business data, giving options to business leaders and teams to build functionality they are missing to run business smoothly.  

We’re happy to announce two advances for building line-of-business apps. First, the SAP OData connector is now generally available, allowing access to SAP’s modern product stack, improving productivity and innovation with Power Platform’s low-code capabilities. Professionals building solutions over SAP will also benefit from a new whitepaper dedicated to architecting of SAP extensions.

And second, new bi-directional integration between Microsoft Dataverse and Snowflake allows makers to build end-to-end apps that act directly on Snowflake data, including the ability to create Dataverse virtual tables from Snowflake data. Coming soon, Dataverse data will be accessible in Snowflake so that customer service teams using Snowflake can leverage powerful analytics over their data in Dataverse, gaining deeper insights into customer behavior and enhancing service quality.

Join us at Microsoft Ignite 2024

Power Apps solves thousands of problems for tens of thousands of customers in almost every industry. With agents working alongside users, greater productivity from AI in apps, and expanded enterprise-grade tools for management at scale, Power Apps is the place for organizations to drive tangible AI impact. 

Join us at Microsoft Ignite 2024 to see the newest announcements firsthand and understand how you can leverage them. Embrace the era of Copilot-first development and accelerate your company transformation into the age of AI with Power Apps. 

Microsoft Ignite 2024

Experience the latest innovations for AI transformation

Explore the event

¹ New autonomous agents scale your team like never before.

² Internal Microsoft testing conducted in November 2024 on sample of 22 subjects.

The post Intelligent apps: Now created with a plan, optimized with agents, and scaled on a fully managed platform appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Source: (Gartner, October 2024)1* 

We are excited to share that Microsoft has been named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms** for the sixth year in a row. This recognition, we feel, reflects the trust of millions of users who continue to build on Microsoft Power Platform—a comprehensive low-code solution that spans application development, process automation, external websites, and intelligent copilots.  

Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms

Learn why Microsoft was named a Leader.

Read the report

The success stories of our customers demonstrate the tangible impact of Microsoft Power Platform in real-world scenarios. A few examples include:

• Pacific Gas & Electric, a US utility company that has built over 300 complex solutions delivering over $75 million in savings each year and are also adopting generative AI to further advance their service center chatbot, which alone saves $1.1 million each year in helpdesk support.
• Zurich Insurance Group, a Swiss insurance company, is skillfully balancing the growth of low-code development with the strong governance required in the highly regulated financial services industry sector. 
• Cineplex, one of Canada’s leading media and entertainment companies, has saved 30,000 hours (approximately 3.5 years) and over $1 million in the past two years by leveraging automation and copilots built on Microsoft Power Platform to improve overall customer service and reduce query handling time from 15 minutes to just 30 seconds.² 

These companies—and many more—are using Microsoft Power Platform to transform their operations by building solutions on a secure, scalable platform that effectively handles and streamlines AI integration, governance, security, and enterprise data connectivity, a platform that enables developers to build with natural language, visual interface, or code, and deploy powerful solutions to web, mobile, or Microsoft Teams with ease.

“[Microsoft] Power Platform enables us to carefully control the data that feeds our AI models and, through [Microsoft Azure] Active Directory and [Microsoft] Dataverse, also control who can access which data through those models”.

Thomas Bilbo, Principal, Product Owner, PG&E 

Let’s dive into the factors that we believe set our platform apart as a Leader. 

Microsoft Copilot in Power Platform is transforming how people use and create software, making Microsoft the low-code application platform (LCAP) of choice for customers who need to rapidly modernize their application estates for the age of AI. 

Makers can harness Copilot in Power Apps to turn natural language descriptions into functional solutions quickly. Copilot helps makers from the beginning, when they build a plan for their solution, and continues to assist with tasks like working with data models, adding new tables, creating relations between data, adding new screens and controls within the canvas experience, and crafting complex formulas in Microsoft Power Fx.  

“Building the prototype from scratch would have taken 6-8 hours. We were able to just describe in natural language and build in a few minutes.”

