Power Platforms
Microsoft Power Platform enables users to streamline processes, gain insights from their data, and build custom solutions to meet their business needs.
Power BI
Power BI is a technology-driven business intelligence tool provided by Microsoft for analyzing and visualizing raw data to present actionable information.
Power BI is a collection of software services, apps, and connectors that work together to turn your unrelated sources of data into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights. It allows you to connect to various data sources, visualize and discover what's important, and share that with anyone or everyone you want.
Use Case
One use case mentioned in your document is utilizing Power BI dashboards to expand reporting capabilities. For example, replacing manually generated social media reports with automated ones using data from sources like Pardot and Google Analytics. Another use case involves integrating Power BI with Business Central to create reports that are shared with users who only view them.
Implementation
Implementing Power BI can be straightforward, especially if you have a clear understanding of your data sources and reporting needs. It involves setting up data connections, creating reports and dashboards, and sharing them with your team. Power BI offers various tools and resources to help with the implementation process, making it accessible even for those who may not have extensive technical expertise.
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Power Apps
Power Apps is a suite of apps, services, and connectors that provides a rapid development environment to build custom apps for your business needs. It allows you to create feature-rich, custom business apps without writing code.
Power Apps enables users to create three types of apps: canvas, model-driven, and cards. These apps can connect to various data sources, including SharePoint, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, SQL Server, and more.
Use Case
One use case involves integrating Power Apps with Business Central to create a seamless workflow for capturing account profiles, leads, service requests, and time entries. Another use case involves using Power Apps to automate manual business operations, such as reconciling payments for manual entries that come into the bank.
Comparison with Power BI
While Power Apps focuses on creating custom business applications, Power BI is a business intelligence tool designed for analyzing and visualizing data. Power BI helps you turn raw data into actionable insights through interactive reports and dashboards, whereas Power Apps helps you build applications to automate and streamline business processes.
Power Apps Help Your Business by:
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Automating manual processes: Transforming manual business operations into digital, automated processes.
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Enhancing productivity: Allowing employees to create custom apps tailored to their specific needs without requiring extensive coding knowledge.
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Improving data integration: Connecting to various data sources to create a unified and efficient workflow.
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Increasing agility: Enabling quick development and deployment of apps to respond to changing business needs.
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Power Virtual Agents
Power Virtual Agents is a tool within the Power Platform that allows you to create powerful chatbots using a guided, no-code graphical interface. This means you can build chatbots without needing to write any code.
Power Virtual Agents enables anyone to create chatbots that can engage in conversations with customers or employees. These chatbots can be integrated with various data sources and services, such as Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and more.
Use Case
One use case involves using Power Virtual Agents to automate customer service interactions. For example, a chatbot can handle common customer inquiries, freeing up human agents to focus on more complex issues. Another use case involves using chatbots to assist employees with internal processes, such as answering HR-related questions or providing IT support.
Ease of Use
Power Virtual Agents is designed to be user-friendly, with a guided, no-code graphical interface. This makes it accessible even for those who may not have extensive technical expertise. The platform also offers various tools and resources to help users get started and create effective chatbots.
Power Virtual Agents Help Your Business by:
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Improving customer service: Chatbots can handle routine inquiries, providing quick and accurate responses to customers.
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Enhancing employee productivity: Chatbots can assist employees with internal processes, reducing the time spent on repetitive tasks.
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Reducing operational costs: Automating routine interactions can lower the need for human intervention, saving time and resources.
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Increasing agility: The no-code interface allows for quick development and deployment of chatbots, enabling companies to respond to changing business needs2.
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AI Insights
AI Insights is a feature within the Power Platform that leverages artificial intelligence to provide actionable insights from your data. It can identify trends, highlight potential issues, and even suggest solutions, leading to improved customer service.
AI Insights Help Your Business by:
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Improving decision-making: By analyzing large volumes of data, AI Insights can provide valuable insights that help businesses make informed decisions.
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Enhancing customer experience: AI Insights can identify patterns in customer behaviour, allowing companies to tailor their services to meet customer needs better.
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Increasing efficiency: By automating data analysis, AI Insights can save time and resources, allowing employees to focus on more strategic tasks.
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Customer Insights
Customer Insights is a feature within the Power Platform that provides a comprehensive view of your customers.
Customer Insights Help Your Business by:
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Improving customer understanding: By analyzing data from multiple sources, Customer Insights provides a holistic view of each customer, helping businesses understand their behavior, preferences, and needs.
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Enhancing customer experience: With a better understanding of customers, businesses can tailor their services and interactions to meet customer needs more effectively.
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Increasing efficiency: By automating data analysis, Customer Insights saves time and resources, allowing employees to focus on more strategic tasks.
Use Case
One use case involves using Customer Insights to analyze shopping trends and customer behavior, helping businesses tailor their marketing strategies and improve customer engagement.
Comparison with AI Insights
While both Customer Insights and AI Insights leverage data analysis to provide actionable insights, they serve different purposes:
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Customer Insights focuses on understanding customer behavior and preferences to improve customer experience and engagement.
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AI Insights leverages artificial intelligence to identify trends, highlight potential issues, and suggest solutions, leading to improved decision-making and efficiency.
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Microsoft Dataverse
Microsoft Dataverse is a cloud-based storage solution that allows you to securely store and manage data used by business applications. It provides a set of standard tables that cover typical scenarios, but you can also create custom tables specific to your organization.
Microsoft Dataverse is still the name used by Microsoft. It works by storing data within a set of tables, which are essentially a collection of rows (formerly referred to as records) and columns (formerly referred to as fields/attributes). Each column in the table is designed to store a certain type of data, such as name, age, or salary.
Microsoft Dataverse Help Your Business by:
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Easy management: Both the metadata and data are stored in the cloud, so you don't need to worry about the details of how they're stored.
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Security: Data is securely stored, and role-based security allows you to control access to tables for different users within your organization.
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Integration: Dataverse can connect to various data sources, including Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, and Azure, allowing you to quickly build apps that use your data.
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Productivity tools: Tables are available within the add-ins for Microsoft Excel to increase productivity and ensure data accessibility.
Use Case
One use involves integrating Dataverse with Dynamics 365 to manage customer data and streamline business processes. Another use case involves using Dataverse to store and manage data for custom applications built with Power Apps.
Ease of Use
You don't necessarily need a programmer to work with Dataverse. It is designed to be user-friendly, with a set of visual designers to create, edit, and interact with data. This makes it accessible even for those who may not have extensive technical expertise.
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