Catalog in Power Platform

Share and install reusable assets, such as apps, flows, connectors, and prompts, customized for your organization.

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The catalog in Power Apps and Power Automate is now generally available to the public. The catalog enables makers to share and install reusable assets, such as apps, flows, connectors, prompts, and more, that are customized for your organization, by your organization. This provides much more useful starting points than simple and generic templates. In addition, because the catalog is built on top of our solutions framework, you can also easily install catalog items from any environment in a tenant, and have catalog assets accessible from authoring experiences, like Canvas Studio and flow designer.

You can publish assets as a template or as a managed item. Templates are pure copies that any makers can utilize as they wish. Managed items are more tightly controlled and can be republished with updates over time so that your organization uses the most recent, authoritative version across environments.

Please note that you will need a managed environment to publish assets in the catalog as part of general availability. However, all assets can be installed from any environment, even ones that are not managed.

Using the catalog in Power Apps and Power Automate

Customers are using the catalog for a variety of scenarios, including:

• Saving templates for reuse across environments.
• Bundling components into a collection for specific departments to utilize.
• Spinning up multiple catalogs and seed with sample data and apps for demo purposes.
• Using the assets of a managed item as is and making no changes.
• Building custom functionality on top of the assets in the managed item without changing the original components.
• Using the assets to assist with building their own solutions. For example, Power Apps component framework components, custom connectors, and so on.
• Partners are also using the catalog to streamline the process of building solutions and curating components for multiple customers at the same time across environments.

The catalog is highly flexible to handle a broad range of use cases, while backed by enterprise level governance and security, which is critical when managing a centralized and shared repository across many makers in a tenant. The catalog comes with comprehensive cross-environment roles and permissions, additional publishing groups to control who can make updates, administration and approval capabilities, installation tracking, and application lifestyle management (ALM). Organizations where makers can share and reuse artifacts in a controlled and secure environment will get the most out of Microsoft Power Platform.

What our customers are saying about the catalog:

“Through Accenture’s participation in the private preview of Microsoft power catalog, we’ve provided feedback to Microsoft to help them shape a ready-to-use, centrally governed repository that can supercharge application and workflow development. In support of Accenture’s strategy to reuse and scale solution components, we will explore power catalog [during public preview] to help streamline and speed application development cycles, and to drive brand consistency across Accenture applications.”

— Uday Adhikari, [Microsoft] Power Platform lead for North America at Accenture

“5/5. The catalog closes the gap in distributing updates between (product) development, Sales, and Operations departments. For demos, we often require certain versions or special releases. With catalogs we enable everyone to set up the tailored demo by themselves while the product group can maintain pre-release builds at the same time.”

— Sebastain Sieber, Most Valuable Professional, proMX.

The catalog feature will be generally available with the following features:

• Enterprise level roles and permissions to restrict who can publish and install catalog items across environments
• Approval of catalog items by admins before they’re officially published for your organization to use
• A suite of Microsoft-provided components out-of-the-box, such as Enterprise templates
• Low-code and easy-to-use wizards to publish and install items
• A My Activity page to track status and see any error codes for published and installed items
• An administrative workspace to manage catalogs, users, and settings
• And several other features, such as environment variable support, connection checks, a gallery page with comprehensive filters to browse catalog items, and more

Learn more about the catalog in Microsoft Power Platform

To learn more about the catalog, you can read an overview, the usage guide, and administration and setup instructions.

Some features planned on the horizon include:

• Integration with Microsoft Copilot Studio.
• Providing the option to choose the solution you’d like to install catalog items into.
• Allowing makers to choose which solutions should be updated with new versions.
• More post-installation options for different components (such as opening up a specific editor).
• Submitting apps and flows directly into catalog with solution creation/selection as part of the wizard.
• Improved error detection and handling.

You can find the catalog feature in your left navigation in both Power Apps and Power Automate. Contact your admin to help set up the catalog and you can get started right away.

The post Enable reusability and maintain best practices with the catalog in Microsoft Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

In this new era, the true visionaries are those taking advantage of low-code and AI tools to build the solutions that directly affect people’s jobs and lives. The Microsoft Power Platform community keeps showing us the next frontiers of innovation and creativity. These stories from our community below showcase some of the most innovative and inspiring work we’ve seen.

• Minding mining trucks’ massive tires: Donia innovates with low-code at Kal Tire.
• A chatbot for business travel: Daniel builds an AI chatbot for his travel agency.
• From the mailroom to Microsoft MVP: Dian transforms her career with low-code.
• Supporting parents and children with autism: Raghav builds an app with low-code and AI for his son with autism.
• Modeling fashion and new technologies: Yumu goes from the runway to building with low-code.

At the third annual Power Platform Community Conference, we are excited to showcase some of the groundbreaking work emerging from our global community.

Minding mining trucks’ massive tires

Donia Strand is a Senior Business Systems Analyst at Kal Tire in Vernon, British Columbia, Canada. As the company’s Microsoft Power Platform manager, her work spans the experience of building her own solutions as a non-technical maker, to working with professional developers to build solutions.

To assess the viability of entry roads at mine sites around the world, the company’s Mining Tire Group performs “site severity” surveys. These surveys helped understand the mine site conditions and extend the lifespan of the costly mining haul truck tires. Donia explains that previously, “Supervisors used to spend up to an hour and a half entering data into Excel, taking photos, and then building out reports.”

Kal Tire operations managers in Canada brought this business issue to Donia and together they saw the opportunity to use Microsoft Power Apps to build an app that manages the surveys. Now, Kal Tire’s Site Severity App, developed in conjunction with MNP Digital, runs on mobile devices and automates the mining site data collection process. The app safely caches data while offline—a common necessity in remote mining sites. Microsoft Power Automate then generates polished PDF reports complete with visual graphs, ready to be shared with stakeholders.

“By integrating the app’s data into Power BI, the Mining Tire Group gained a comprehensive view of mine conditions across all regions,” Donia says. “This leads to better decision-making and reduces wear and tear on mining truck tires.” It also saved substantial time and resources, allowing supervisors to concentrate on their most critical tasks.

Looking forward, Donia is particularly excited about using Microsoft Copilot Studio to create new types of custom copilots for Kal Tire. Her advice to others who are just beginning with Microsoft Power Platform is: “Start simple, experiment, and you’ll be amazed at what can be created. The [Microsoft] Power Platform and AI are game changers: Saving time and opening new possibilities.”

A chatbot for business travel

Daniel Schaurich de Oliveira is the founder and owner of A1, a business travel agency based in Florianopolis, Brazil. For nearly 30 years, Daniel has focused on providing international and domestic travel services for corporate clients.

The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic presented an unexpected opportunity for Daniel to explore new ways to improve his company. With travel restrictions severely impacting the industry, Daniel used the downtime to explore how Microsoft Power Platform and AI could transform his daily operations. He started by automating alerts and generating reports, but soon embarked on more ambitious projects to reimagine daily business.

“I have no IT background and never studied coding,” he says. “But I used Copilot Studio to develop a chatbot to assist my team with various company and industry inquiries.” Daniel was concerned that employees would be slow to adopt a new AI-powered chatbot, so he named it “Fifi” (whose name is akin to “a gossiper” in Brazilian Portuguese) and gave it a personality to make her a humorous, yet knowledgeable, addition to A1.  

Fifi has streamlined internal operations, reducing the time Daniel and his team spend on routine inquiries and allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks. “Nowadays, Fifi is not just a chatbot or digital tool. She is a teammate,” Daniel says. “She’s our essential colleague. And whenever Fifi’s offline, we joke that ‘Fifi’s out sick today’.”

Daniel concludes, “The [Microsoft] Power Platform is amazing. It allows me to build my ideas and improve my business in ways that I never imagined were possible.”

