Top 5 Microsoft Power Platform You're Not Using

Top 5 Microsoft Power Platform Features You're Not Using

30 September 2024 · By

In this blog, we highlight five powerful yet often overlooked features of the Microsoft Power Platform that can significantly enhance your business processes. From leveraging AI Builder for smarter automation to using Power Virtual Agents to improve customer support, these tools can help you streamline operations, reduce manual work, and unlock greater innovation. Whether you're looking to integrate custom workflows or improve data consistency, these features offer scalable solutions that don’t require extensive development. Discover how your business can maximise the potential of the Power Platform with these essential tools.

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Top 5 Microsoft Power Platform Features You’re Not Using—But Should Be 

The Microsoft Power Platform is a powerful suite of tools designed to empower businesses to innovate and streamline their processes. Many users leverage the basics of Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI to meet their needs, but there are several underutilised features that can take your business processes to new heights. In this blog, we’ll explore five powerful features you might not be using—but definitely should be.

1. AI Builder 

While AI may seem complex and out of reach for many businesses, AI Builder makes artificial intelligence accessible and easy to use within the Power Platform. With no coding required, AI Builder allows users to add AI capabilities like text recognition, language detection, object detection, and sentiment analysis to their apps and workflows.

One of the most popular use cases is document automation. AI Builder can automatically extract data from invoices, forms, or other structured documents, eliminating the need for manual data entry. It can also predict outcomes based on your data, helping you make informed business decisions. For example, an AI model can predict customer churn, allowing your sales team to take proactive action to retain customers. By integrating AI-driven insights into your workflows, you save time, reduce errors, and make your business processes smarter.

Why you should use it: AI Builder empowers your business to harness the power of AI without the need for data scientists or developers, making it an affordable and scalable solution.

2. Power Apps Component Framework 

For those who have mastered Power Apps' drag-and-drop capabilities, the Power Apps Component Framework is the next step. PCF allows developers to build custom components using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that integrate seamlessly into both model-driven and canvas apps.

Think of PCF as a way to create highly tailored user experiences that go beyond what the out-of-the-box components offer. For example, you can create a custom visual control that integrates with a third-party system or displays data in a completely unique way. And because PCF components are reusable, you can standardise complex functionalities across all of your apps, ensuring consistency and reducing development time in future projects.

By building custom components, your team can address very specific business needs and eliminate workarounds or limitations you might face with pre-built tools. PCF is ideal for businesses with unique operational requirements or those looking to elevate the user experience in their apps.

Why you should use it: PCF provides the flexibility to create truly customized components, driving greater user adoption and enhancing the functionality of your apps.

3. Power BI Dataflows 

Many Power BI users rely on direct connections to their data sources, but Dataflows provide an even more powerful way to collect, transform, and centralise data before it's used in reports and dashboards. Dataflows allow you to build a layer of standardised, clean data from multiple sources. Whether you’re pulling in data from SQL databases, spreadsheets, or cloud apps like Salesforce, Dataflows ensures the data is pre-processed and ready for analysis.

For example, if you're managing customer data from multiple sources, a dataflow can unify this data into a single model, handling data cleaning, transformations, and even combining datasets automatically. This helps ensure that all teams are working from the same set of accurate, up-to-date data, eliminating silos and inaccuracies. Another advantage is that Dataflows are reusable, meaning you can set them up once and apply them to multiple reports or dashboards, reducing time spent on data preparation.

Why you should use it: Dataflows help centralise your data preparation processes, reducing data inconsistencies and improving reporting accuracy, which is especially important for large datasets.

4. Custom Connectors in Power Automate 

Power Automate offers a range of pre-built connectors to automate workflows across popular platforms like SharePoint, Outlook, and Dynamics 365. However, many businesses don’t realise the power of Custom Connectors, which allow you to connect to virtually any web-based service or API—making Power Automate a much more versatile tool.

Custom Connectors are perfect for businesses using industry-specific applications or custom-built software that don’t have native connectors. With Custom Connectors, you can integrate these applications into your automated workflows, ensuring all your systems communicate and reducing manual processes. For example, if you use a proprietary CRM or accounting system, you can create a Custom Connector to automatically sync data between it and your ERP or other platforms.

Custom Connectors can also be reused across multiple flows, making it easier to automate unique business processes that previously seemed too complex or siloed.

Why you should use it: Custom Connectors expand Power Automate’s capabilities, making it possible to automate workflows with any system, not just those supported out-of-the-box.

5. Power Virtual Agents 

Many businesses have heard about chatbots but haven’t fully explored how Power Virtual Agents can transform both internal processes and customer interactions. Power Virtual Agents is a low-code chatbot platform that allows businesses to build and deploy intelligent bots on websites, mobile apps, or even in tools like Microsoft Teams.

These chatbots can answer customer queries, provide instant support, and even help employees navigate internal systems. For example, a customer support bot could guide customers through troubleshooting steps for a product, reducing the load on human agents. Alternatively, internal bots could assist employees with accessing HR documents or submitting IT requests. The possibilities are endless, and the no-code nature of Power Virtual Agents means that even non-developers can create effective bots. Moreover, it integrates with other Power Platform tools, like Power Automate, to trigger workflows based on user interactions.

Why you should use it: Power Virtual Agents help improve both customer and employee experiences by providing on-demand support, reducing wait times, and automating repetitive queries.

Why These Features Matter for Your Business 

By leveraging these often-overlooked features of the Microsoft Power Platform, your business can move beyond the basics, achieving greater efficiency, scalability, and innovation. These features can reduce manual work, improve data consistency, and help your team focus on high-value tasks—all without needing heavy development resources.

Get Started Today 

Ready to unlock the full potential of the Microsoft Power Platform? CRM Knowledge is here to help. Whether you're looking for expert guidance on implementing these features, custom training, or ongoing support, our team is ready to help your business achieve more with the tools you already have.

Get in touch today at  enquiries@crmknowledge.co.uk Or drop us a message on our website  www.crmknowledge.co.uk/contact-us