The first ever Microsoft Power Platform Conference took place in Orlando, Florida, between September 20-22. A community led event, bringing together over 4,000 people who all shared the same excitement and enthusiasm of Microsoft Power Platform and all it has to offer!

To say it was a privilege to have the opportunity to speak at the event and represent Avanade, is an understatement! I shared stories about Power Platform makers, governance and how service design can help organizations bring to life their Power Platform CoE and maker community - drawing parallels between experiencing governance and self-service and how it’s possible to make it safe for people to explore and solve their own problems. The underlying message is the ‘maker experience’ is fundamental in succeeding – get that right, and you will succeed in your Power Platform journey.

I have taken some time to reflect on my experience at the conference and would love to share my 3 main takeaways:

1. Community is everything
The Power Platform is a movement of people with a common goal and vision. This was evident at the conference; attendees ranged from those just beginning their Power Platform journey whilst others were experts and MVP’s, all wanting to share their experiences for the greater good.

This culture of empowerment and collaboration is truly unique and is what drives my passion in helping organizations who want to enable makers. During my session, I highlighted the importance of enhancing the maker’s experience with learning and the value of IT governance and policies when building Power Platform solutions.

The Avanade CoE Expansion Pack is a great tool to enhance your maker self-service tools and experience. It complements the Microsoft CoE Starter Kit, which has amazing administrative tools. The expansion pack created a real buzz after my session, with many enquiring how the pack could support maker self-service - feel free to reach out for more information.

2. Co-authoring in Power Apps is coming, and I couldn’t be happier!
In recent years, developing a Power App has always been a ‘single-player’ experience – i.e. when developing an app, only one person can edit at a time – significantly slowing down app development. Co-authoring will provide a solution to this - ‘multi-player’ experience will allow multiple makers, pro or citizen developers, to make changes in the app together in real-time.

Just think about the last time you collaborated with your teammates on a PowerPoint presentation in-real time. The sharing of comments and ideas is a real game changer; available as a preview next month, it’s sure to further enhance what we can do with Power Apps!

3. Automation Kit for Power Platform!
A real focus of mine is helping our clients stand up their Power Platform CoE and a major pain point is that automation projects often lack visibility in demonstrating ROI and efficiency.

Microsoft heard the community loud and clear and during the conference announced the Automation Kit for Power Platform – a set of Power Apps and Power Automate flows that help manage, govern, and scale automation adoption.

This is one to watch – I’m curious to see how the Automation Kit for Power Platform will evolve and mature, especially for those with complex landscapes where there are multiple automation platforms being used. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on this!

Sticking with Power Automate, despite it being a serious contender in the Intelligent Automation (IA) platform arena, the need for a unified control room to manage configurations and perform operational actions has not gone unnoticed. The Avanade IA team have developed the accelerator ‘Power Automate Control Room,’ addressing these gaps and providing a unified interface to manage configuration and perform operational actions which allow customers to take advantage of extended features - queues, scheduler and response center (for human-in-loop implementations). Feel free to contact us if you would like to hear more.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been reminded why I started my Power Platform journey. The amazing people in the community, who encourage and help one another to be part of the low code, no code movement, and to make a difference in all aspects of life are the reasons I do what I do!

I am already looking forward to returning to the Microsoft Power Platform Conference in 2023 in Las Vegas, NV and am super excited to see how Power Platform and our community continue to evolve and thrive over the next year.

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