From the mailroom to Microsoft MVP

As a young woman moving from the Netherlands to the US, Dian Taylor worked in a clothing store and the mailroom of a large American office supplies retailer. Later, she transferred to human resources at a bank. Eventually, she learned about Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.

Now, working in presales at RSM US LLP in Boca Raton, Florida, Dian is tasked with creating a large volume of engaging and effective demonstrations. Even without a formal technical background, Dian uses Microsoft Power Platform to build copilots and apps that can be seamlessly integrated into her demo presentations.

“I use Copilot Studio a lot; not just to create custom chatbots to utilize on websites and Power Pages but also to connect to Dynamics 365 Customer Service,” she says. “It’s great for demos and helps take the pressure off our live agents.”

Dian also credits Microsoft Power Platform with making her job more fulfilling. “The advice that I would give somebody starting out in tech is to keep going and don’t feel overwhelmed,” she explains. “It’s okay not to know everything all the time. Take a step back, learn to use the right tools, and you’ll get there.”

Dian should know as she is now a four-time Microsoft Business Applications most valuable professional (MVP).

Supporting parents and children with autism

Raghav Mishra is a Product Architect at the Sprint365 consultancy in Copenhagen, Denmark. He discovered Microsoft Power Platform’s potential while developing new business solutions for a hackathon and realized that the same tools could be applied to address personal challenges at home. He was inspired by his wife who dedicated several hours each week creating visual instruction sheets for their son with autism. Raghav explains, “She made one-page instruction sheets with hand-drawn images and written directions to guide our son through daily activities like brushing his teeth or removing his shoes.”

Raghav developed the Make Life Easy app using Microsoft Power Platform to automate the creation of these daily instructions. Raghav leveraged Power Apps, AI services, and the DALL-E API to generate both text and images, which are then saved in Microsoft Dataverse and compiled into a one-page, colorful PDF. This document serves as an engaging visual guide for their son.

“I’d never worked with canvas apps,” he said. “The platform’s predefined structure allowed me, as a citizen developer, to build the app from scratch within just five days.”

The app streamlined their family’s routines, cutting down the time spent on creating instructions and making the process clearer and more enjoyable for their son. What once took hours now only requires a few minutes, allowing the family to spend more quality time together. “This app has improved our daily lives,” Raghav says. “I really hope it can also help other families with similar needs.”

Modeling fashion and new technologies

Yumu Hatakeyama, a Microsoft Power Platform Evangelist at Akkodis in Tokyo, Japan, began his career as a fashion model. However, over time, it became increasingly difficult to make a living in the modeling industry. Yumu went back to school to study hardware engineering.

When COVID-19 struck, he was working in automotive parts manufacturing, creating circuit boards. As his company started to push for digital transformation, Yumu took the initiative to learn about Microsoft Power Platform and play a pivotal role in the transition. 

He had never created an app before. Drawing on his experience in the fast-paced fashion industry, he understood the importance of managing schedules. He learned how to use Power Apps and quickly put it to use by creating an attendance management app for remote workers during the pandemic. It visualized attendance data in an accessible dashboard format.

The app had an immediate impact, streamlining attendance across their team of 50 employees. Building on this success, he began incorporating Microsoft AI Builder into his work. Instead of manually inputting data from PDF invoices and receipts, the team trained custom AI models to automate this process, significantly reducing errors and saving time.

Now, he works full-time as a Microsoft Power Platform Evangelist. Yumu says, “Originally, I was in the business of promoting and selling fashion. I transitioned from evangelizing fashion to evangelizing technology. It seems like quite a shift, but the goal remains the same: to deliver better products to everyone.”

When speaking to new Microsoft Power Platform users, Yumu jokes, “If a former fashion model can achieve digital transformation with the Power Platform, you can definitely do it too.” His dream is to spread the use of Microsoft Power Platform across Japan, from large corporations to small and medium-sized businesses, helping everyone to imagine and build their own solutions.

The Future of Microsoft Power Platform is innovation and empowerment

It’s clear that the future of innovation is in the hands of those who do the work and turn their ideas into reality. The incredible advances created by the global Microsoft Power Platform community exemplify the power of low-code and AI tools to transform businesses and careers.

We can’t wait to see many of you at the Power Platform Community Conference in Las Vegas and to witness what we’ll achieve together in the coming years. With the recent advances in Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Power Platform development will only get easier and more powerful.

Join the Power Platform Community

Connect with peers and experts

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The post How the Microsoft Power Platform community is using low-code and AI to transform work and lives appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Microsoft partners are helping organizations achieve greater efficiency by using our growing ecosystem of Microsoft Copilot connectors in Copilot Studio to build these types of solutions. We’re excited to announce that Litera, a global leader in legal technology solutions, enabled its first innovative Copilot connector designed to transform legal workflows. The connector extends Litera’s core workflows beyond their proprietary user interfaces, offering unparalleled accessibility to a firm’s intellectual property. 

Accenture extends its portfolio of Intelligent Supply Chain Platform solutions built on Microsoft technologies by unveiling a groundbreaking copilot extension in Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 for its Supply Risk Control Tower solution. 

Copilot Studio makes it easy to extend the capabilities of copilots with actions, connectors, and sources of data. Copilot connectors include data sources within the productivity cloud in Microsoft 365, business data in Microsoft Dataverse, data from Microsoft Dynamics 365, and analytical data in Microsoft Fabric, as well as non-Microsoft enterprise data sources. Through Copilot connectors, you can now ground your copilot responses with multiple enterprise data sources for more relevant and reliable responses from copilots and copilot extensions. 

Litera’s Copilot connector provides unparalleled accessibility to a firm’s intellectual knowledge 

The Litera Search Copilot connector enables legal professionals to execute complex natural language searches for both legal matter experience and precedent content from any Copilot-enabled application, allowing users to get matter and precedent detail without learning how to navigate a complex search screen. Best-fit insights are delivered instantly, eliminating the need for endless clicks to drill down into legal matter context or iterations to refine search context and outcomes. Imagine that you are a junior associate in charge of creating a first draft for a real estate credit litigation in a New York state agreement: you can gain instant insight into how your top firm experts have structured and written indemnification clauses for credit agreements saving valuable time and leveraging the firm’s collective knowledge. Whether drafting new contracts, looking to assign the most experienced attorney to a specific case, compiling a pitch for new business, or understanding market conditions during negotiations, the Litera Search Copilot connector brings the ease of natural language matter and content search to a vastly expanded domain of user interfaces. 

 “Collaborating with Microsoft has allowed us to advance our use of new AI techniques to create revolutionary tools for the legal industry. By integrating with Microsoft Copilot, we’re delivering intelligent, AI-driven experiences that significantly enhance productivity and efficiency for legal professionals. This partnership not only highlights our commitment to innovation but also sets the stage for a transformative future in legal technology.”

Greg Ingino, Chief Technology Officer at Litera 

First, the user asks in natural language for litigation that meets certain criteria. 

Once they see the list of matching litigation, the user then makes the request for details on a specific legal matter from the first set of results. 

For end-users, these solutions offer significant value by streamlining workflows and enhancing productivity, as legal professionals can now reduce the time spent on administrative tasks, allowing them to focus on more critical aspects of their work. The integration of AI and natural language capabilities means users can interact with the software more intuitively, ultimately transforming the way they manage and utilize legal documents.  

Accenture brings supply chain management to Copilot 

Extending its portfolio of Intelligent Supply Chain Platform solutions built on Microsoft technologies, Accenture has unveiled a groundbreaking extension in Copilot for Microsoft 365 for its Supply Risk Control Tower. This innovation streamlines the daily workflows of supply chain teams, particularly material planners. Supply chain professionals can now receive daily updates from Copilot detailing incoming orders and providing real-time insights into potential risks. More than just a tracking tool, Copilot proactively recommends optimal course of action, streamlining decision-making processes and empowering teams to respond swiftly and strategically to dynamic supply chain scenarios.  