Ron Colvin​, Director of Innovation, CONA Services​ 

End-users benefit from out-of-the-box Microsoft Copilot capabilities when using apps built on Dataverse. And with Copilot streamlining actions such as drafting text inputs, filling forms, and filtering records, users are saving significant time on manual and repetitive tasks.  

To date, over 480,000 organizations have used AI-powered capabilities in Microsoft Power Platform. For instance, Nsure.com significantly improved efficiency and reduced costs by using generative AI to automate complex business processes, cutting manual processing time by 60% and associated costs by 50%.  

Confidently adopt at scale with enterprise-grade security and data governance  

Through Managed Environments, the suite of advanced governance capabilities that comes with Power Platform premium licenses, the platform provides a robust control framework for secure, scalable low-code adoption. Leading organizations like PG&E, Equinor, Shell, T-Mobile, Lumen Technologies, Zurich Insurance Group, and HSBC manage extensive developer networks and solutions globally with exceptional visibility and control.  

Since 2022, Deutsche Bahn (DB) Group has been using Managed Environments to drive innovation at scale across the world’s largest railway company. At Rabobank, more than 55% of their 40,000 employees use Microsoft Power Platform solutions. Similarly, Accenture has over 200,000 employees using applications built on Microsoft Power Apps every month. 

Each of our coworkers has a [Microsoft] Power Platform license to create, to solve problems for his or her team, or even for the whole company. It’s very easy to make your own app, and very fast.

Thomas Czierpke, Head of Adoption and Change Management, Microsoft 365, DB Group  

We continue to invest in Managed Environments as customers drive greater scale and sophistication on the platform. In the past year, we have introduced comprehensive application lifecycle management, including Git integration and source control, a proactive intelligent advisor for risk management, and advanced administration options. We’re equipping administrators and experienced developers with advanced tools, and our upcoming release plan will continue to add new functionality in application lifecycle management, enterprise-scale administration, licensing and capacity management, monitoring, security, and compliance. 

Start your low-code transformation now 

In the journey of digital and AI transformation, every maker and every developer plays a crucial role in driving innovation. It’s amazing to see 83,000 participants in our partner bootcamps and airlifts, with Microsoft Power Platform communities growing to 5.8 million monthly active users! It is all of you—our community—that make this journey so rewarding. 

We are grateful to all the organizations, customers, the community, and partners for this recognition—thank you for everything that you do! As a next step, dive into building with Power Apps Developer Plan. Learn more about our position as a Leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms report. 

Sources

1. Gartner®, Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, October 16, 2024, Oleksandr Matvitskyy,  Kimihiko Iijima, Mike West, Kyle Davis, Akash Jain, Paul Vincent

2. Microsoft Fiscal Year 2024 Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call 

*This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms. 

**Gartner is a registered trademark and service mark and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. 

The post Microsoft named a Leader in 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms    appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Forrester interviewed 13 representatives of organizations that have invested in Power Apps Premium as well as other components of the Power Platform and aggregated their experiences into a composite organization with 30,000 employees, $10 billion in annual revenue, 200 professional developers, and 1,800 citizen developers. They modeled gradual adoption of Power Apps Premium, beginning with 22% licensed employees in the first year and expanding to 66% by the third year.

The Total Economic Impactᵀᴹ of Power Apps  

Understand employee efficiency gains, developer productivity improvements, and overall business value that organizations experienced when they adopted Microsoft Power Apps Premium.

Read the study

The impact of Power Apps Premium on the organization was significant:

• Users saved 250 hours per person on high-impact use-cases. In year three of adoption, the organization saved more than 1,000,000 hours from cumulative user efficiencies. 

• Professional developers saw a 50% reduction in application development time. Additionally, improved governance, reduced shadow IT, and enhanced employee experiences were cited by interviewed customers. 

• Forrester estimates that customers recovered their initial investment within just six months. After that, the benefits continued to add up, with the effective cost of each new solution nearing zero due to Power Apps Premium offering unlimited apps per user. This drove a rapid increase in net benefits over three years, culminating in a 206% return on investment (ROI) and $31M in net present value (NPV).  

