Microsoft Power Platform brings together low-code apps, workflow automation, analytics, websites and AI-powered agents so organisations can build connected business solutions on a governed Microsoft foundation. The platform continues to evolve quickly, particularly around Copilot and agent-based automation, so it is best understood as a connected suite rather than a fixed set of four tools.

In this guide, we look at the Microsoft Power Platform and how you can employ each technology to build powerful solutions to drive efficiencies, gain data visibility and much more.

What is the Microsoft Power Platform

Microsoft Power Platform now spans five main product areas: Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Pages and Copilot Studio. They can be used independently, but the greatest value often comes from combining them with Microsoft Dataverse, connectors and the wider Microsoft ecosystem to create joined-up applications, analytics, automation and AI experiences.

What is Power BI?

Power BI is Microsoft’s business intelligence and reporting platform. It connects to a wide range of data sources and is tightly integrated with Microsoft Fabric and the wider Microsoft ecosystem, allowing organisations to model, analyse and visualise data for operational and strategic decision-making.

Power BI powered data solutions enable organisations across the world to make sense of their data with easy-to-understand visuals to drive data-driven, and well-informed decision-making. Power BI has the ability to collect data from a wide variety of sources whether that is excel or your data warehouse to make your data coherent and understandable. Power BI offers a plethora of benefits and has some limitations to consider.

Pros of Power BI

• Investment and optimisation by Microsoft – Power BI continue to improve and evolve to meet the demands. We have already seen an evolution in functionality with the ability to create custom data visualisations which were not possible in the initial release.

• Data source connectivity –One of the greatest benefits Power BI offer is the ability to connect to a wide variety of data sources both including Microsoft technologies and external tools such as Amazon Redshift, Google Analytics, and SurveyMonkey.

• Licensing flexibility – Power BI is available through several licensing and capacity models. The right option depends on audience size, sharing requirements and whether the organisation is also using Microsoft Fabric capacity.

• Free version – A free version of Power BI is available to use for simple solutions, however increasing functionality will require a purchase.

• User-friendly– Power BI can be used by inexperienced users, however, increasing complexity will require expert skills.

• Fast performance– Power BI is high performing when dealing with small data sets.

• Easy custom visuals– Users can easily customise visuals based on their requirements as opposed to other technologies.

Cons of Power BI

• Costly– the costs can add up with an increase in users.

• Slow with big data sets– Power BI performance can slow down when dealing with large volumes of data.

• User Interface – Some users have found the UI to be cluttered.

Power BI success story

Our highly skilled leading data engineers have leveraged Power BI to build a user-friendly, informative, and intelligent data analytics and reporting solution for a local council based in Cornwall, UK. As part of the Government initiative to provide for troubled families, the solution consisted of collecting and collating data on potentially troubled families to provide assistance as and when needed. The data was collected from a number of sources including:

• School data – for any prolonged absences

• Police report – for any criminal records

With meaningful insights and easy reports enabled by Power BI, the councils were able to spot troubled families, prioritise those most vulnerable and provide assistance as and when needed.

Read more on the new Power BI with insight from our data engineering expert.

What are Power Apps?

Power apps was initially released in 2015 with a focus on empowering users to create apps without having coding expertise. Multiple leading brands have leveraged the power of Power Apps to build apps in-house for various purposes including:

• H&M employees built an app to track flexible working hours and locations

• Coca-Cola UNITED created an app to track sales and stock data

• Toyota teams have built multiple apps for a wide variety of purposing concluding quality control and COVID-19 screening.

• Ardent has employed Power Apps to build a Performance Management System for a client to improve HR efficiency and productivity.

Types of Power Apps

With Power apps, you can create two main types of apps and they are Canvas Apps and Model-driven apps. Here is what you need to know about them.

Canvas Apps

Canvas apps enable you to create apps that you are most used to seeing and using without having to write code. You can create apps with a drag-and-drop functionality with pre-existing controls. Additionally, Excel-style language enables you to easily connect to a plethora of data sources to suit your needs and requirements.

Model-driven apps

Model-driven apps are primarily based on data stored in Microsoft Dataverse. With the focus on the underlying data model and business process, there is less freedom over page layout than with Canvas Apps, but they can be well suited to structured, process-led applications.

Power Apps enable everyday professionals to quickly and easily build apps to suit their requirements. Here we will look at some key pros and cons.

