Announcing Power Platform and Teams updates to help customers adapt to remote work
Modernizing critical business processes and enabling new ways of working
The COVID-19 pandemic upended the operations of companies around the world, forcing many to shift to remote work, often for the first time. Individuals had to quickly adapt to new ways of working, and business leaders have worked to prioritize the well-being of their employees. With Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Power Platform, organizations can quickly adapt business processes and enable workers to collaborate. Today we’re announcing exciting new capabilities that enable businesses and workers to be productive in a remote work world.
Microsoft Teams is essential for thousands of organizations, currently with more than 75 million daily active users, to stay connected, productive, and collaborative. Teams provides the most common tasks that employees need in one place, including chats, meetings, calls, and collaboration.
Users often want to tailor the Teams experience to tasks and workstreams unique to the organization. That’s where Power Platform can help. With tools like Microsoft Power Apps and Microsoft Power Automate, employees can build no-code and low-code custom applications that automate routine processes and supply a structure where there previously was none. They can use Microsoft Power Virtual Agents to embed bots within Teams to answer common questions or find documents using natural language inquiries, or embed Microsoft Power BI reports within a Teams workspace.
Keep your workforce and business processes connected
Today we’re announcing the following features and updates that are available or coming soon to Teams and Power Platform. For additional details, be sure to review today’s announcement from the Microsoft 365 team.
Microsoft Power Apps:
- Add apps from Power Apps to Teams with one-click, making it quick and easy to add your app to Teams.
Microsoft Power Automate:
- New Power Automate triggers and actions built specifically for Teams unlock custom message extensions and allow for automated @mentioning and a customized bot experience.
Microsoft Power Virtual Agents:
- Adding chatbot from Power Virtual Agents to Teams with one-click, making it quick and easy to add your bots to Teams.
- FAQ bot template available in GitHub which allows you to quickly get started building a chatbot for Teams.
- Single sign-on for Power Virtual Agents chatbots in Teams, making using chatbot in Teams a seamless experience.
Microsoft Power BI:
- Simplified “Share to Teams” feature allows you to quickly select the team and channel to share with directly from Power BI.
- Rich thumbnail previews for Power BI charts when pasted into a Teams chat with an adaptive card allow users to collaborate and take actions on that chart.
How three organizations use Teams and Power Platform to modernize work
We love seeing customers reinvent how their workforce collaborates and gets work done with Teams and Power Platform with tailored scenarios that reduce costs.
Telstra
Telstra, a leading Australian telecommunications company, developed a solution to modernize and streamline their field services ticketing process. They found that embedding the ticketing apps in Teams provided field technicians with a single hub to service customers and stay connected with each other, even while working in remote Australian locations. This app and the associated workflows were just the first in what became a robust program to develop low-code apps and workflows to address crucial needs of employees.
Notting Hill Genesis
Notting Hill Genesis is a housing association in the United Kingdom that provides lower-income housing to about 170,000 residents. When the COVID-19 crisis struck, Notting Hill Genesis needed to quickly develop a way to track the status of employees and maintain awareness of employees who tested positive for the virus for the safety of staff and residents. Rajiv Peter, Director of Digital Technology, built a Power Apps app in just a few days’ time and integrated the solution with Teams. When staff test positive, the solution launches notifications to relevant Teams channels using Power Automate. Power BI dashboards in Teams are used to keep the executive board and the COVID-19 response team updated on the situation.
PayPal
Teams has helped PayPal bring together employees from across regions and groups, enabling them to collaborate in a more fluid manner. By leveraging Power Platform in Teams, PayPal has further increased collaboration and meeting effectiveness. PayPal is starting to use Power Apps with Teams to better track programs within the company and autogenerate new Teams channels for employees so they can quickly collaborate on projects. The inclusion of Power BI makes meetings more meaningful and productive, while simultaneously standardizing the format in which data visualizations are delivered.
Get started with Microsoft Teams and Power Platform today
You can start using Teams today and begin to integrate apps and workflows. Microsoft has numerous programs and resources to get you started using Power Automate, Power Apps, Power BI, and Power Virtual Agents. We hope you’ll take advantage of these resources to learn more about transforming your business processes with Teams and Power Platform.