To create this advanced functionality, Accenture used the capabilities of Copilot Studio, incorporating knowledge, topics, and actions. This was combined with the power of Dataverse and its vast connector ecosystem, integrating Accenture’s deep supply chain data domain expertise with Copilot generative AI capabilities. The outcome is the transformative Supply Chain Insights App. With Microsoft Power Platform native integration into Copilot Studio, Accenture automated critical order management tasks in enterprise resource planning systems such as Dynamics 365 and SAP, saving valuable time and reducing manual data entry errors. 

Activate Dataverse data as knowledge using Copilot connectors 

Using Copilot connectors, you can bridge the gap between Dataverse data and Copilot. The ‘Add knowledge sources’ option allows developers to integrate deeply with Dataverse and Microsoft Power Platform. Once configured, a semantic search allows the connector to understand and interpret the text data, enabling more relevant and context-aware responses. Data synchronization and caching ensure your data is available for quick access and reduce potential latency issues. 

Using Dataverse is just one of the capabilities of Copilot connectors. For example, with a few clicks, you can access the ecosystem of more than 1,400 connectors, which includes extensive third-party service integration with your copilot. Using these connectors, you can add actions to your copilot to allow it to complete new tasks related to your solution. The following diagram illustrates the full breadth of capabilities of Copilot connectors. 

Adding actions using a Microsoft Power Platform connector is just one of the options available for adding new actions to a copilot.  

Prompt actions allow you to generate content or extract insights with AI Builder prompts. The prompts include prebuilt prompts that can be customized by parameters or from Dataverse data. For example, passing a customer name, a prompt action could summarize related data for the customer name using Copilot. 

Conversational actions receive a user query and process it by completing one or more operations, and then sends one or more responses back to the copilot that it is being used from. The conversational action could use the generative answer node to respond to the query. The answer could be based on knowledge configured that was unique to the scenario. For example, you could have a billing code lookup that produced answers about specific billing codes to the requesting user. 

Flow actions allow you to build a Microsoft Power Automate flow that runs to process the request from a user. These actions can be used to add the ability for the copilot to complete a task. For example, adding a billing code could be implemented as a flow action. The cloud flow would use other connectors to check if the billing code existed, follow company standards, and then finally add the billing code, responding to the user that the code was added.  

Copilot connectors allow you to build complete solutions 

Copilot connectors provide you with multiple ways to extend copilots with your unique solution. By combining several of these capabilities to form your full solution, you’ll be able to provide your users with access to the right knowledge and actions to make them more productive. These features are just the beginning of what’s to come, and we can’t wait to see how organizations will use them to innovate using Dataverse and Microsoft Power Platform. 

Copilot connectors in Copilot Studio

 Extend the capabilities of copilots with actions, copilot connectors, and sources of data.

Learn more

The post Litera and Accenture transform business processes with Microsoft Copilot connectors appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

If your organization is already using Microsoft Power Platform and you’re interested in sharing your insights and experiences, we’d love to hear your story.

Cineplex benefits from Microsoft Power Platform automated solutions

Customer  

Cineplex  

Country  

Canada  

Industry  

Media 

Cineplex is one of Canada’s leading media and entertainment companies. To streamline business processes, over 100 employees are using Microsoft Power Platform to develop innovative automation solutions for finance, guest services, and other departments. Watch the video to learn how Cineplex saves over 30,000 hours a year in manual processing time.

See full story.

Leroy Seafood Group drives digitization with Microsoft Power Platform

Customer

Leroy Seafood Group

Country

Norway

Industry

Forestry and Fishing

The Leroy Seafood Group, a leading global producer of salmon and trout, has leveraged Microsoft Power Platform products to drive its digitization strategy, significantly enhancing data sharing and operational efficiency. By purchasing more than 4,000 Premium Microsoft Power Apps licenses and implementing an automated Center of Excellence, Leroy has empowered its employees to develop innovative enterprise applications. One such mobile app, for example, has standardized and centralized data reporting from offshore crews, improving reporting accuracy by 11.6%, equating to an USD 8 million saving. Leroy’s structured development approach, supported by the Power Platform Center of Excellence Starter Kit, ensures robust governance and quality. Managed Environments have further strengthened development controls, enabling seamless innovation and the potential for additional applications, such as health and safety training tools. Overall, Microsoft Power Platform has been pivotal in enhancing Leroy’s data-driven decision-making and operational excellence, aligning with its vision of becoming a leader in sustainable seafood.

“When we started with [Microsoft] Power Platform, we made the decision to jump directly into [Microsoft] Dataverse as was saw it as the most secure and reliable way to store and manage our data—especially our mission critical data. It was a natural choice for us and it has worked amazingly well.”

Andreas Fauske: Team Lead Power Platform, Leroy

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Peppermint Technology boosts law firm efficiency with Microsoft Power Platform

Customer 

Peppermint 

Country 

United States  

Industry 

Professional Services 

Peppermint Technology redefines legal business processes with their innovative Copilot, integrating seamlessly with Microsoft Power Platform to boost law firm efficiency. By using enterprise data in Dataverse and SharePoint, Peppermint’s solutions empower lawyers to streamline client services, enhancing productivity and client engagement with minimal effort. Learn more by watching the video. 

See full blog.  

Majesco expands it’s copilot capabilities with Microsoft Copilot Studio

Customer

Majesco

Country

United States

Industry

Professional Services

Majesco, an insurance industry leader, used Copilot Studio, to build a comprehensive copilot that is embedded in all twelve of its insurance software products, a task that previously took nine months for a basic version. This shift reduced reliance on a small data science team, allowing 400 developers to handle 95% of the copilot’s functionalities independently. Integrated with Microsoft Power Automate, the copilot can perform diverse actions like data summarization and task management, significantly improving efficiency. The new copilot processes inquiries and actions in less than 30 seconds, saving substantial time and costs. This advancement addresses industry challenges such as underwriter shortages and easing the learning curve for new hires, providing real-time support and reducing administrative burdens. Copilot Studio has accelerated Majesco’s market delivery, giving it a strong first-mover advantage and progressing toward a fully AI-driven user interface.

“Using Microsoft Copilot Studio has accelerated our speed to market and given us a strong, first-mover advantage.”

Manish Shah: Chief Product Officer, Majesco

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Call2Recycle optimizes its operations with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform

Customer

Call2Recycle

Country

United States

Industry

Other

Call2Recycle, operator of the largest battery recycling program in the U.S. and Canada, streamlined its operations with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, saving approximately USD 25,000 annually. By integrating Dynamics 365 for enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM), the nonprofit automates processes across operations, finance, services, and sales, reducing manual work and increasing efficiency. This setup saves hours on tasks like invoicing and vendor payments, allowing the organization to focus on its sustainability mission. Additionally, Call2Recycle launched an e-bike battery recycling program using Microsoft Power Pages, seamlessly integrated with Dynamics 365. This system supports more than 2,000 retailers, enabling efficient enrollment, training, and management of battery collection. Automation through Power Automate and real-time monitoring with Microsoft Power BI ensure streamlined operations. The flexibility and scalability of Microsoft Power Platform are crucial for adapting to the rapidly changing battery market, driving growth, and enhancing environmental impact.

“By automating processes in Business Central, we save 10 hours per month on invoicing, 8 hours on banking activities like vendor payment uploads, and 12 hours on processing vendor invoice approvals.”