These findings haven’t yet considered the significant impact of Microsoft Copilot on employee and developer productivity. Developers using Copilot in Power Apps have a 60% higher success rate in building apps and 70% of users of Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 report increased productivity. Considering these additional benefits, the overall business value can be expected to be even higher. 

For now, let’s look closer at the business value of Power Apps Premium reported in the Forrester Total Economic Impact^TM study. 

Save a million hours in a year

Power Apps empowers businesses to respond swiftly to evolving needs. With a low-code platform that enables more makers to design and deploy applications, while accelerating  the work of professional developers, a wide range of use cases can be addressed in record time. A product owner at an energy organization noted to Forrester, “Power Apps allows for faster application development because end-users don’t waste time waiting for a high-code app to be developed or spend time on inefficient processes.” Many other customers not interviewed for the study—Westpac, Epiq, or Vodafone for example—have shared similar experiences of impactful solutions built in weeks instead of months.

 
Forrester found that productivity gains on high-impact use-cases saved up to 250 hours per user annually, unlocking as much as 12% of an employee’s time for new, productive work. One interviewee highlighted that processes once taking three to six weeks and requiring 10 full-time employees (FTEs) were reduced to just one hour with only two FTEs, thanks to Power Apps.  

Individually, 250 hours is a significant gain—imagine what you could accomplish with six extra work weeks! At the organizational level, this impact scales dramatically: in the third year of Power Apps adoption, the organization saved 1,000,000 hours, generating a financial benefit of $31.3 million. 

Outside the Forrester study, many of our customers, including EY, Evergy, and Lerøy Seafood, are witnessing similar productivity improvements enabled by low-code solutions. 

Equip developers for greater efficiency and achieve 50% faster app development 

Low-code promises faster development—but how much faster, and is it truly worth it?  

Forrester’s findings indicate that professional developers cut their application development time by 50% using Power Apps Premium. For an organization with 200 professional developers, this efficiency gain is like adding 100 extra developers to meet demands.  

This efficiency boost came from leveraging prebuilt templates, reusable components, and drag-and-drop functionality, in conjunction with traditional code extensibility to quickly build and deploy robust applications. Moreover, as citizen developers independently handled certain business issues, professional developers could focus on more complex and high-value projects for users. Customers also noted that before adopting Power Platform, integrating various apps and services required extensive custom development, while with Power Platform this became easier thanks to simple, interconnected, and easy-to-govern low-code tools.  

“If we go four years back, when the first Power Apps appeared, it was very non-IT. So, it’s mostly the business areas and engineers making Power Apps and operating themselves appearing all over the place. Now, IT delivers most of the low-code and no-code solutions.” 
—Product owner at an energy organization

Improve governance, reduce risks, and innovate with Power Apps

The impact of Power Apps extends well beyond development speed. Besides significant user efficiencies and development productivity, organizations interviewed by Forrester noted improved governance, reduced shadow IT, and innovation culture as important gains.  

“It has allowed us to govern in a way that we deem safe and appropriate for our organization.”

—Director of a services company

At Microsoft we see many organizations—Accenture, Deutsche Bahn, or Zurich Insurance Group as an example—leverage advanced governance and administration tools to streamline and simplify their application development and reduce IT risks. Power Platform empowers their employees to build solutions rapidly within the guardrails of IT, improving developer productivity, and thus minimizes the need for unauthorized tools. 

Although not quantified, interviewees also mentioned that Power Apps could potentially save their organizations money by replacing legacy solutions. They noted that Power Apps provides a modern and adaptable platform for creating new applications with similar or improved functionalities. Additionally, its capability to connect to various data sources and integrate with existing systems would facilitate a gradual shift from legacy apps to more flexible modern solutions. 

Enable your workforce and unlock maximum value with Power Apps Premium

Businesses who are fast to equip their employees with intelligent solutions, who improve customer service, and streamline internal operations have a strong advantage on the market.  

The Forrester Total Economic Impact^TM study clearly outlines how adopting Power Apps Premium leads to fast value for business—substantial cost savings, enhanced developer productivity, and a significant overall return on investment.   

