I really enjoyed delivering a session on “Democratize development with Power Apps & AI Builder” for the #m365virtualmarathon conference on the Boston Marathon Track. I get so excited talking about the endless possibilities of #LowCode #NoCode Platforms like the Microsoft #PowerApps to empower businesses around the world.
2. ABOUT ME
25 years experience in running a software firm(s) with operations in India, USA and UK
Been through four industry’, three business cycles & architected several high-traffic applications
A Microsoft Regional Director (Honorary) from 1999
Created Simpligic – a U.S.patent pending (62/343,406) news app
Predicted in 2003, that Mobile Phones will be the first and only computer for the developing world.
3. AGENDA
Why do we need low-code
platforms?
Convince you, the professional;
Is it relevant during a pandemic
Power Apps AI Builder
5. COMPANIES ARE FULL OF APPS
Companies have an average of 129 apps, some have over 200 apps*
World is in middle of a pandemic, negative growth and fast change
Internal or professional applications costs average of $45,000 per application
* Study by Okta Inc in 2018
16. POWER APPS IS NOT
.NET 6.0 / .NET Core / .NET MAUI/ WinUI/ WPF
Xamarin
Visual Basic
SharePoint*
* Lotus Notes to SharePoint
17. MICROSOFT POWER PLATFORM
Microsoft Dataverse
Data
connectors
AI Builder
Portals
Power Automate
Process automation
Power Virtual Agents
Intelligent chat bots
Power Apps
Application development
Power BI
Business analytics
18. BUILD FOR THE CLOUD & TO BE CONNECTED
Built-in connectivity to over 350+ cloud services,
files, databases, web APIs, etc.
Seamless hybrid connectivity to on-premises
systems via the On-Premises Data Gateway
Build custom connectors for everyone to
leverage
20. PRO DEVELOPERS (CODE FIRST)
Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code
Azure Services
Functions to Kubernetes – your pick
Azure / Office Data Services
Microsoft Graph
Cosmos DB
Microsoft Dataverse (aka CDS)
Custom Controls
Pro Developers create visuals based on TypeScript
Use common frameworks like React
Check in to source control (Git) and support CI/CD
21. AI BUILDER
Build, train, and publish AI models without a
single line of code
Built on top of Azure AI
AI Scenarios
Documents
Vision
Prediction
Language
Citizen Developers
22. CUSTOM MODELS
Prediction: Likelihood of specific business
outcomes.
Form Processing: From scans, emails, PDFs, and
images.
Object Detection: Recognizes and counts visual
objects.
Entity Extraction: Recognize your entities in
large volume of text.
Category Classification: Classifies text to track
sentiment, and mine insights.
26. FORRESTER REPORT
74% - Average cost to develop an application saved by PowerApps
$742,449 – Was the amount saved by a composite app in one organization
Developing applications in-house eliminates vendor license costs
Power Apps increase activity efficiencies
Mobile applications developed with PowerApps are more secure
PowerApps empowers users, which increases employee satisfaction
Employees can make better and faster decisions from better access to information
People were on bench during a lock down, but you want to utilize your employees for both physical and virtual store jobs
Business analysis managers Greg Soto and Matt McDermott – both of whom sit in T-Mobile’s Northeast Regional Business Planning organization – quickly produced a solution using Power Apps, a “low-code” method for building professional-grade applications using simple, drag-and-drop functionality and pre-built templates.
The result was the COVID-19 Employee Roster Mobile App, an easily updateable app that uses Power BI to unify detailed information from numerous sources, yielding dashboards and reports that provided T-Mobile team members with constant staffing insights via their handheld devices.
“From the first piece of code to a rough draft, it all took about 24 hours,” explains Soto. “From there, it took one more day to iron out requests and notes, and then we took it live.”
T-Mobile announced early on it would take steps to maintain income for hourly employees, and their paychecks were dependent on constant, accurate updates regarding who was working in a store, who was “on the bench” (aka willing to work, but without a physical location) and who had been assigned to a virtual retail location.
According to Douglas Allbright, a T-Mobile retail store manager in Syracuse, New York, the app’s arrival was a godsend. “Right around March 15, T-Mobile made the call to close my location in a mall,” he recalls. “We began operating out of a corporate store in Syracuse, combining three teams into one store — it was a very chaotic time. Suddenly, the challenge was to manage scheduling while simultaneously prioritizing everyone’s health and safety. To do that, people needed to opt in or opt out, often on a daily basis.”