Earlier this year, Microsoft introduced the Power Platform, a set of tools that enable its customers to build customized business solutions with ease. The Power Platform consists of four cloud-based products: Power BI, PowerApps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agent.
Many of you familiar with the Power Platform may already have heard of its benefits for Dynamics 365 or Office 365 users, but there are Power platform features that the GP community can take advantage of as well.
Power BI allows users to visualize their data with graphs and tables. With Power BI, companies can enhance their financial reporting by providing more insightful data for sales predictions or managing current inventory concerns.
PowerApps allows users to design and build web and mobile apps easily with little or no coding. This can significantly lower development costs and allows businesses to create apps that meet their unique organizational needs.
Power Automate, formerly known as Microsoft Flow, is a process automation service. Users can design and build workflows between currently used apps and services. An example of a flow could be a simple ‘request for time-off’ process that might generate an email for approval.
GP users are a loyal group and are very confident in the strength, functionality, and reliability of the GP product. Many times, migrating to a new ERP solution is not the desired ‘solution’ due to possible disruption in existing complex business processes and key integrations with other legacy systems. The Power Platform Apps can extend and provide the additional functionality and enhancements that you are looking in your current Dynamics GP environment.
Power Platform apps are more than a GP macro. Where a macro is basically performing a task over and over, Power Platform provides the functionality of moving data into GP (i.e. processing employee expense reports) as well as providing a means for GP data to flow to other systems. Power Platform apps could provide that missing Artificial Intelligence link.
With solutions that can be built with little or no coding, Power Platform also provides a lot of flexibility for GP end users. It enables the business end-users to have access to well-designed easy-to-use tools to solve their everyday business challenges.
Microsoft’s Power Platform puts the GP end-user in the driver’s seat. With Power Platform, the lines between technology and business are blended or merged. The developers and the business end-users can find that commonality and achieve their goals together. Power Platform provides a tool to enhance your current GP processes/reporting without the heavy cost of upgrading.
