Microsoft Ignite recap: Power Platform news and announcements you may have missed

We want to extend a big thanks to everyone who joined us at Microsoft Ignite 2021. It was a jam-packed few days of sessions, news announcements, and live interactive discussions with the global community—more content than anyone could tune into live. Most of the content is now available on-demand-including session videos, transcripts, presentations, and related content. We’ve rounded up some of the highlights to help you get caught up.

Get started by watching the keynote, “Microsoft Ignite into Focus: Business Applications” session—it’s a great overview of new and upcoming capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.

Build enterprise-grade low code applications at scale faster than ever

At Microsoft Ignite, we further enabled you to build enterprise-grade low code applications faster by introducing pay-as-you-go for Microsoft Power Apps and Power Apps mobile apps.

Pay-as-you-go for Power Apps is a more flexible way to pay for Power Apps and Microsoft Power Platform related services. Customers can use a Microsoft Azure subscription to cover their Power Apps based on actual usage. With the new pay-as-you-go plan, customers only pay for what they use, making it even easier to get started with low code with low risk and then scale their investments over time based on the usage patterns of their solutions. Read more about pay-as-you-go for Power Apps.

To deliver a seamless app experience for users, Power Apps mobile apps (preview) will enable makers to easily package canvas apps as Android and iOS mobile apps for corporate end users. Power Apps mobile apps will allow makers to deliver a completely branded, end-to-end experience for their mobile apps—distributed natively through popular tools such as Microsoft Endpoint Manager or similar third-party MDM solutions, and private enterprise app stores like Microsoft App Center, Apple Volume Purchase Program, and Managed Google Play. Read more about Power Apps mobile apps.

Read a deep dive on the Power Apps blog and watch the Microsoft Ignite session to see these capabilities in action.

Streamline collaboration and communication with intelligent virtual agents

At Microsoft Ignite we also released a variety of updates that make it easier to collaborate with teammates leveraging your intelligent virtual agents. Several of those collaborative enhancements were updates to Microsoft Power Virtual Agents bots in Microsoft Teams, such as Microsoft Teams proactive messaging, sharing bots with colleagues via security groups, and direct mention and interaction capabilities with bots in Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft proactive messaging unlocks a rich set of scenarios from notifying users that their expense report has been approved to reminders to update their emergency contact information. The best part is you can include topics in Power Virtual Agents to reply to their follow-up questions such as “How is my emergency contact information privacy protected?”. Learn more about how to notify Microsoft Teams users with proactive message.

Sharing bots with colleagues via security groups enables users to find and install the shared bot directly from the Microsoft Teams app store in the “Built by your colleague” section, or directly install the bot via installation link and email notifications. There is no need to worry about data leakage as only members of the shared security groups will be able to install and chat with the bot. Learn more about the share your bot feature.

Lastly, Power Virtual Agents now allows bots built-in Microsoft Teams to be directly added to the team that the bot is created in. Team members can directly interact with the bot via @mentioning the bot’s name in their team’s channel where everyone can see the bot’s response. In a product design team and need to share product design best practices with your teammates? Simply ask the bot in the channel and everyone can see the response.

Read a deep dive on the Power Virtual Agents blog and watch the Microsoft Ignite session to see these capabilities in action.

Optimize how you work with RPA and process mining in Power Automate

We announced the next evolution of process advisor with the preview of process mining. Process mining is part of process advisor and provides direct data insights across the business processes many organizations use daily to identify inefficiencies across workflows.

Process advisor is comprised of two powerful capabilities, the existing task mining capability for capturing user interactions on a desktop, and now with process mining it uses business data to provide a holistic view into bottlenecks across the business.

With process mining, organizations can do the following to easily get started: Quickly create a new process with the intuitive interface in process advisor and upload your data from the appropriate system of record to select your key data sources for analysis.

Additionally, customize your data with deeper analytics: Customize your insights by selecting from an array of attributes that you define—such as regions, invoice types, and more—and filter down to identify bottlenecks in your processes. You can review the process maps and analytics to glean insights across your business processes.

Lastly, discover inefficiencies and improve productivity: From these insights, you can quickly identify which activities are most time-consuming, discover commonalities in their business practices, and improve efficiencies by identifying bottlenecks—ultimately streamlining workflows and boosting productivity.

Read a deep dive on the Power Automate blog and watch the Microsoft Ignite session to see these capabilities in action.

Enable data-driven decisions everywhere collaboration happens with enterprise-grade analytics

Microsoft Power BI heavily invested to create a rich experience within your collaboration platform infused with AI to drive insights everywhere.

One such example is the Power BI App for Microsoft Teams making data more accessible across your organization. It helps everyone seamlessly include data in chats, meetings, calendar invites, and teams’ channels. By making data more accessible, organizations can easily bring teams together, have insights-based discussions at the point of collaboration, and make better decisions faster.

Read a deep dive on the Power BI blog and watch the Microsoft Ignite session to see these capabilities in action.

Read more news from Microsoft Ignite

Be sure to catch up on all the news and sessions from Microsoft Ignite, now available on-demand—including downloadable videos of sessions, transcripts, and related resources. If you need a roadmap, check out our guide to Microsoft Ignite.