Read the complete Forrester’s Total Economic Impact^TM study of Power Apps for detailed insights, cost and benefits breakdown, or reach out to your Microsoft contact to build your own business value assessment.  

1. Microsoft Fiscal Year 2024 Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call, April 25, 2024

The post Millions of hours saved, 50% faster app development, and 206% ROI achieved with Microsoft Power Apps Premium appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Here are some of our key announcements for Microsoft Build 2024:

• Use Copilot to create and understand Microsoft Power Fx as well as rich data models. Copilot is going beyond the basics to explain code intricacies, auto-generate comments, and generate Power Fx code from natural language instructions, right in the formula bar in a “type ahead” style similar to GitHub Copilot. Makers can now work with complex data models created by natural language, Excel, or SharePoint in a visual and interactive workspace. This update allows developers to use Copilot to build multiscreen responsive applications over more complex data schemas, simplifying the daily work developers do when building and maintaining apps.
• Deliver more powerful Copilot-infused apps for users, including forms that automatically fill themselves out so that users don’t have to type repetitive content, and mobile apps that can now turn voice input into Copilot-powered answers, saving workers from tedious typing and navigation on mobile devices.
• Collaborate in real-time with live coauthoring. Power Apps now enables real-time coauthoring in Power Apps Canvas Studio so that multiple makers and developers can build simultaneously. This is a long-awaited boost for Power Apps development teams and brings a level of efficiency not possible with traditional code-first development.
• Understand the code behind your app. Developers can now open a code view directly in Microsoft Power Apps Studio, creating more transparency and easier collaboration. Code view will enable developers to see a section of their app in YAML format, as well as copy and paste code to and from Power Apps Studio. This will enable developers to transport their code between apps, make app edits directly in code editors, and enable the entire community to share and reuse code more easily.
• Use first-class DevOps. Developers can now natively sync solutions to source control so that they have transparency around changes and can integrate appropriate development processes, just like with any other software project. Developers will be able to easily build and release without leaving the Power Apps portal, potentially saving hours of time.

Below, we will explore each of the categories in more detail.

Use Copilot to create and understand Power Fx as well as rich data models

Some developers want to use low-code to automate the mundane aspects of building an app. Others inherit low-code apps from colleagues and need to quickly get up to speed. Regardless of the circumstance, Copilot in Microsoft Power Apps is now your intelligent companion that explains any formula you select, right in the formula bar.

Coders can copy and insert the explanation as a code comment or share it with others who are working on the same app.

Developers can also write comments in natural language and have Copilot suggest a formula in Power Fx directly in the typing loop, in a similar fashion to GitHub Copilot. Copilot in Power Apps uses common comment patterns such as // and /* */ that developers are already familiar with to minimize friction and increase efficiency. Comments can remain in the formula bar as documentation, just like with traditional code. This means that coders can use existing knowledge to quickly get up to speed, minimize errors, and build—fast.

“[Using Copilot for formula configuration] has already created knowledge growth for the developers because we can see a function in action and use that knowledge in other apps for resolving problems, creating enhancements or even in the initial build process.”
Tami Wattenberg, Lead Analyst, Lumen Technologies​

When working with data today, Copilot helps makers quickly build a table or import an Excel spreadsheet into a new table to support data-rich apps. This was the first step in Copilot working closely with makers to accomplish complex and time-consuming data modelling.

Now, makers can collaborate with Copilot to build out data models over multiple tables at the same time, and work on the relationships between them. Makers can import Excel sheets as well as SharePoint lists or use Copilot-generated sample data to build out more complex data models. Use Copilot and a visualization of the data structure to be confident in the data store your apps can consume.

Copilot saves makers time. Makers using Copilot in Power Apps used 88% fewer clicks and were 60% faster when building apps than those who didn’t.²

“Building a prototype from scratch would have taken six-eight hours. We were able to just describe in natural language and build in a few minutes.”
Ron Colvin, Director, CONA Services

Deliver more powerful Copilot-infused apps for users

App makers can also integrate Copilot in Power Apps into mobile apps to make the lives of end-users easier. We recently announced that end-users can use Copilot to assist with form filling in model-driven apps. Now, makers will be able to use Copilot for canvas apps, powered by Microsoft Copilot Studio, to create a tailored experience for end-users. End-users, like frontline workers, can then use generative AI and voice dictation on mobile devices to ask questions and complete tasks, including collecting or submitting information on the go.