David Ainsley: Director of IT, Call2Recycle

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Laris Hotels Group improves booking data access using Microsoft Power Platform

Customer

Laris Hotels Group

Country

Poland

Industry

Other

Laris Hotels Group, one of the largest hotel chains in Krakow, Poland, improved its access to booking data using Microsoft Power Platform products. Previously reliant on a cumbersome weekly manual process, Laris implemented desktop robotic process automation (RPA) in Power Automate to pull daily data from a legacy property management system (PMS). This data is now seamlessly integrated into Power BI for customized reporting. With faster, daily updates, Laris enjoys a clearer view of booking data, increasing average hotel occupancy by approximately 15%. The new system allows for detailed analysis, including commission and tax breakdowns, and aligns booking data with budget targets. Reports are automatically distributed via Microsoft Teams, ensuring timely information for decision-making. Developed by Atteli, a Microsoft partner, the low-code solution was created in just two weeks, offering cost-efficiency and easy maintenance. Beyond improving internal operations, Laris plans to extend this system to support other hotels through its Hotel Sales Link initiative. The scalable solution, ready to handle various PMS systems, positions Laris for further innovation and enhanced data-driven decision-making, with potential expansions into Microsoft Fabric for deeper insights.

“Our [Microsoft] Power Platform system provides us with greater availability of booking data, with average hotel occupancy increasing by approximately 15% as a result.”

Chris Barker: International Sales Director, Laris Hotels Group

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Nsure streamlines customer processes with Microsoft Power Platform

Customer 

Nsure 

Country 

United States 

Industry 

Insurance 

Nsure.com enables consumers to compare quotes from over 50 home and auto insurers and to buy online in minutes. For over five years, the company has been using Microsoft Power Platform to automate business processes. Watch the video to see how Nsure used the generative AI capabilities in Microsoft Power Automate, including text recognition and sentiment analysis, to reduce manual processing time by 60% while also reducing associated costs by 50%. 

See full story. 

Zurich empowers developers with Microsoft Power Platform

Customer  

Zurich 

Country  

Switzerland

Industry  

Insurance 

To help enable fusion development, drive innovation, and streamline operations across the global enterprise, citizen and pro developers at Zurich Insurance Group are using Microsoft Power Platform for low-code and pro-code business app development, process automation, and more. Check out the video to learn more.  

Tell us your story

We'd love to hear about your Microsoft Power Platform story

Share it here

The post How Microsoft Power Platform is driving real-world impact—April and May customer success stories appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Microsoft Copilot is designed to enhance business productivity by leveraging AI to streamline routine tasks, allowing users to concentrate on strategic and creative endeavors. It boosts organizational efficiency by automating repetitive tasks, freeing up time for the workforce, and enriching solution capabilities with integrated experiences in Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Teams.

Enhancing your AI business strategy with Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Dataverse enables organizations to simplify the complex data integration, third-party data extensibility, and security guardrails organizations must have in place to assist in the implementation and adoption of AI.

At Microsoft Build 2024, we are excited to unveil Microsoft Copilot connectors. Microsoft Copilot connectors provide seamless and secure integration with your productivity, analytical, and operational data as well as empower users to activate existing business processes. Copilot Studio and Dataverse allow organizations to create actions, build knowledge, and integrate grounded data into their copilots with ease, all while easily meeting their compliance requirements with a rich set of security features.

Bridge the gap between enterprise data and Microsoft Copilot

The concept of enterprise knowledge in Copilot Studio is a groundbreaking addition that allows copilot makers to add specific contextually relevant knowledge sources to their copilots, thereby improving the reliability and accuracy of responses. Knowledge supports a wide range of data types, including public websites and Microsoft Dynamics 365 (powered by Dataverse) and brings simple discoverability and understanding of enterprise data, which is critical to scaling the delivery of agent copilots across an organization.

Figure 1: Makers can select enterprise data sources as their copilot’s knowledge.

Many Microsoft customers are seeing the benefits of adding grounded enterprise data into their copilot experience. From supply chain management, customer relationship management, and productivity insights, customers can increase the efficiency of business processes, make their workforce more productive, and provide rich customer experiences. Read below how Peppermint, EY, and Docusign have developed impactful solutions.

Peppermint reimagines legal business processes with Copilot

Law firms are challenged with optimizing workflow efficiency and delivering effective client services. Achieving this entails implementing a range of services, including case and matter management, document management, and client engagement. How can law firms, who are primarily focused on legal expertise, utilize technology to overcome this challenge and achieve their goals?

Peppermint Technology, a leading global independent software vendor (ISV) revolutionizing legal firms and departments, has built solutions that easily ground copilots with enterprise data stored in Dataverse and SharePoint to provide more relevant and secure business insights. Peppermint has been using Microsoft Power Platform to model their legal case process and storing their business data in Dataverse. With their existing integration, allowing Peppermint’s copilot to access enterprise knowledge and processes from Microsoft Power Platform, while maintaining user context security, requires minimal effort and allows rapid adoption of modern AI workloads for increasing productivity and automation

Figure 2: Use natural language to retrieve matters stored in Dataverse.

Lawyers can now use LARA (Legal Analysis and Research Assistant for Peppermint) to efficiently prepare for upcoming meetings by identifying internal contacts for new accounts, accessing pertinent information, and taking necessary actions ahead of their meetings.

Figure 3: Use natural language to identify connections with new accounts.

“At Peppermint Technology, we are excited to utilize Copilot Studio’s enterprise knowledge to not only extract maximum value from corporate data but also significantly enhance our law firm clients’ ability to engage with their clients and increase billing efficiencies. This strategic adoption aligns perfectly with our business priorities of reducing risk and boosting client engagement, enabling our clients to offer superior service and achieve better outcomes.”—Mike Walker, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Peppermint Technology

Take your enterprise business processes further with Copilot connectors

With Copilot connectors in Copilot Studio, organizations can easily expand their copilot knowledge and actions with their business data. Copilot connectors allow organizations to bring together data from Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Fabric OneLake, public websites, and many other systems of record.

When incorporating Copilot connectors into your custom copilots, Copilot will work in the background on your user’s or organization’s behalf, and reason across structured and unstructured data to execute your business processes.

Figure 4: Microsoft Copilot connectors diagram.

Copilot connectors are part of the broader Copilot ecosystem, which includes Copilot Studio and Microsoft Copilot. They play a crucial role in the extensibility of Copilot, allowing developers to create custom AI solutions that are deeply integrated with Dataverse and Microsoft Power Platform. Some key benefits of Copilot connectors are:

• Semantic search: Allows the connector to understand and interpret the text data, enabling more relevant and context-aware responses.
• Data syncing and caching: Ensure your data is synchronized and cached efficiently, allowing for quick access, and reducing potential latency issues.
• Extensive third-party service integration: With a few clicks you can access the ecosystem of more than 1,000 connectors so that even non-Microsoft data can be included.
• Support for complex data types: The connectors can handle a variety of data types, including relational data and unstructured data, making them versatile for different business needs, and come with production-grade service levels.
• Low-code and pro-code: Whether you want to create custom application programming interface (API) or existing prebuilt connectors, the choice is up to you.

Docusign expedites the workforce with Copilot connectors

By enabling the Docusign Copilot connector within Microsoft Copilot, Docusign delivers greater value to their customers by not only surfacing document details, steps, and processes, but also allowing users to ask queries with natural language, and drive results faster than before. Docusign’s integrations with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Copilot for Sales provide AI-powered agreement insights to help drive employee productivity, close deals faster, and manage renewals at scale. Customers across human resources (HR), sales, procurement, legal, and more can now use natural language to ask Copilot for agreement status and summarization, extract key information, send reminders to others, and more.

Figure 5: Activate Docusign Copilot connector and find agreements with natural language.