Pros of Power Apps

• Speedy development – You can create apps quickly with low code.

• Ease of use – Built with the everyday user in mind, Power Apps does not require coding expertise and has a drag-and-drop functionality.

• Responsive apps – Power Apps enables responsive behaviour therefore having a mobile/web responsive app is not a challenge.

• Data source – You can connect to multiple data sources, for example, SharePoint, Excel and more.

Cons of Power Apps

• Limited customisation – Customisation is limited compared to other app development technologies.

• Additional complicity requires expert skills – If your app requires multiple pages and large data sets, you may require expertise.

• Distribution and governance considerations – Power Apps are designed to run within the Microsoft Power Platform ecosystem. Deployment, external access, packaging and mobile distribution requirements should be considered early, particularly for apps intended for customers or public users.

Find out more in the introduction to Power Apps.

Power Automate

Power Automate is a technology which powers workflow automation to improve efficiency across departments and organisations. Previously known as Microsoft Flow, the platform was initially released in 2016 with the name change and rebranding in 2019. The goal of Power Automate was to boost productivity within Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azure by automating simple, mundane processes. Here we will look at some pros and cons of Power Automate.

Pros of Power Automate

• Improve efficiency and productivity – by removing the need for manual processes, businesses and professionals can save time and resources.

• Easy automation – for simple tasks, Power Automate can be great as it can be easy and simple.

• Ease of use – It is built for everyday employees of an organisation who may not be from a technical background.

• Connectors – Easily connect and integrate multiple apps to increase efficiency with built-in connectors.

Cons of Power Automate

• Security risks – Automation flows can bypass security policies which creates a security risk.

• Complexity increases for complex tasks – Although simple to get started with, the complexity increase for complex tasks.

• Complex automation requires stronger design – advanced workflows can include branching, approvals, integrations and AI, but they also require careful error handling, governance and monitoring as complexity grows.

• Licensing and connector limits – flow limits, premium connectors and capacity vary by licence and workload, so organisations should validate requirements before scaling business-critical automation.

Find out more about getting started with Power Automate.

Copilot Studio

Microsoft Copilot Studio is the Power Platform product for building and managing AI-driven agents and agent workflows. It evolved from Copilot Studio and now supports far broader generative AI, knowledge, workflow and orchestration capabilities than the earlier chatbot-focused product.

Pros of Copilot Studio

• Improve efficiency – from getting the required information without human interaction to responding to queries quickly, you can improve efficiency in the entire process.

• Deliver better customer service – You can easily improve your customer service by ensuring you are responding to the customer as and when they get in touch.

• Easy of use – Virtual Agents platform is easy to use for professionals without a technical background and they utilise the power of AI to create chatbots for multiple purposes.

• Multiple channels and languages – You can integrate chatbots across a wide variety of channels including the likes of Facebook, Mobile App, Microsoft Teams and more. Additionally, you engage with clients in multiple languages.

• Leverage AI – With AI capabilities your bots will improve and evolve to provide optimised service.

Considerations for Copilot Studio

• Testing and evaluation – agent behaviour can be more variable than traditional rule-based automation, so testing, evaluation and monitoring need to be part of the delivery process.

• Governance and lifecycle management – as agents become connected to business data and actions, permissions, environments, deployment controls and ongoing ownership become increasingly important.

Power platform customer success story

Our highly skilled employed Power Apps, Power BI and Power Automate streamline HR processes and improve employee onboarding for a client in the food industry. With the client's preference to use the Microsoft Power Platform for the solution, we were able to deliver a user-friendly, automation-driven system to help them significantly improve efficiency.

Read the full client success story on powering a Performance Management System with the Microsoft Power Platform.

Ardent service delivered with powerful Power Platform technologies

Microsoft has launched these technologies as part of the Power Platform to enable everyday professionals to create solutions without expert technical skills. However, as the complexities increase, assistance may be required. Whether you want to connect your Power BI dashboard to a wide variety of data sets to deal with large volumes of data or want to create multiple workflows which may require expertise, we can help. Our highly skilled software and data engineers are proficient in the Power Platform technologies at an expert level to bring your vision to life. We have worked with the entire toolset for both internal and client projects:

• Power BI

• Power Apps

• Power Automate

• Copilot Studio

Get in touch to get started or explore our partnership with Microsoft.