For example, an inventory manager on the shop floor can ask Copilot questions about the inventory of the item or to update inventory, as they walk from aisle to aisle. Developers can infuse intelligence from Copilot in Power Apps with other mobile capabilities like barcode scanning, NFC reading, and location services to create modern, high-impact apps.

Collaborate in real-time with live coauthoring

Coauthoring has arrived for Power Apps Canvas Studio. Now, up to 10 developers can work together simultaneously in a tight inner loop, with the ability to see their own and their team’s changes instantly compiled into a running app. This is dramatically faster than traditional development cycles of merging and compiling local changes.

This is also a major improvement for current Power Apps development teams, removing the need to divide efforts or consolidate changes from multiple app instances. Developers will now be able to see real-time presence and changes of the whole development team in the Power Apps Studio.

“Coauthoring in canvas apps has the potential to accelerate Power Apps Development at Zurich Insurance Group, especially for complex solutions.”
Lukas Kormuth, Microsoft Power Platform Solution Architect, Zurich Insurance

​To learn more about how Zurich Insurance Group uses Microsoft Power Platform, watch this video.

Understand the code behind your app   

Fusion development is getting easier. Now, developers can view and use source code in a readable YAML + Power Fx format. Code view in Power Apps Studio allows a greater level of transparency for developers as they work with canvas apps as well as the ability to copy and paste code between your preferred code editor—enabling small changes in code, reuse across your apps, and sharing code with other developers and the community.

Use first-class DevOps

As solutions scale to larger development teams, multiple environments, and different types of components, developers can now have full source control, just like any other coding project. Canvas apps are automatically synchronized to the repository and branch in the new YAML + Power Fx format.

But it’s not just canvas apps. Now, all solutions developed in Microsoft Power Platform will be able to natively sync to and from source control, as developers can commit and pull changes in a few seconds. Previously, makers had to leave the Power Apps portal and use additional tools to synchronize with source control. Now, integration with your Azure DevOps Git repository will make it easy to track changes and identify and resolve conflicts, thereby creating a smoother experience. Citizen developers can seamlessly build alongside professional developers, using the same processes and workflows, all in one place.

Gone are the days of manual deployments and switching applications. With point-and-click functionality, you can trigger deployments effortlessly, saving hours of time.

Of course, source control also includes amplification lifecycle management (ALM) processes that cannot be bypassed in addition to appropriate reviews before going into production. This helps mitigate some of the risk associated with working in a development environment.

Work securely

As low-code and AI accelerate digital transformations, organizations need effective tools for assessing and managing security and compliance, while enabling citizen developers to build safe solutions that result in business productivity and growth. The security hub preview helps administrators quickly assess security posture, identify and act on prioritized recommendations, use high value tools to detect threats quickly and effectively, and proactively set policies in place to safeguard from vulnerabilities and risks. To shift left security responsibilities and embrace a shared responsibility model, security hub extends to maker experiences with product-specific recommendations, such as the Microsoft Power Pages security workspace, providing the visibility and tooling required for makers to assess the security and compliance of their solutions.

Manage Copilot

With the expansion of Copilot capabilities across Microsoft Power Platform, admins need a way to manage all their generative AI features and facilitate rollout across their organizations. The Copilot hub preview provides a location for documents, insights, and governance for Microsoft Copilot in Power Platform. With simple access to Copilot resources, admins can learn, prepare, configure, deploy, and measure usage of generative AI features across their organizations.

Get started

Join us at Microsoft Build and experience the ease that Power Apps brings to the world of professional development. Embrace the era of AI-assisted development and discover how these new features can amplify your impact as a developer. You can:

• Learn more about the latest next-generation AI updates to Copilot.
• Try out Power Apps with the Developer Plan.