“Through our partnership with Microsoft, we are revolutionizing the way organizations do business. Docusign’s integrations with Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Copilot for Sales harness the power of AI to drive intelligent automation and innovation, leveraging Microsoft Power Platform plug-ins and Microsoft Copilot Studio. Meeting people where they work, these integrations empower organizations to accelerate revenue, reduce risk, and create better experiences from the agreements that run their business. Together, we’re not just streamlining processes, we’re redefining what’s possible in the digital era.”—Janine Grasso, General Vice President (GVP) of Partner Development and Alliances, Docusign

Gain visibility and increase your security posture

As organizations increase the complexity of their solutions and incorporate data from multiple systems of record through Copilot connectors, gaining and maintaining visibility of the security of that data is critical. Previously, fragmented experiences created barriers to customers assessing risks, and a lack of clear, defined guidance in achieving the defense in depth that organizations strive to maintain. Without security tools for both proactive and reactive governance of both citizen and pro developers’ applications, administrators may resort to solutions that stifle modernization, productivity, and business growth.

The Security Hub is designed to solve these challenges and more, with intuitive experiences, and strategic guidance, administrators can navigate the complexities of managing security at scale. This centralized hub provides administrators with tools to assess the security posture of their tenant, identify and act on impactful recommendations, and proactively set policies to safeguard against vulnerabilities and threats all through the Microsoft Power Platform admin center.

The Security Hub for Microsoft Power Platform, in public preview, offers several benefits, including:

• Enhanced security posture: Providing administrators with tools to assess and improve the security posture of their tenant, ensuring that data and applications are protected against vulnerabilities and threats.
• Actionable recommendations: Identify impactful recommendations that administrators can act on to strengthen security measures.
• Proactive policy setting: Proactively set policies to safeguard your environment, preventing potential security incidents before they occur.
• Centralized security management: One centralized platform for managing security across Microsoft Power Platform, streamlining the process, and making it more efficient.

These features are designed to provide a comprehensive security solution that aligns with an organization’s security practices, contributing to the overall success of digital transformation efforts. For example, Security Hub identifies if minimum safeguarding is in place and guides you to set up the appropriate data loss prevention policies (DLP) around Copilot connector usage in your organization. In addition, administrators can expect to utilize the following generally available in the Security Hub: vNet for Dataverse plugins, privileged identity management (PIM), tenant isolation, IP firewall, IP cookie binding, and environment security groups, while the following features will be available in public preview: client application control and Dataverse audit enhancements.

Additionally, Copilot Studio makers can now ground generative answers to SharePoint site content—enabling copilots to surface labeled resources as labeled responses in Teams chat with Microsoft Purview Information Protection sensitivity labels.

Microsoft Purview Information Protection sensitivity labels are widely adopted by enterprises today to label and protect sensitive information in Microsoft 365 apps and Fabric, and they are coming soon to Microsoft Power Platform.

Watch our latest overview of Microsoft Power Platform and Dataverse security features.

EY prevents data exfiltration at scale with Microsoft Power Platform security controls

Data exfiltration prevention protects the unauthorized transfer of sensitive data from an organization to external parties. This allows a business to maintain business continuity, comply with regulatory requirements, and keep up with competitive advantage. This feature allows the security officer to allow or block what apps that their authorized users can run in a Dataverse environment.

“As an enterprise consumer of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform, I am thrilled to share my experience with the recent enhancements made by the Engineering team. Their diligent efforts have had a significant, positive impact on our Dynamics 365 launch with the necessary data controls to support our information security policies and data governance processes.

The introduction of data exfiltration permission controls was critical to comply with our Information Privacy and Data Governance policies. These controls allow us to grant permissioned access to the Dataverse while maintaining strict data security. Here’s why these features are crucial:

• Foundation for Data Governance: The ability to control data exfiltration is at the core of our data governance strategy. With these controls, we can confidently manage how Dynamics 365 data is accessed and shared beyond our system boundaries.
• Enterprise Data Controls: Microsoft Dynamics 365’s permissioned access ensures that sensitive information remains within authorized boundaries. We can now define granular permissions, restricting data flow to only those who need it. This level of control empowers us to safeguard our data assets effectively.
• Privacy Compliance: Our member firms operate under stringent privacy agreements. The Engineering team’s work aligns perfectly with our commitment to data privacy. By enforcing permissioned access, we uphold our privacy standards and protect our enterprise information.

The Engineering team’s dedication to building robust permission controls has enabled our data landscape. We can confidently deploy Dynamics 365 and navigate the complexities of data sharing, knowing that our privacy agreements remain intact and grant access to only approved systems and usage.”—Erick J. Kirchner, Associate Director, Markets and Business Development, Ernst & Young LLP

Looking ahead

As we continue to innovate and push the boundaries of what is possible with data and AI, Dataverse remains committed to providing businesses with the tools they need to succeed in an ever-evolving digital world. These new features are just the beginning of what is to come, and we cannot wait to see how organizations will leverage them to achieve new heights of productivity and security.

Join us at Microsoft Build to learn more about these exciting developments and how they can transform your business.

The post Unlock new levels of productivity with Microsoft Dataverse and Microsoft Copilot Studio appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

If your organization is already using Microsoft Power Platform and you’re interested in sharing your insights and experiences, we’d love to hear your story. 

Cineplex saves 30,000 hours a year with Microsoft Power Platform and generative AI

Customer: Cineplex 

Country: Canada 

Industry: Media and Entertainment 

Cineplex, a prominent media and entertainment company in Canada, has revolutionized its operations by allowing Microsoft Power Platform products to drive automation and innovation across various departments. Led by Vice President of Taxation and Treasury Bo Wang, more than 100 employees have utilized Microsoft Copilot Studio to develop customized, AI-driven copilots and Power Automate to develop scalable desktop flows. Together, these solutions have automated key processes, saving the company more than 30,000 hours annually. These solutions have been applied to finance, guest services, and other crucial areas, exemplified by the automation of ticket refunds and email inquiries processing through generative AI actions. The success of these initiatives has led to broader adoption of Microsoft Power Platform products, empowering teams to explore further automation opportunities and optimize processes company-wide. Through the Automation Center of Excellence and enhanced governance measures, Cineplex continues to unlock new levels of efficiency and productivity, demonstrating the transformative impact of Microsoft Power Platform in driving business success. 

 “Power Platform has been a key factor in our automation success. By empowering our citizen developers, we’re able to better identify and prioritize use cases that are best for the business and free up that critical resource: time.”   

Gord Nelson: Chief Financial Officer, Cineplex

See full story. 

Broadband provider, Community Fibre, reduces business process handling times by 85% using Power Automate

Customer: Community Fibre 

Country: United States

Industry: Insurance

Community Fibre, London’s premier broadband provider, has embraced Microsoft Power Platform to streamline operations and enhance efficiency as the company expands its services. With the support of Microsoft partner Cognizant Automation, Community Fibre swiftly implemented Power Platform, enabling rapid automation of core processes. Using Power Automate and Power Apps extensively, the company automated tasks across lead reporting, billing, and operations, resulting in significant time savings equivalent to more than 26,000 hours of work saved. The utilization of Power Automate Process Mining capability facilitated the identification of key areas for improvement, leading to targeted solutions that optimize marketing, finance, and business development processes. Furthermore, the Power Platform Center of Excellence Starter Kit has helped centralize governance, ensuring compliance with internal security requirements and regulations like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Power Platform has also provided seamless integration with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Dynamics 365. Looking ahead, Community Fibre remains committed to leveraging Power Platform AI capabilities and expanding automation efforts across the business to enhance customer service and maintain a competitive edge.  

“When you have automated as many processes as we have, managing the capacity to drive those processes across many different utilization cycles and peaks can get complicated. The centralized infrastructure of Power Platform makes it easy.” 

