Introduction to

Microsoft Power
Platform

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 What is Microsoft Power Platform

Data Connectors

Pulling it all together

Agenda
Get started with Power Apps

Power Apps related technologies

Summary

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Lesson 1: What is Microsoft Power
Platform

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Microsoft Power Platform
The low-code platform that spans Office 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, and standalone
applications

Innovation anywhere. Unlocks value everywhere

Power BI Power Apps Power Automate Power Virtual Agents

Business analytics Application development Process automation Intelligent chatbots

Portals Data connectors AI Builder Microsoft Dataverse

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Build and consume solutions for web and mobile with
Power Apps

Build highly customized task- and role-based canvas

apps with data from one or multiple sources

Generate immersive model-driven apps, starting from

your data model and business processes

Consume fully accessible apps across web and mobile,

embedded or standalone, on any device

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Automate and integrate business processes with
Power Automate

Automate and model business processes across your

apps and services

From simple automations to advanced scenarios with

branches, loops, and more

Trigger actions, grant approvals, and get notifications

right where you work

Automate legacy, on-prem and cloud-based

applications and services

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Gain insights from your data regardless of where it
lives with Power BI

Connect to all your data and get a consolidated view

across your business through a single pane of glass

Create ad-hoc analysis, live dashboards and

interactive reports that are easy to consume on the
web and across mobile devices

Build smart apps by infusing insights from your data

and drive action with the power of the Power Platform

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Build powerful virtual agents with Power Virtual Agents

Enable subject matter experts to easily create

powerful virtual agents using a guided, no-code
graphical interface—all without the need for data
scientists or developers
Enable the virtual agent to take action on the
customer’s behalf. Easily integrate your virtual agent
with hundreds of services and systems out of the box
or create custom workflows
Keep an eye on how your virtual agent is performing
by using conversational metrics and dashboards. Get
in-depth AI-driven insights to improve bot
performance

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Add intelligence to your apps with AI Builder

AI Builder is a turnkey solution that brings the power

of AI through a point-and-click experience

With AI Builder, you can add intelligence to your apps

even if you have no coding or data science skills

You can use AI Builder to create custom AI models that

suit the needs of your business, or you can choose
from a selection of prebuilt models

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Put all your data to work with Microsoft Dataverse

Jumpstart apps using a standardized data model with

business logic, security and integration built-in

Extend to your own needs and integrate across your

apps and services

Seamless Dynamics 365, Office 365, and Azure

integration, augmented with data from industry
partners

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Enable external access with Power Apps portals

Empower anyone—either inside or outside your

organization—to interact with Dataverse data using
portals

Enable anyone to build responsive websites

Integrate all your data

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Lesson 2: Data connectors

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Data connectors

Connectors are available for use in Custom connectors:

multiple products: An advantage of building custom connectors is
that they can be used in different platforms,
Power Automate such as Power Apps, Power Automate, and
Azure Logic Apps
Power Apps It allow you to extend your app by calling a
publicly available API, or a custom API you're
Logic Apps hosting in a cloud provider, such as Azure
You can create custom connectors using 3
There are more than 275 connectors between
different approaches:
standard and premium ones.
• Using a blank custom connector
• From an OpenAPI definition
• From a Postman collection

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Data sources for connectors

The two types of data sources are tabular and

function-based:
Tabular data: A tabular data source is one that
returns data in a structured table format. Power
Apps can directly read and display these tables
through galleries, forms, and other controls.
Additionally, if the data source supports it, Power
Apps can create, edit, and delete data from these
data sources. Examples include Microsoft
Dataverse, SharePoint, and SQL Server
Function-based data: A function-based data source is
one that uses functions to interact with the data
source. These functions can be used to return a table
of data, but offer more extensive action such as the
ability to send an email, update permissions, or create
a calendar event. Examples include Office 365 Users,
Project Online, and Azure Blob Storage

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Components of a connector

Once you have established a data source and

configured your connector, there are two
types of operations you can use, triggers or
actions:
Triggers are only used in Power Automate and
prompt a flow to begin. Triggers can be time based,
such as a flow which begins every day at 8:00 am,
or they could be based off of an action like creating
a new row in a table or receiving an email. You will
always need a trigger to tell your workflow when to
run
Actions are used in Power Automate and Power
Apps. Actions are prompted by the user or a trigger
and allow interaction with your data source by
some function. For example, an action would be
sending an email in your workflow or app or writing
a new line to a data source

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Lesson 3: Pulling it all together

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The unmatched functional flexibility of the Microsoft Power
Platform
Rich Mobile Embedded Secured Mixed Reality Power Analytics Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft
Power Apps Power Apps Web Portals Experiences Virtual with Teams Project2 Dynamics Office 365
1
Agents 1 PowerBI 3652

USER EXPERIENCES
PROCESS AUTOMATION
Microsoft AI Power Automate Power Automate Power Automate
Approvals1 Builder 1 DATA AND SERVICES Flows (DPA) Process Flows (BPM) 1 UI Flows (RPA)1