¹ Microsoft Fiscal Year 2024 First Quarter Earnings conference call

² Based on Microsoft internal research

Most features are currently available in the United States and English language for preview. Copilot for explaining formulas and mobile capabilities like barcode scanning, NFC reading, and location services are generally available. Using Copilot to create tailored experiences in canvas apps through Copilot Studio, voice dictation, the native Git integration, and Copilot hub are targeting public preview in Summer 2024. Note that these preview features are experimental, and accuracy and relevance cannot be guaranteed.

The post Power Apps is making it easier for developers to build with Microsoft Copilot and each other appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

We are thrilled to announce that for the fifth time in a row, Microsoft has been named a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms**.

Microsoft Power Apps is enabling developers of all kinds to innovate and create solutions faster, while giving organizations the governance tools to enable transformation on a massive scale. Our continued leadership in the industry is underscored by two unique areas of innovation. The first is the use of copilot and generative AI to dramatically accelerate development and open new opportunities for more productive end user experiences. The second is advancement in large-scale security and governance, enabling organizations to empower thousands of developers with increased visibility and control.

Copilot and generative AI

Power Apps has a multi-year lead in generative AI, having launched GPT-3 integration in 2021. Today, more than 126,000 organizations have already used Copilot in Power Platform.

The union of generative AI and low-code is changing the way solutions are built, democratizing app development in entirely new ways, and enabling organizations to innovate at an unprecedented speed. Copilot significantly shortens the time required to start, create, and refine applications, and to do tasks like bringing in data or designing new tables.

As an example, CONA, an IT service provider for the North American Coca-Cola Bottling network, is able to develop apps in minutes, instead of multiple hours, with Copilot in Power Apps.

“Building the app from scratch would have taken 6-8 hours. We were able to just describe in natural language and build in a few minutes.”

—Ron Colvin​, Director of Innovation – CONA Services​

Generative AI also changes the ways people use the applications. Power Apps customers can now bring powerful Copilot experiences to their end users. With Copilot embedded within apps, end users can use natural language to get answers about the data in their app as well as multiple connected data sources.

And, with Microsoft’s comprehensive approach to enterprise-grade security, privacy, identity, compliance, and responsible AI principles, you can be sure that your interaction with Copilot in Power Apps is safe, responsible, and enterprise-ready.

Unrivaled scale with enterprise-grade security and governance

In the age of AI, every organization will need to modernize its software on a massive scale to stay relevant and competitive. Reimagining a single app or digitizing a single manual process with generative AI is not enough. Enterprises need to reconsider all their software in a dauntingly short amount of time.

The only way to navigate this generational shift quickly enough is with a platform that can scale across thousands of projects and can leverage developers with varying skills. Microsoft Power Platform is an intuitive and approachable low-code platform for all makers, from professional developers to those with Excel skills.

Organizations need convenient tools to securely and reliably govern their growing ecosystem of developers, makers, and apps. Managed Environments provides full visibility and control across the whole application development life cycle. Recent advancements, such as environment routing, delegated deployments, and AI-generated deployment notes and app descriptions, give customers an even easier path to govern their app development on an enterprise scale.

Rabobank, for example, runs more than 2,500 apps today on Microsoft Power Platform. Pacific Gas & Electric has created more than 2,000 Power Apps applications and more than 4,200 cloud flows which drive more than 224 different business solutions, saving the organization almost $54 million over the past two years. HSBC and Lumen manage large numbers of developers and solutions across the globe with great visibility and control. And in Accenture, 200,000 people use applications built with Power Apps every month.

“For us, we define shadow IT as things we cannot see or control when we need to, so by standing up the platform and inviting our people to create and build—at its very core we have gained visibility into what people are doing and how they are connecting, which starts governance at the platform level.”

—Kate Mathews: Business Strategy and Transformation Leader, Accenture

Thank you

None of this would be possible without our customers, partners, and community. It is not only Microsoft but every one of you who leads this new era of digital transformation. We appreciate your input, feedback, and active participation in advancing the vision of the platform to the next level.

We invite you to read the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms report to learn about why Microsoft is recognized as a Leader in this market for the fifth consecutive time. And even more, we invite you to build with Power Apps.