Chris Williams: Chief Information Officer, Community Fibre 

See full story. 

Public utility Evergy saves over 120,000 hours per year with Microsoft Power Platform

Customer: Evergy 

Country: United States 

Industry: Energy

Evergy, a leading utility serving 1.7 million customers in the midwestern United States, embraced Microsoft Power Platform in 2020, driving remarkable business process automation. Using Power Automate, the company developed more than 275 solutions, saving more than 120,000 hours annually while enhancing efficiency across divisions. Notably, Evergy automated the labor-intensive process of monitoring power lines with camera-equipped drones, using Power Automate to streamline image stitching and analysis, drastically reducing processing time from three days to overnight. This success prompted Evergy to expand its use of Power Platform, establishing multiple Centers of Excellence to manage development and foster innovation. Since launch in 2020, the use of Power Automate has grown 11-fold across the company. With a significant increase in Power Automate usage and a growing adoption of AI capabilities, Evergy is positioned to achieve greater agility and efficiency while advancing strategic goals, such as transitioning to cleaner energy generation.  

“We’ve had users across departments and various technical capabilities quickly pick up and enjoy using Power Platform. It has become a key tool in our technology strategy.” 

Chad Carsten: Director of Operations Technology, Evergy 

See full story. 

Memphis-Shelby County Schools drive educational excellence with Microsoft Power Platform

Customer: Memphis-Shelby County Schools 

Country: United States 

Industry: Government

Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS), one of the largest school districts in the United States, tackled its diverse data gathering and reporting challenges by using Microsoft Power Platform, including Power Apps and Power Automate. Led by Keenan Sloan, the district developed more than 20 unique applications to address specific needs, from coaching toolkits for school leaders to behavior intervention systems for counselors. These solutions not only streamlined processes, but also generated significant cost savings, such as $300,000 from the behavior intervention app. With layered security features and role-based access, MSCS ensured data integrity while empowering citizen developers to create tailored solutions. The success of these initiatives led to increased efficiency, trackable ROI, and improved business resilience, highlighting the transformative impact of Microsoft Power Platform in the education sector.  

“None of us have a background in database engineering or data management. We’ve learned to do this completely from scratch, with the help of the Power Apps community. These are the first apps built by citizen developers outside the IT department at MSCS.” 

Keenan Sloan: Director of Strategic Programming and Innovation, Memphis-Shelby County Schools

See full story.

San Francisco Police Department saves officers hundreds of hours per month with Microsoft Power Platform

Customer: San Francisco Police Department 

Country: United States 

Industry: Government

The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) addressed the challenge of updating stolen vehicle records efficiently by leveraging Microsoft Power Platform, including Power Apps and Power Automate. Recognizing the need to streamline the reporting process for recovered vehicles, SFPD developed an app called RESTVOS (Returning Stolen Vehicle to Owner System) using Power Apps. With this app, officers could instantly update vehicle status in the field, reducing the reporting time from hours to just minutes. By collaborating with Microsoft and utilizing Microsoft Power Platform low-code capabilities, SFPD saved approximately 500 officer hours per month and improved public trust by ensuring timely and accurate information on recovered vehicles. Beyond vehicle reporting, SFPD plans to expand its use of Microsoft Power Platform to enhance internal processes and public services further, showcasing the platform’s versatility and potential for innovation in law enforcement.  

“I’ve been really impressed with everything we can do so far with Power Apps. I’m hoping there is more to come to support the public in many important ways.” 

William Sanson-Mosier: Chief Information Officer, San Francisco Police Department 

See full story. 

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The post How Microsoft Power Platform is driving real-world impact—March customer success stories appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

AI and Microsoft Copilot empower non-coders and coders alike

AI is still unfolding its full potential for the world, but its transformational effect on how businesses work is already evident. Copilot is constantly becoming more helpful within the low-code ecosystem of Microsoft Power Platform—new features are being released every month and with Microsoft Build coming up this May, we will be sharing the next wave of Copilot innovation.

We’re thrilled to see the excitement in the community. At the Microsoft Power Platform Conference, we spoke with attendees and gathered their thoughts on how Copilot empowers them as developers, makers, and end-users to elevate their personal work and business operations. Whether it’s facilitating data management and process optimization, streamlining app creation, or achieving superior business outcomes, Copilot is revolutionizing their work and enhancing their overall effectiveness.

Enabling innovation starts with strong security and governance

Microsoft is built on trust. With the introduction of generative AI technology and Copilot to Microsoft Power Platform products, we affirm our dedication to safeguarding data and processes within Microsoft. Our unwavering commitment to data security, privacy, and responsible AI principles inform every facet of our development journey. Customers can confidently trust that their data remains theirs, protected by robust measures at every turn.

Who better understands the crucial role of security and governance within Microsoft Power Platform than those leading its practices within their organizations and actively building apps and automations on our comprehensive low-code platform? While our engineers responsible for building Microsoft Power Platform may possess deeper technical insights, let’s first hear from people in business who are using Microsoft Power Platform: Nishant Kumar (S&P Global), Blake Jones (Chevron), Farzeen Daruwala (Coca Cola Bottling Canada), Mohammed Alkuhlani (Baker Hughes) and Mary Myers (WorldMax). They will share their perspectives on why they trust and feel confident in building with Microsoft Power Platform in the video below.

Traditional code developers and other makers alike find speed, ease, and scale with Microsoft Power Platform

Is this going to be simple enough? Will it scale? And how fast can we get to seeing the real value?

These questions are critical whenever you’re thinking of a new project—whether it’s a brand-new scope or modernization of an existing solution.

Ahmed Salih, Senior Power Platform Solution Architect at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Microsoft MVP shared how easy it was to bring Microsoft Power Platform, and especially Microsoft Dataverse, to his organization with so much security and accessibility right out of the box.

“We have people who are nurses, accountants, students, teachers who actually can go there and create security models in Dataverse. So, as a pro developer, imagine you come there, how efficient you can be.”

Ahmed Salih, Senior Power Platform Solution Architect at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Microsoft MVP

Hear what Ahmed had to say in the video below.

Yes, it’s true that Microsoft Power Platform does see remarkable success with makers who don’t come from a traditional coding background because it’s simpler for them to start building solutions with the visual tools, Microsoft Power Fx language, and the useful features in Microsoft Power Platform that help accelerate the work. But traditional developers get the same advantages, combined with their deep experience and know-how—resulting in an even more powerful combination than “just” a code-first approach can provide.

Discover firsthand accounts from individuals beyond Microsoft MVPs about the simplicity and value they’ve experienced when using Microsoft Power Platform.

We interviewed Michael McCullough (Amtrak) with and Mark Stocks (JE Dunn Construction), and they both attest to the ease of establishing and scaling Microsoft Power Platform practice.

“We went from two apps six years ago to 6,238 apps as of this year. We went from two developers six years ago to 538 developers as of last month.”

Michael McCullough (Amtrak)

In the video below, learn more from them as they talk about their transformation and slashing development time from months to mere days and enabled the creation of intricate business applications.

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The excitement and energy around Copilot, governance, security, and Dataverse is steadily increasing.

In Q3 earnings we shared that more than 230,000 organizations have used AI capabilities in Microsoft Power Platform, which was a strong 80% increase over the previous quarter.¹ Our product teams are dedicated to advancing governance and security for people and organizations using Microsoft Power Platform. Enabling fast and scalable innovation is at the core of the Microsoft Power Platform offering—whether it’s building apps, automating processes, designing and deploying pages, or customizing and creating copilots.

We can’t wait for the next event so we can share new exciting news with our community. If you’re thinking about joining us for Microsoft Build this May, you can register here.