Native Native Integration Native Integration On-Premises Microsoft 350+

Integration to to Dynamics 3652 to Microsoft AzureData
2
Gateway 1 Dataverse Connectors Including2
Microsoft 365
1
Feature requiring premium Power Platform license or add-on capacity
purchase
2
Feature might require additional product license

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Powerful alone. Better together

Build faster with Microsoft Dataverse: Make it easier to bring your data together and quickly
create powerful apps using Microsoft Dataverse, a compliant and scalable data service and
app platform that’s integrated into Power Apps

Get a single source of truth across your organization: As Microsoft Dataverse standardizes
your data through the common data model, it’s easier to build and run apps using the same
data. And because Dynamics 365 applications are natively built on it, you can also build
apps without needing additional data integration. All with the enterprise-grade security and
manageability of Power Apps

Automate your apps with a business process engine: Guide people through business
processes, start workflows automatically, and provide rules for your data validation using
business process flows. Make your apps smarter with visually defined server-side logic that
can set default values or provide validation logic

Built on the foundation of the common data model: By defining a set of over 200 standard
business tables, the common data model makes it easier for both you and third-parties to
build apps. Tailor the model to your specific business needs by extending with custom tables
and columns

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Summary
Microsoft Power Platform offers a point-and-click approach which makes it easy for anyone familiar
with Microsoft Office to create custom business solutions, data visualizations, and automated
workflows
It enables users to do three key actions on data that help them drive business:
Gain insights from data (Analyze)
Drive intelligent business processes via apps they build (Act)
Automate business processes (Automate)
Power BI helps you analyze and visualize data on a unified platform with data from internal and
external sources

Power Apps helps you build and deploy customized apps that work across web and mobile,
embedded or standalone, on any device

Power Automate helps you create automation workflows, from simple to advanced scenarios

Power Virtual Agents helps you create Chatbots

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Get started with
Power Apps

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Lesson 4: Get started with Power Apps

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Intro to Power Apps

With Power Apps, you can:

Build an app quickly by using the skills that
you already have

Connect to the cloud services and data

sources that you're already using

Share your apps instantly so that coworkers

can use them on their phones and tablets

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What types of app can you build?

Canvas Model-Driven Portal apps

User experience focused, typically task Leverages your organizations data Provides secure data access to internal
or model, relationships, and business and external stakeholders
role-based apps leveraging mash up processes in immersive, responsive
data from multiple data sources applications

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What’s the difference?
Canvas Model-driven

Leverage data from different sources Back ended by Dataverse

Generally task or screen fo cused Focused on processes

Customized UI Responsive UI

Device Interaction Customizing existing apps

Embedding capabilities Data relationship navigation

Security trimming of UI

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Power Apps building blocks
Power Apps Home Page – Apps start here, whether you build them from data, a sample app, or a blank
screen

Power Apps Studio – Develop your apps further by connecting to data, adding and arranging user
interface (UI) elements (known as controls), and building formulas

Power Apps Mobile – Run your apps on Microsoft Windows, Apple iOS, and Google Android devices

Power Apps Admin Center – Manage Power Apps environments and other components

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Power Apps home page

Lets you easily build apps from sample

apps, templates, or a blank screen

All the apps that you've built appear

here, along with any apps that others
have created and shared with you

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Power Apps Studio

Power Apps Studio is where you can fully

develop your apps to make them more
effective as a business tool and to make
them more attractive:
Left pane – Shows hierarchical
view the controls on each screen
or a thumbnail for each screen in your app
Middle pane – Shows the canvas app that
you're working on
Right pane – Where you set options such as
the layout, properties, and data sources for
certain controls

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Power Apps Mobile

Power Apps Mobile for Windows, iOS, and

Android devices allows you to use all the
apps that you've created, and those
others have shared with you, on your
mobile device

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Power Apps admin center

The Power Apps admin center is the centralized place for managing Power Apps for an
organization

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Power Apps related technologies

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Power Apps related technologies
Microsoft Power Apps works with other technologies to help you build powerful apps for your
organization:
Data sources – Without data, you don't have a business. Data sources bring cloud and on-
premises data into your apps. You access data through built-in connections, custom
connectors, and gateways

Dataverse – A compliant and scalable data service that's integrated into Power Apps

Power Automate – Allows you to build automated workflows to receive notifications, run
processes, collect data, and more

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Data sources, connections, and gateways

Most canvas apps and many Power Automate flows use external information that is
stored
in data sources

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Dataverse

Lets you store and manage data used by

business applications

Data is stored within a set of tables

Includes a base set of standard tables that

cover typical scenarios

Customer tables can be created specific to

your organization

App makers can then use Power Apps to build

rich applications by using
this data

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Reasons to use the Dataverse
Standard and custom tables provide a cloud-based storage option for
your data:

Helps to Access your

Simple to manage
secure data Dynamics 365 Data

Logic and Productivity

Rich metadata
validation tools

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