Power Platform | Trends seen from MS Build

Connecting with developers from around the globe and pick up a few new tricks – this week Microsoft Build allowed us to expand our toolkit as we advance our skills around low-code Power Platform. Furthermore, watching all relevant sessions, I did recognize a couple of trends, I think Microsoft wants to evolve the Power Platform into. Let me elaborate on those observations.

a) Citizen developers struggling with complex building of functions will be supported by AI to allow even more no-code than low-code configuration.

With the introduction of OpenAI GPT-3 and Microsoft Prose supporting citizen developers, some of the complexity of writing a function will be taken out and simplified by allowing a more human articulation (natural language) of what the developer like to achieve and resulting in a recommendation that could be easily picked up and therefore configuring for example a filter on a gallery the no-code way. While this leads into faster results and an even more agile development of apps, it also allows focusing on other topics during development. It minimizes a level of frustration in terms of the learning curve to allow for more complex usage of Power Fx statements. And it should help reduce a couple of performance issues citizen developers might run into, due to making mistakes in terms of delegation of complex data requests on their data sources. Read more about it here.

b) Power Fx being open-sourced will be used more and more in the Platform itself, but also seen picked up by Software vendors allowing for an easy configuration low-code language for their solution.

With Power Fx being used to configure calculated columns and rollup fields instead of JavaScript language, Power Fx being used to configure command bar in model-driven apps, Power Platform becomes in general a more flexible low-code platform that allows for faster and more agile configuration without stepping into the classical learning path of programming languages such as JavaScript or Typescript. Learn more about this here.

Vendors such as Acumatica – shown at MS Build – picking up the language and integrating this as their configuration engine of their software solution, shows the importance of taking Power Fx open-source and allowing the community to contribute and improve this language over time. I guess, we will also see more Microsoft products picking up the low-code language for allowing an easy configuration and extension over time and become more citizen developer friendly in general.

c) Professional and Citizen developers joining forces as Fusion Teams – for faster time to value in companies Digital Transformation.

Allowing your business and professional developers to create applications and process automation faster, time to value on your company´s Digital Transformation journey can be significantly reduced. Introducing a new learning path and further toolkits for professional developers to use their beloved tools like Visual Studio to collaborate with a citizen developer team on their app becomes the next standard on modern app development. Both parties using their individual skillset, joining forces – will significantly reduce time, effort and budget to create business applications or automate business processes in a quicker way. Learn more about this here.

Allowing professional developers to use an improved version of Power Apps CLI, now Power Platform CLI, allows for quicker Application Lifecycle Management „injections“ in terms of a citizen developer team created application steps up as mission critical for departments first and company next. Power Platform Visual Studio extensions allowing professional developers to use their preferred toolkit to configure Power Apps portals, building Power Platform components or even publishing APIs to Power Platform without leaving the Visual Studio environment.

d) Taking the guesswork out of automation by announcing general availability of Power Automate Process Advisor and making it available to Power Automate per user or attended RPA based licensed users.

Thinking about automation – many companies still struggling with guesswork on how to automate. They may start their automation projects based on assumptions and observations and during the time of the MVP or POC recognize that due to complexity or missing interactivity the results of the automated process is not an improved process, instead just a weak or bad manual process being automated. Process Advisor allowing to visualize and analyze a process first by collecting information of all parties involved in a process, including software systems as well as manual work (such as paper-based), not only lowers the entry barrier into automation of such a process – it also allows for a high-quality process optimization.

Taking the guesswork out of automation, Power Automate Process Advisor now being GA may result in using the Power Platform in its total and not only using Power Automate as a single component. RPA is on every CIO radar due to offering tools that enable complete hyper-automation. But RPA solutions success also relies on low-code or no-code applications.

Wrapping-up those insights gained from MS Build 2021 sessions, I think a fair assessment of the messaging framework behind all this, is to see Microsoft shaping the future of Power Platform in terms of allowing CIO´s to easily adopt and execute on this new philosophy around a low-code culture in IT and across the business. Gartner Forecast predicted a 23% world-wide growth rate just in February this year. The shift to low-code should not be complex and not require an intensive support from IT department to allow for this change. What seems obvious to what low-code is attempting to solve, it´s important not to overcomplicate the new approach.

CIO´s – with the new learning path offered – are now equipped to implement training their workforces on how to use the Power Platform. They can now fully understand of how not to become a roadblock or gatekeeper, instead become part of a Center of excellence team that keeps endorsing the platform capabilities, improving internal learning and sharing best-practices while keeping in their important role of monitoring application or process design and ensuring the security protocols being in place.

What has been your key essential out ouf MS Build 2021? Let me know about above using either a comment or a tweet. Until then, …