¹ Microsoft Fiscal Year 2024 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call, January 30, 2024

The post The Microsoft Power Platform community is buzzing about Microsoft Copilot, governance, and scale appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

We’re excited to showcase some of the inspiring stories published in January, illustrating how our products are making a meaningful impact. Our hope is to inspire you to build your next solution. If you’re already utilizing Microsoft Power Platform within your organization and would like to share your experience, we’d love to hear your story.

Coca-Cola Vietnam automates sales, purchasing, and distribution processes with Microsoft Power Platform

Customer: Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam

Country: Vietnam

Industry: Consumer Goods

Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam, a prominent bottler within the Coca-Cola global network, strategically adopted Microsoft Power Platform to enhance operational efficiency and elevate customer experiences. Led by Vice President & CIO Rahul Shinde, the company swiftly automated numerous business processes, including purchase orders, warehouse operations, and retail placement approvals, using Microsoft Power Automate and Microsoft Power Apps. With a network of digital champions spearheading the adoption of Microsoft Power Platform tools, Coca-Cola Vietnam successfully digitized more than 60 workflows within six months, empowering employees and realizing significant time savings. This agile approach aligns with the company’s vision to become the most digitally advanced consumer packaged goods company in Vietnam, demonstrating its commitment to innovation and continuous improvement through technology.

“In just six months, our digital champions created 60 automated processes using Power Automate to digitize previously manual workflows.”

—Rahul Shinde: Vice President & CIO, Coca-Cola Vietnam

See full story.

Digital insurance agency, Nsure.com, reduces manual processing time by 60% using generative AI and Power Automate

Customer: Nsure.com

Country: USA

Industry: Insurance

Nsure.com, a licensed digital insurance agency, facilitates the purchase of home and auto insurance online across all 50 US states. Initially reliant on proprietary algorithms, Nsure.com turned to Microsoft Power Platform to automate processes as site traffic increased. Power Automate streamlined tasks like contacting customers for missing information, boosting agent efficiency, and allowing for rapid growth. Using generative AI, Nsure.com further optimized operations, reducing manual tasks by over 60% and associated costs by 50%. Notably, AI-driven solutions manage data from multiple carriers, extract information from insurance documents, and prioritize customer emails. With a fusion development approach and tools like Copilot in Power Automate, Nsure.com ensures rapid innovation and expansion. Future plans involve utilizing copilots for advanced customer interactions, enhancing analytical capabilities with Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft Azure services, and delivering a smarter, faster insurance buying experience.

“Automation using [Microsoft] Power Platform has allowed us to grow rapidly, while maintaining high quality of service. We can sell many times more policies per agent in comparison to offline agencies.”

—Wojtek Gudaszewski: Co-founder, Nsure.com

See full story.

Standard Bank of South Africa expands use of Power Platform to enterprise applications

Customer: Standard Bank of South Africa

Country: South Africa

Industry: Banking and Capital Markets

Standard Bank, Africa’s largest bank, has harnessed Microsoft Power Platform since 2017 to create more than 1,500 solutions catering to diverse business requirements spanning finance, operations, and HR. Their journey began by recognizing the potential of Power Apps and Power Automate within its Microsoft 365 subscription, leading to transformative efficiencies. An early success story involved developing a mobile app for ATM inspections, showcasing the platform’s agility and impact. Establishing a Center of Excellence empowered more than 1,500 citizen developers worldwide to address complex business challenges creatively. Now, the bank is venturing into enterprise-level applications, integrating sensitive backend systems seamlessly. It aims to use emerging capabilities like generative AI in Microsoft Power Platform products, exemplified by its Technology Service Desk bot, Karabo. Standard Bank remains committed to nurturing innovation, with a keen focus on unlocking the limitless potential offered by Microsoft Power Platform and its AI capabilities.

“With [Microsoft] Power Platform, we can make rapid changes and enhancements in an environment where business requirements change frequently.”

—Richard Blackwell: Head, Employee Experience Engineering, SA Technology, Standard Bank of South Africa

See full story.

The City of Everett, Washington, serves its community with municipal innovation by adopting Microsoft Power Platform

Customer: City of Everett

Country: USA

Industry: Government

The City of Everett, Washington, home to more than 115,000 people, overcame manual processes and disjointed systems by adopting Microsoft Power Platform. Using existing Microsoft 365 licenses, the city developed low-code/no-code applications tailored to various departments, led by employees. Power Apps streamlined data reporting, saving up to $120,000 in software costs. The initiative fostered a culture of innovation, transforming employees into proficient developers. Accelerated adoption across departments established a thriving low-code/no-code development community, enhancing efficiency and adaptability. Everett solidified its reputation as a leader in municipal progress, delivering cost-effective solutions to meet community needs. Future plans include extending Microsoft Power Platform solutions across departments, reinforcing the city’s commitment to innovation and community-driven solutions.

“One of the ways you attract and retain talent is by providing tools like [Microsoft] Power Platform that can help staff develop these skills and do their best work. Part of our goals for next year is to continue to increase our maturity and grow our number of community leaders within the city.”

—Steven Hellyer: IT Director, City of Everett, Washington

See full story.

Your Microsoft Power Platform Story

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The post How Microsoft Power Platform is driving real-world impact—January customer success stories appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Microsoft Power Platform enables seamless collaboration between citizen and pro developers who form so-called ‘fusion’ teams to unlock unique solutions to the most challenging business scenarios. These fusion teams are critical for the success of modern organizations as digitization requires individuals with diverse skillsets including line of business managers, department leads, as well as IT experts to collaborate in teams and develop solutions at a much faster pace. Microsoft Power Platform is one of the few development platforms which offers a low code foundation to support business experts perfectly blended with rich professional developer capabilities to support and allow fusion teams to thrive. Fusion teams were one of the important themes at Microsoft Build and discussed in many Microsoft Power Platform sessions.

Make sure you check out some of these sessions from Microsoft Build which dive deeper into how Microsoft Power Platform can help pro developers accelerate development times and collaborate in fusion teams to create best-of-breed solutions.

• Build Differentiated SaaS apps with the Microsoft Cloud
• Increase Developer Velocity with Microsoft’s End-to-end Developer Platform
• Building Low-code Vertical Apps using the Power Platform
• Power Platform is the Best Way for Teams to Build Together

T-Mobile uses new pro developer capabilities in Microsoft Power Platform

We’re excited to share many of our recent pro developer advances in a new Microsoft Mechanics Power Platform show. In this new video (see video 1), we demonstrate examples of how customers such as T-Mobile are using new pro developer capabilities in Microsoft Power Platform to help expedite its digital transformation strategy and execution.

[msce_cta layout=”image_center” align=”center” linktype=”blue” imageurl=”http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/power-platform/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Power-Platform-Pro-Dev-thumbnail.jpg” linkurl=”https://youtu.be/-dwZnmqKk70 ” linktext=”Video 1. Microsoft Mechanics Power Platform Pro Developer Show” imageid=”98783″ ][/msce_cta]

We’ll first show you how T-Mobile developers work in fusion teams to help enhance its internal project tracking app Orbit, which is currently used by over 40,000 T-Mobile employees and has been used to track over 3,500 projects to date. The app uses custom connectors to gather data from a variety of sources. In our example, we show how a custom API is created to gather data from IoT sensors and then used in the Orbit app where it surfaces as a custom connector. The custom connector is a special Azure API Management connector which is developed by T-Mobile’s pro developers as a custom API in Visual Studio. From Visual Studio, the developers can now easily publish an API to Azure (figure 1). It simply requires having an ASP.Net Core WebAPI project .NET 5 or an Azure Function. With the newest version of Visual Studio, you can import Azure Functions into API Management thanks to the new OpenAPI output support that has been introduced for Azure Functions’ developers using .NET. OpenAPI is now supported for Azure Functions using a new OpenAPI-enabled Azure Function template. One of the most powerful attributes of this feature is that a developer does not have to leave Visual Studio when publishing their project to Azure.

