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Seena Khan
Seena Khan

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Microsoft Power platform tools and services part-2

Greetings, Power fans!
Here is my second blog on the basics of Power platform. In this blog I am going to explain the second product Power Platform which I listed in my First blog. If anyone needs my first blog access please click on this link.

Power Automate

Power Automate is a service that helps you automate repetitive tasks and workflows, making your business processes more efficient. It allows you to create automated workflows between your favorite apps and services to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data, and more.

Types of Workflows in Power Automate:

Cloud Flows:
  • Automated Flows: Triggered by specific events, such as receiving an email or a new item being added to SharePoint.
  • Instant Flows: Manually triggered by a user, often with a button click, to perform tasks like sending a reminder.
  • Scheduled Flows: Run at specified times, such as daily data uploads to a database.
Desktop Flows:

Used to automate tasks on your desktop or web applications. These are particularly useful for repetitive tasks that involve multiple steps.

Business Process Flows:

Provide a guided experience for users to follow a set of steps to complete a process, ensuring consistency and efficiency.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA):
  • Attended RPA: Runs when the user is logged in, ideal for processes that require human intervention, like approving a vacation request.
  • Unattended RPA: Runs without user intervention, triggered by redefined events, suitable for fully automated tasks.

These workflows help streamline and automate various business processes, reducing manual effort and increasing productivity.

Next topic is PowerBI

Power BI

Power BI is a business analytics tool by Microsoft that allows you to visualize your data and share insights across your organization. It connects to hundreds of data sources, simplifies data prep, and drives ad hoc analysis. You can produce beautiful reports, then publish them for your organization to consume on the web and across mobile devices.

Types of Reports in Power BI

  • Sales Analysis Reports: Provide insights into sales performance, trends, and forecasts1.
  • Financial Analysis Reports: Help in understanding financial health, including profit and loss, balance sheets, and cash flow.
  • Customer Profitability Reports: Analyze the profitability of different customer segments.
  • HR Analytics Reports: Track employee performance, turnover rates, and other HR metrics.
  • Website Analytics Reports: Measure website performance, including traffic, user behavior, and conversion rates.
  • Digital Marketing Reports: Present KPIs related to digital marketing campaigns, such as click-through rates and conversion rates.

Visualization Types in Power BI

Power BI supports a variety of visualizations to help you present your data effectively:

  • Bar and Column Charts: Great for comparing different categories.
  • Line Charts: Ideal for showing trends over time.
  • Pie and Donut Charts: Useful for showing proportions.
  • Maps: Perfect for geographical data.
  • Cards: Display single numbers, such as total sales or market share.
  • Combo Charts: Combine bar and line charts to compare multiple measures.

These reports and visualizations help you turn raw data into actionable insights, making it easier to make informed business decisions.

Next is about Power pages.

Power Pages

Power Pages is a part of the Microsoft Power Platform that allows you to create secure, low-code, external-facing websites. These websites can be used for various purposes, such as customer portals, partner portals, and more. Power Pages integrates seamlessly with other Power Platform components like Power Automate, Power BI, and Power Apps, enabling you to build comprehensive business solutions.

Types of Pages in Power Pages

  • Web Pages: Basic pages that display content, such as text, images, and videos. These pages can be customized with various layouts and styles.
  • Web Forms: Interactive forms that allow users to submit data. These forms can be simple or multi-step, depending on the complexity of the data collection process.
  • Web Components: Reusable components like lists, charts, and maps that can be added to web pages to display dynamic data from Dataverse.
  • Web Templates: Predefined templates that provide a starting point for creating new pages. These templates can be customized to fit specific business needs.

Workspaces in Power Pages.

Power Pages offers several workspaces to help you design and manage your site:

  • Pages Workspace: For creating, designing, and arranging web pages.
  • Styling Workspace: For applying styles and themes to your site.
  • Data Workspace: For creating and modifying Dataverse tables used in data-driven web applications.
  • Setup Workspace: For administration and site management.

These features make Power Pages a versatile tool for building professional and secure websites without needing extensive coding knowledge.

The next blog will discuss practical experiences and workarounds for each tool and service.

Stay tuned!!!

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