Microsoft is, once again, making a huge splash in the tech arena—and this time, in the very dynamic low-code space. By allowing more people to work with tools like Visual Basic and Excel, the multinational tech corporation’s Power Platform is extending the pool of developers by simplifying the app development process and lifecycle.
Among Power Platform’s many components is Power Automate Desktop—a no-code tool that connects app endpoints, adding payload transformations and business logic to its flows. In other words, users will have an easier time linking desktop apps to cloud services and a substantial array of line-of-business programs.
All that said, it’s clear how Power Automate Desktop will be an integral aspect of the Power Platform equation, given that it can capture what one can do on their website and automate these into seamless activities.
Power Platform is bridging gaps
Microsoft’s Power Platform is relatively new but already it’s proven crucial in bridging many gaps, especially during the height of the virus outbreak. For instance, cross-organizational teams are now more able to build and maintain programs that serve not only customer-facing demands but internal communication necessities, as well.
Simply put, like many other no-code tools, Power Platform is equally capable of linking disparate systems, ensuring that a streamlined experience makes it easier for users to work and function.
The Power of Power Automate
Similar to Zapier and Airtable, Power Automate is designed to make your business logic fly. For example, it can extract data from Microsoft’s Power Apps and then translate that information into an activity based on another activity that triggers movement. From sending templated replies caused by particular activities to notifying key personnel whenever a process is fulfilled, Power Automate relies on actions to determine every step of your business operations.
Thanks to a myriad of connectors, tapping into several systems like Excel, SharePoint, SQL, and many more becomes a faster process. It also helps how Microsoft provides templates citizen developers can optimize to ensure they’re guided every step of the way.
Why no-code is a bigger king in 2021
If you’ve read more than a handful of our blogs, you know, first-hand, how we’ve established, time and again, how no-code is the future.
Through applications like Bubble and Power Platform, non-coders are empowered to take on building solutions of their own. To re-word, anyone can be a software developer these days, granted how no-code has democratized the whole process of creating applications—and clearly, Microsoft is winning here too.
Because of friendly program-building drag-and-drop interfaces, citizen developers can now take into their own hands’ app development that would have belonged to overwhelmed IT departments.
All these mentioned, you’re probably telling yourself: “If I can create all these impactful programs on my own, why do I still entrust these solutions to app developers who pledge in building my apps in weeks or months?”
The answer can vary.
These tools are awesome if you need a quick fix for something, but there are times you’ll want experts to take over your project, especially when certain functionalities you want your software to carry seem complex to wrap around.
Of course, other considerations also fit the picture. If what you need is a solution that solves more than a bowlful of other problems, perhaps a more traditional approach in app development can help—and many times, these are practices that merit the help of a pro.
Naturally, complexity can play a huge role in how your apps turn out too.
Power Platform Isn’t Going Anywhere
Whether it’s Microsoft’s Process Advisor suggesting common workflows or Power Automate analyzing your first business process, everything else will easily fall into place when you build with Microsoft.
It also doesn’t hurt how a process map allows users to visualize activities from the start up until the very end of the logic they want to run.
Process Advisor helps automate components of a business process thanks to Power Automate’s designer. So, if you’re looking for ways to actualize your ideas, the platform will extend a connectors list you can check, each with a suggestion based on the current look of your process map.
Say, you’re establishing a flow that takes care of finalizing invoices. You can combine tools to open and read messages from your email, cherry-pick necessary information, and then pre-answer records in your system before you’re handed everything neatly for approval. Compare this to manually typing dates and figures and then computing everything by yourself.
If anything, the breakthroughs in the no-code and low-code space keep coming.
The only thing left is to keep up.
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