We also show the integration with GitHub where we can create a CI/CD workflow using GitHub Actions, allowing continuous deployment as we work on our API.

Figure 1. Easily publish your project to Azure from Visual Studio

Once the API is published to Azure, it appears as an Azure resource and is included as an API in Azure API Management. From API Management, we can gather a diverse set of data on the API, connect it to other services such as Application Insights, and perhaps most exciting, easily export the API to a variety of services, including to Power Apps and Power Automate. With the click of a button, the custom API can be exported and surfaces as a custom connector in both Power Apps and Power Automate (figure 2). From there, T-Mobile’s citizen developers can use the custom connector in the Orbit app, demonstrating a powerful example of how both pro and citizen developers can easily and effectively collaborate to create unique, best-in-class solutions with Microsoft Power Platform.

Figure 2. Easily export your API from Azure API Management to Power Apps or Power Automate as a custom API Management connector

The Microsoft Mechanics Power Platform show will also delve into how Microsoft Power Platform supports DevOps with another detailed example of how integration with GitHub and CI/CD can be leveraged for development with Microsoft Power Platform as you would for other development platforms. We’ll show how changes made in our Power Apps canvas are reflected in our GitHub repository as a new branch in the workflow.

The show concludes with a great example of how developers can scale their amazing apps through Microsoft Teams. With Teams rapidly becoming the digital hub for the modern workplace, developers can distribute and scale their applications and achieve greater reach by embedding and sharing them on Teams. With Microsoft Power Platform’s seamless integration with Teams and with the Teams manifest reference schema, any application created on Power Apps can be easily added to Teams with the click of a button. We show this powerful example with the T-Mobile Orbit app (see figure 3) where we show the manifest JSON of the app which includes the Teams reference schema in the code and upload the app directly to Teams. This reflects another great example of how Microsoft Power Platform can be used by pro developers to share their amazing apps and solutions with larger sets of people.

Figure 3. Manifest JSON of application which can be uploaded and shared on Teams to reach a wider audience of users

Join our community and get started today

Join the growing Microsoft Power Platform Community so you can get the latest updates, join discussions, and get ideas on how Microsoft Power Platform can help your organization. Be sure to check out some of the great Microsoft Power Platform sessions listed below from this year’s Microsoft Build developer event.

• Build Differentiated SaaS apps with the Microsoft Cloud
• Increase Developer Velocity with Microsoft’s End-to-end Developer Platform
• Building Low-code Vertical Apps using the Power Platform
• Power Platform is the Best Way for Teams to Build Together

To learn more about Microsoft Power Platform and get started on the basics, check out the Microsoft Learn Power Platform modules and the entire Microsoft Mechanics Power Platform video series.

• Microsoft Learn Power Platform
• Microsoft Mechanics Power Platform video series

The post New Microsoft Mechanics episode demonstrates pro developer advancements with Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

At Microsoft, we are committed to helping communities maximize vaccination rates. Through our Microsoft Vaccination Management offering, built on Microsoft Power Platform, we are helping governments at all levels effectively manage the distribution of vaccines to their priority populations. While the components of Microsoft Vaccination Management are common across each implementation, they are adapted for each customer to meet their unique needs.

As Microsoft continues to help communities boost COVID-19 vaccinations at the last mile, we checked in with local and state government organizations using Microsoft Vaccination Management for an update on vaccination efforts.

São Paulo State Government, Brazil

The São Paulo State Government Health and Communication Secretaries launched the public vaccination program, Vacina Já, to help vaccinate more than 40 million citizens. Supported by Prodesp, the technology organization for the Government of São Paulo, the solution is built on Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Microsoft Azure. In April 2021, 5.6 million people had pre-registered for vaccinations through Vacina Já. “Prodesp has been committed to developing solutions to help fight the pandemic and pre-registration is one of the actions that contribute to this, speeding up the vaccination process in all regions of the state”, says André Arruda, CEO of Prodesp.

Oklahoma State Department of Health

In Oklahoma, Microsoft helped develop a mobile app to help residents confirm vaccine eligibility and help schedule vaccination appointments. To date, more than 350,000 residents have booked a vaccine appointment through the app and 348,000 have received the vaccine. “Oklahoma’s very early successes reaching hundreds of thousands of people with COVID vaccine were due, in large part, to the implementation of the scheduling portal,” according to Buffy Heater, assistant deputy commissioner, Oklahoma State Department of Health. “The public has come to rely upon the 24-7 availability of the online scheduling feature as a valuable aid. The portal supports a ‘no touch’ point of service experience and has greatly increased the throughput at large COVID vaccine events. Oklahoman’s have benefited greatly from the quick deployment of this technology tool.”

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania

After some technical challenges with previous systems, Montgomery Country, Pennsylvania worked with Microsoft to launch a new vaccine registration system to help streamline the process and improve the customer experience. Since the tool launched, more than 92,000 residents have booked appointments and more than nearly 65,000 have received a shot. “The Montgomery County Office of Public Health needed a COVID-19 vaccine scheduling system that prohibited appointment sharing when the vaccine was scarce and was easy to use for persons with limited technical expertise”, explained Janet Panning, Interim Administrator Office of Public Health, Montgomery County, PA.  “The Microsoft Vaccine Management system was up and running within three weeks and not only met but far exceeded our expectations on both counts.”

Baltimore, Maryland

The City of Baltimore was looking for a comprehensive solution to support the logistics of a city-wide vaccination registration and scheduling effort. Working closely with our Microsoft team, the city’s vaccine management solution enabled pop-up mobile clinics to serve vulnerable and disconnected populations. More than 10,000 residents registered for vaccinations within weeks of launch.

“Microsoft’s vaccine management solutions have enabled Baltimore City to be more agile in our response to COVID, it has enabled community vaccination clinics and advanced analytics that were previously unavailable”, said Michael Fried, Chief Information Officer, Baltimore City Health Department. “We plan to extend the platform to support our network of partners throughout the City and to enable advanced functionality like SMS-based registration. We believe [Microsoft’s vaccine solutions] and our broader Microsoft partnership will be critical to our COVID response.”

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Los Angeles, California

In order to facilitate a safe return to school, the Los Angeles Unified School District turned to Microsoft to develop a COVID-19 emergency response solution for a seamless, end-to-end, vaccination experience. Since the solution deployed, more than 35,000 staff members have booked appointments and received the vaccine. “Los Angeles Unified’s COVID testing and vaccination program relies on a technology and information system built with the support of Microsoft which includes registration and scheduling, contactless appointment check-in and the ability to share appropriate information with the school community and health authorities,” according to Austin Beutner, Superintendent, LAUSD. “We started working with Microsoft last summer to help bring students and staff back to schools in a safe and coordinated way and we planned ahead by integrating COVID-19 testing and vaccinations into the solution. Los Angeles Unified is the first school district and likely the largest employer in the nation to use a comprehensive technology solution like this.”

Learn more about Microsoft Vaccination Management

These are just a sampling of success stories using Microsoft Vaccination Management across state, county, and local institutions including school districts. Learn more about Microsoft Vaccination Management capabilities and access resources to deploy the solution.

More from our blogs:

• Helping communities accelerate COVID-19 vaccinations at the last mile – Microsoft Industry Blogs

1-“At least 165.7 million people have received one or both doses of the vaccine in the U.S.”, The Washington Post, 2021

2-“Tracking Coronavirus Vaccinations Around the World”, The New York Times, 2021

The post Accelerating vaccine distribution through public sector partnerships appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.