The first ever Power Platform Conference took place on 9/18 – 9/22 in Orlando, FL. I had the privilege of being one of the attendees and boy oh boy did I not regret one bit! First things first, I will not repeat how anyone wanting to keep up with the latest and greatest in Microsoft 365 should be attending these conferences, as I have already done that in my post titled: “The Microsoft 365 Conference and how you owe it to yourself going to the next one“. Instead, I am this time listing my main takeaways because I feel like they will be of great impact in the months to come! So here they are:

Increased collaboration with three big improvements

Coauthoring

If you EVER tried to work on an app with a colleague (or even on a separate browser tab) you were quickly faced with disappointment as Power Apps will lock to a single browser tab at a time. While the ability of adding comments has improved collaboration, this is finally true real-time collaboration without the need of taking a month long course on Git and more pro-level features.

Virtual Maker Matching

As you use the help bot (built in Power Virtual Agents) you will get matched with other Makers in the organization that have built functionality similar to the one you are trying to build. #community

Adaptive cards for Power Apps

Adaptive cards makes apps themselves more accessible as specific actions can be distributed to users via Teams. Think of them as mini, actionable widgets.

Source: Power Apps brings collaboration to center stage with 3 big announcements

Automation COE toolkit

Power Automate Desktop components are now part of Center of Excellence, which will greatly aid RPA implementations and desktop automation projects.

Source: Introducing the Automation Kit for Power Platform

SAP connectors & templates

I have never used SAP so do not have much of an opinion on this particular announcement. What I do know is that this is something many have been asking for and considering how happy the room got when it was announced, I know it is a big deal.

Source: Announcing Deeper SAP Integration for the Power Platform

Power BI Goals

This has been out for a while but this was the first time I was able to see a full on demo. Goals are basically simple to read score cards that will facilitate a whole lot the life of management as they can get a direct link to the data that matters the most to them. Those data points can then be drilled down and explored just like any other Power BI report.

Source: Introducing Goals in Power BI

Power Apps are now (even more) modern

The Power Platform Conference was absolutely GREAT to catch up on all I missed. There were so many additional features that have improved quite a bit since I last checked and I will like to incorporate them in my applications moving forward. We now have model-driven apps using Fluent UI, custom pages (not to be confused with Power Pages) and of course the Creator Kit, which is a great way to enforce a more professional standard for enterprise apps. I will be documenting my experience with some of these and sharing it here at a later post.

Source: aka.ms/creatorkit

This is an amazing community and everyone is hungry

I could not stress enough how hungry everyone is for these new tools and improvements. Innovation is everywhere and it is absolutely impossible to keep up with all the changes. The best thing is that you simply don’t have to learn everything yourself: there are so many developers out there, each building their own solutions and everyone is willing to share their experiences. Which brings me to my last point.

If you want to join in on the fun, there is no better time to switch your career than now!

Microsoft now has an entire FREE program dedicated to career switchers, so if you do not know how to start, here is a great way to take training, get certified and join in on this amazing community. Did I also mention it is entirely FREE? You can read all about it at https://powerup.microsoft.com

Bonus: more Viva modules coming soon!

Not presented at #MPPC22 and completely outside of the conference’s scope but I would like to mention them here because the announcement went out on the last day: Viva Amplify and Viva Pulse.