This year at Microsoft Build, Microsoft Power Platform is making low-code faster, easier to use, and more innovative for all developers.
Today we’re announcing an exciting new Microsoft Power Platform product and many new capabilities across Microsoft Power Platform that include:
Introducing Power Pages: the newest Microsoft Power Platform product for creating modern, secure, responsive business websites.
Power Apps express design: instantly turn images, docs, Figma design files, and PowerPoints into apps with leading cognitive AI capabilities using express design in Microsoft Power Apps.
Power Virtual Agents and Azure Bot Framework, now one unified canvas: build sophisticated conversational AI bots in the new intelligent bot authoring experience.
Auto scale with hosted robotic process automation (RPA) bots: for faster and easier scaling with Microsoft Power Automate.
Datamarts in Power BI enable data self-sufficiency: with a frictionless data integration experience.
Power Automate pay-as-you-go plan and updates to the embed software development kit (SDK): for a flexible way for customers and independent software vendors (ISVs) to embed Power Automate in third-party apps and only pay for what they use.
Create modern business websites with the new Microsoft Power Pages
As a new, standalone product, Power Pages combines low-code capabilities and experiences that empower anyone to create and deliver business-centric, data-powered, modern, and secure websites.
Start a brand-new project in the Power Pages Design Studio, which makes it easy to style, configure, and publish business websites. Design your site pages with text, video, images, business data forms and lists, and much more.
Or use the out-of-the-box Power Pages business solution templates, which are full-featured websites with demo data and customization. This enables you to jump-start your site journey with pre-made scheduling, registration, and application submission templates.
Power Pages is built for low-code makers and professional developers alike. Dive in with code-first capabilities with seamless integration with Visual Studio Code, GitHub, and Azure DevOps. Not only do these integrations enable developers to implement advanced business requirements, they also empower them to automate their development workflow, and leverage continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) practices.
Secure your website content and data through role-based access controls and the built-in security and compliance of Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Dataverse. IT admins can leverage the “Center of Excellence” toolkit to govern the site creation and management process.
And with its origins in Power Apps portals, Power Pages is a scalable platform already supporting millions of users across all industries.
Learn more about Power Pages.
Automatically generate low-code Power Apps from images and design files with the express design
Now Power Apps can automatically generate a working low-code app from any design input—including Figma design files, PDFs, paper forms, or even a picture of a hand-drawn app. Using industry-leading cognitive AI technology, Power Apps will scan these inputs in seconds and produce working app controls backed with data storage.
Check the inputs, switch on your data connectors, and your app will be ready to go. Simply add more screens by uploading and converting new content and files.
Learn more about express design and more Power Apps.
Data self-sufficiency is made easy with Power BI datamarts
Datamart in Power BI is a self-service capability, providing a simple frictionless experience to ingest data from different data sources. It extracts, transforms, and loads (ETLs) the data through Power Query and then auto-generates a self-tuning dataset ready to build reports.
The datamart creator, whether a business intelligence user, data scientist, data engineer, or other data analytics expert, can also define relationships and policies in datamart. These relationships and policies can be leveraged to build Power BI reports and dashboards. Users can also query datamart using familiar T-SQL tools for further analysis.
If you are working in a department or domain such as accounting or finance, datamart in Power BI enables you to build your own universe of data to answer business questions more rapidly than ever before, even if you aren’t familiar with technical applications.
Power Pages, express design, and datamarts in Power BI are emblematic of our commitment to continued improvements in rapid solution development and increased efficiency.
Learn more about datamarts and more Power BI updates.
Build evolved conversational AI bots with Power Virtual Agents 2.0
By bringing low-code and pro-code bot development into one unified canvas, we’re taking fusion teams to the next level. The evolution of Power Virtual Agents starts with the new intelligent bot authoring experience that unites the sophistication of Azure Bot Framework Composer’s pro-code capabilities with the simplicity of Power Virtual Agent’s low-code platform, making it even easier for professional developers and subject matter experts to build collaboratively in one Microsoft bot building studio. This is available in the technology preview.
Power Virtual Agents authoring canvas has been redesigned from the ground up, significantly expanding the possibilities for authoring bots. In the new authoring canvas, we added the ability to seamlessly switch between graphical and code experiences; rich multi-media responses that enable bots to respond with images, videos, adaptive cards, quick replies, and more.
To try a selection of these features, apply for the preview, sign up for the Dynamics 365 Insider Program, or try a click-through demo today.
Learn more about Power Virtual Agents new authoring canvas and more product updates.
Scale automation through the cloud
We’re taking the next step in our automation through the cloud journey with the preview of hosted RPA bots, now available in Power Automate. As a true Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for RPA, unattended RPA bots can now be created and automatically scaled across hosted virtual machines (VM) that are powered by Azure.
Gone are the days of strenuous approval cycles and costly deployment. With Power Automate’s hosted RPA bots, just create a group of bots by setting up basic parameters and use it to get virtual machines scaled automatically for your unattended RPA scenarios—with no Azure subscription required.
Power Automate will handle every aspect of machine management for you, helping focus your time where it’s needed most.
Visit the Power Automate Machines webpage to access the preview and the Manage machine groups webpage for documentation.
Learn more about hosted RPA bots and other Power Automate updates.
Making Power Automate easier to embed and buy
Our Power Automate embed SDK, which allows developers to embed Power Automate capabilities inside of their SaaS applications, is also getting an update, along with the future ability to use a new Power Automate pay-as-you-go plan.
The combination of the two will enable ISVs to embed Power Automate into their apps and pay for it on behalf of their customers, just like an Azure service.
We’re very happy to announce that we have partnered with Adobe over the last few months and they will be the first to use the embed SDK to embed Power Automate into Adobe Acrobat Sign to enable advanced document signature and processing workflow.
“No two companies are better positioned to meet the business imperative of today’s hybrid world—easy and secure digital-first experiences with PDF and e-signatures at the core,” said Ashley Still, SVP/GM of Digital Media, Adobe. “Through the deeper integrations between Adobe and Microsoft that we’ve announced today, we continue to innovate to elevate today’s agile and rapidly evolving workforce.”
Developers can start using the Technical Embed SDK today—learn more here, and we will share more about the pay-as-you-go plan in July 2022 at the Microsoft Inspire conference. In the interim, If you’d like to be considered for early access, please register your interest in Technical Embed SDK here.
By Charles Lamanna