*This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Microsoft.

**Gartner is a registered trademark and service mark and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Source: Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, Oleksandr Matvitskyy, Kimihiko Iijima, and 4 more, 17 October 2023.

The post Microsoft again named a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Enabling more users to create solutions is central to solving organizational challenges, even more so in times when we all face pressure to do more with less. Microsoft customers and partners use Power Apps to accelerate innovation. Low-code makers and pro-developers together build simple apps and enterprise solutions in a comprehensive, secure, and easy-to-use low-code platform.

Over the past two years, Microsoft has greatly advanced its vision for low-code. With the recent announcement of Managed Environments and coauthoring, Microsoft Power Platform has cemented its place as a secure, governable, and collaborative low-code platform for enterprise scale.  

Customers such as Accenture, Equinor, Rabobank, and VITAS are using Power Apps and Microsoft Power Platform to rapidly build, scale, and govern solutions to solve their business challenges.

Now, our people can produce high-quality solutions quickly and easily—and it saves them time. On average, Accenture people spend 42 percent less time performing data management activities, meaning they can achieve business outcomes faster.Karen Odegaard, Managing Director – Global IT, Technology Platforms Accenture

We are grateful to our customers, partners, and community for their feedback, support, and engagement.

Power Apps—the comprehensive platform for a successful low-code strategy

Low-code strategy is a critical decision that will empower business agility for years to come. Microsoft looks at low-code not as a collection of discreet applications, but a platform with an end-to-end portfolio of tools that are powerful alone and even better together—a platform that brings together all you need to innovate and automate your business securely, seamlessly, and quickly, enabling everyone from citizen makers to pro-developers.

Security and governance tools such as Managed Environments give IT departments more visibility and control with less effort, making it easier to govern what is built, by whom, and where. Before making Microsoft Power Platform available to employees, Rabobank rolled out its Center of Excellence strategy. Today, the bank runs more than 2,500 Power Apps and Power Automate solutions governed by central console, out-of-box data loss protection (DLP) policies, and first-class application lifecycle management (ALM). It’s one example of how the full strength of Microsoft Power Platform helps include more of your workforce in the development process and empowers pro-developers to build in Power Apps using their favorite Azure tools and services.

Microsoft Dataverse, a fully managed, secure, and scalable data platform, and the Azure cloud, reaching 270 million-plus users natively in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 and horizontally integrated with robotic process automation (RPA) and low-code Power Virtual Agents with built-in connectors to more than 900 services—all this frees developer capacity to focus on the most impactful tasks—building solutions.

A fusion development team of pro-developers, human resources, business analysts, and users in EY Nordics built a solution for salary review of 8,000 employees in a mere four months. It shows how, within a single platform, developers can move quickly from simple no-code to mission-critical sophistication. Advanced AI, mixed reality, hyper-automation, low-code programming language Microsoft Power Fx, and infusion of natural language model GPT-3 into the Power Apps maker experience all contribute to greater development velocity, giving you the power to deploy more in less time.

Get your copy of the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms report to learn more.

Gartner®, Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, January 10, 2023, [Paul Vincent, Kimihiko Iijima, Adrian Leow, Mike West, Oleksandr Matvitskyy.]

Gartner is a registered trademark and service mark and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

¹This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

²Charles Lamanna runs one of Microsoft’s fastest-growing businesses: Helping regular folks build business apps, Protocol.

The post Microsoft named a Leader in 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

We are excited to see Microsoft named a Leader in 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms for the fourth consecutive time. We believe this underscores our command in the market, materialized in amazing innovations built by more than 7.4 million monthly active developers of Microsoft Power Platform.²

Enabling more users to create solutions is central to solving organizational challenges, even more so in times when we all face pressure to do more with less. Microsoft customers and partners use Power Apps to accelerate innovation. Low-code makers and pro-developers together build simple apps and enterprise solutions in a comprehensive, secure, and easy-to-use low-code platform.

