What is the Microsoft Power Platform: Part 1?

HOST: Hello everyone and welcome to Digital Journeys. Today we're going to look at what the Power Platform is. Our guests today are Jim Holman and Trace Armstrong. I turn it over to Jim.

JIM HOLMAN: Thanks for having me, Jerry. Here today talking with Trace Armstrong about collaboration and workplace productivity. Trace, can you tell us: what is the Power Platform?

TRACE ARMSTRONG: The Power Platform is part of the Microsoft Office 365 suite of products and comprises several applications that serve different functions. You have Power Apps, which is a custom app and form tool and can also be a standalone application if necessary. You have Power Automate, which is the workflow and automation component, and Power BI, which provides analytics and reporting by pulling from a variety of data sources.

TRACE ARMSTRONG: You also have Power Pages, a newer Microsoft product that provides a public-facing version of an application. Prior to Power Pages, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI all had to be used within your tenant and only by your users. With Power Pages, you can create a public-facing side of an application for external individuals or users to interact with.

JIM HOLMAN: Would you describe these as applications that can work together, and if so, how would that happen?

TRACE ARMSTRONG: Absolutely. That's the beauty of these applications — they're built to work together. For example, you might start with a Power App to build a custom form to automate a process, such as an expense reporting tool.

TRACE ARMSTRONG: A user would fill out the information and submit it, and then a Power Automate workflow would trigger to run the business process. If the request must go through different layers of approval before a check or direct deposit is triggered, you can automate that. Instead of relying on email, Power Automate can send notifications to Microsoft Teams, send emails, assign tasks, and perform many other actions.

TRACE ARMSTRONG: With Power BI, you can add analytics to measure how quickly you approve or deny expense reports and evaluate efficiency across processes. This approach applies across many verticals and use cases — expense reporting, vehicle approvals, or whatever you need.

JIM HOLMAN: Since most organizations have some type of Office licensing, and because Microsoft licensing and product naming can be confusing, how much of this is already licensed and how much is an add-on?

TRACE ARMSTRONG: Licensing makes things interesting. If you are a Microsoft E1, E3, or E5 user, that determines your access. For Power Apps, if you have Business Standard, Business Premium, E1, E3, or E5, you can build and interact with Power Apps. That inclusion is a recent change; Microsoft extended access to E1s.

TRACE ARMSTRONG: Power Automate is also included in those licensing models. The additional charges typically begin with Power BI and Power Pages. If you have an E5 license, Power BI is already included; otherwise there is an additional fee that varies depending on whether you purchase directly from Microsoft or through a reseller.

TRACE ARMSTRONG: Power Pages is an additional charge and is limited to a certain segment of users. Pricing is tiered by the number of external users — for example, 300 users cost X, 500 users cost X plus Y, and 1,000 users cost X plus Y plus Z.

JIM HOLMAN: There's a lot of horsepower in what you're describing, and Microsoft keeps adding functionality. That could be intimidating for small or midsize businesses. What technical skills might be required to take full advantage of this?

TRACE ARMSTRONG: It depends on what you're trying to do. For a basic form not tied to an ERP or another system, with some practice and help from online resources a user could create a custom form in Power Apps. For Power Automate, many users can build basic approval workflows with some online research.

TRACE ARMSTRONG: You might need a contractor or consultant for complex business processes, like capital requests that have many conditions. Those scenarios can require advanced logic, field show/hide rules, and conditional routing in Power Automate, so having someone specialized is advisable.

TRACE ARMSTRONG: Power BI can be hit or miss for small-to-mid-size firms because it doesn't always work out of the box. You need a database of information — whether that's Access, a SharePoint list, or a SQL database — and some backend work to prepare the data for Power BI dashboards. For Power Pages, because it's public-facing and the licensing model can be complex, you should use a specialist.

JIM HOLMAN: I didn't even know Power Pages was a thing yet. Where is Microsoft taking the Power Platform, and how should that product roadmap influence customers deciding whether to retire legacy solutions?

TRACE ARMSTRONG: Microsoft is trying to make these tools more accessible to every user and is pushing citizen development. There will always be pitfalls with citizen development because users may lack experience, so start simple and scale.

TRACE ARMSTRONG: From a roadmap perspective, begin with Power Automate to automate simple processes and basic approval flows. Then move to Power Apps to develop forms and applications. Once you have that baseline of data and processes, bring in Power BI for analytics and reporting.

TRACE ARMSTRONG: Power BI can enable predictive analytics, so you can begin forecasting outcomes based on historical process data. Microsoft is driving full cloud integration to break down silos and connect processes and data, which should help users make better decisions and increase efficiency.

JIM HOLMAN: Thanks, Trace. That was very helpful.

HOST: Stay tuned for more with Trace Armstrong in part two of this series. Thank you, Jim and Trace, for the discussion, and thank you to our listeners for tuning in. As always, feel free to like and share this podcast and stay tuned for more Digital Journeys.