Over the past two years, Microsoft has greatly advanced its vision for low-code. With the recent announcement of Managed Environments and coauthoring, Microsoft Power Platform has cemented its place as a secure, governable, and collaborative low-code platform for enterprise scale.  

Customers such as Accenture, Equinor, Rabobank, and VITAS are using Power Apps and Microsoft Power Platform to rapidly build, scale, and govern solutions to solve their business challenges.

We are grateful to our customers, partners, and community for their feedback, support, and engagement.

Power Apps—the comprehensive platform for a successful low-code strategy

Low-code strategy is a critical decision that will empower business agility for years to come. Microsoft looks at low-code not as a collection of discreet applications, but a platform with an end-to-end portfolio of tools that are powerful alone and even better together—a platform that brings together all you need to innovate and automate your business securely, seamlessly, and quickly, enabling everyone from citizen makers to pro-developers.

Security and governance tools such as Managed Environments give IT departments more visibility and control with less effort, making it easier to govern what is built, by whom, and where. Before making Microsoft Power Platform available to employees, Rabobank rolled out its Center of Excellence strategy. Today, the bank runs more than 2,500 Power Apps and Power Automate solutions governed by central console, out-of-box data loss protection (DLP) policies, and first-class application lifecycle management (ALM). It’s one example of how the full strength of Microsoft Power Platform helps include more of your workforce in the development process and empowers pro-developers to build in Power Apps using their favorite Azure tools and services.

Microsoft Dataverse, a fully managed, secure, and scalable data platform, and the Azure cloud, reaching 270 million-plus users natively in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 and horizontally integrated with robotic process automation (RPA) and low-code Power Virtual Agents with built-in connectors to more than 900 services—all this frees developer capacity to focus on the most impactful tasks—building solutions.

A fusion development team of pro-developers, human resources, business analysts, and users in EY Nordics built a solution for salary review of 8,000 employees in a mere four months. It shows how, within a single platform, developers can move quickly from simple no-code to mission-critical sophistication. Advanced AI, mixed reality, hyper-automation, low-code programming language Microsoft Power Fx, and infusion of natural language model GPT-3 into the Power Apps maker experience all contribute to greater development velocity, giving you the power to deploy more in less time.

Get your copy of the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms report to learn more.

Gartner®, Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, January 10, 2023, [Paul Vincent, Kimihiko Iijima, Adrian Leow, Mike West, Oleksandr Matvitskyy.]

Gartner is a registered trademark and service mark and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

¹This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

²Charles Lamanna runs one of Microsoft’s fastest-growing businesses: Helping regular folks build business apps, Protocol.

The post Microsoft named a Leader in 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Today we’re taking a major step toward that dream.

We’ve fine-tuned one of the most advanced natural language AI models on the planet, a model known as OpenAI GPT-3, to automatically generate Power Fx formulas based on natural language input. As Satya announced in today’s Microsoft Build keynote, we’re adding GPT-3 and other Microsoft AI technology directly into Power Apps Studio in a way that will help every maker quickly build the apps they need and more easily learn advanced concepts in the process.

The post Introducing Power Apps Ideas: AI-powered assistance now helps anyone create apps using natural language appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

The post Reshape the future of work with Microsoft Dataverse for Teams—now generally available appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

How to enter

Entering is as easy as 1-2-3.

Film. Starting on Monday of each week, head over to @MSPowerApps on Twitter and make a short (2:20 or less) video in response to a challenge question about your experience with Power Apps. See the Terms and Conditions for video requirements.

Share. Share your video on Twitter using the hashtags #MadeItWithPowerApps and #Sweepstakes to submit your video.

Win. Each week, we’ll select a winner at random and reach out with awesome prizes. There will also be a grand prize winner and 100 first prize winners will be drawn at random on January 6^th

Terms and Conditions

* No purchase necessary. Open to residents of the 50 United States (+ D.C.), 18 years and older. Ends December 22, 2019.  Read the full Terms and Conditions to learn more.

Eligibility for this sweepstakes is for legal U.S. residents. You are still welcome to share your #MadeItWithPowerApps tips & tricks and videos!

The post Share your Power Apps skills for a chance to win appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.