According to Statista, the number of daily active users of Microsoft Teams has almost doubled in the past year, increasing from 75 million users in April 2020 to 145 million as of April 2021. Similar is the case with Microsoft Power Platform; Power Apps alone has 10 million active users.
Microsoft Teams user activity has skyrocketed in the last one and a half years due to the profound shift to different hybrid models – remote-first, hybrid teams, digital-first, distributed, etc. Microsoft Teams was primarily launched to enhance communication between employees and collaboration at the workplace. However, with time, Microsoft Teams has upgraded and become more than just a communication platform. The recent update in Microsoft Teams enables users to connect, collaborate, and stay in the workflow with full context. Similarly, Microsoft Power Platform was launched to help business users build custom applications with ease leveraging Power Apps, analyze the data shared and stored utilizing Power BI and automate business processes using Power Automate. In addition, users can create intelligent bots using Power Virtual Agents seamlessly.
During the recently concluded Microsoft Ignite Fall 2021 event, Microsoft announced deeper integration between its two powerful modern workplace solutions – Teams and Power Platform. The integration will benefit organizations in many ways and prepare them for the future of work. Let’s check out details about this integration and how it will benefit organizations.
New Enhancements in Microsoft Teams
As the world shifts to hybrid working normal, organizations face various challenges. The new integration between Microsoft Teams and Power Platform will facilitate organizations to mitigate some of their existing challenges.
- Power Apps in Teams: Users can now take along their favorite and most useful business apps created using Power Apps to Microsoft Teams and embed them as a new tab or personal app in the Teams digital workspace. In addition to this, with low code development solutions in Power Platform, developers can develop collaborative apps and workflows for the internal organization and seamlessly distribute them in Teams.
- Power BI in Teams: Users can embed reports created using the Power BI in their Teams workspace for their reference and collaboration. Moreover, users can monitor the progress of their projects with a set of productivity-tracking features using Power BI Goals in Teams.
- Power Automate in Teams: Through chats, messages, adaptive cards, or any form of conversation on the Microsoft Teams platform, users can now trigger a Power Automate flow to automate their business process. The automation of processes works as per a pre-defined set of inputs or triggers.
- Power Virtual Agents in Teams: Organizations can now create Chatbots for Teams swiftly using Power Virtual Agents. The chatbot can be added to the Teams interface for quick and seamless interaction with other members of the organization.
Latest Enhancements in Microsoft Power Platform
As a low code platform, Power Platform empowers developers and business users to rapidly build applications, seamlessly analyze data, easily automate processes, and integrate Chatbots through its various solutions. The new integration between Teams and Power Platform proliferates the span of this low code tool. Let’s analyze the impact of this integration on the Power Platform.
- Power Virtual Agents: New enhancements announced during Microsoft Ignite Fall 2021 have made the Power Virtual Agents even more intelligent. Users can now create robust chatbots that can understand the messages and revert them promptly and accurately in Teams. The proactive replies are based on pre-set conditions, questions, or answers. These bots can also help in support group conversations in channel conversations.
- Power Apps: Users can now create impactful business applications to strengthen teamwork. The custom-built applications created using Power Apps can have Microsoft Teams chat experiences integrated with them to improve communication among the team members, increase productivity and collaboration while at work.
- Power BI: With the new Teams and Power Platform integration, users can now have data-driven insights with the help of a more robust and intelligent Power BI tool that enables business users and stakeholders in the course of planning and decision making.
With these new integrations between Microsoft Teams and Power Platform, Microsoft is empowering organizations for a new world of hybrid work. The updates enable employees in an organization to communicate effectively no matter where they are—and no matter when they work, ensuring increased productivity.
Leverage Teams & Power Platform Integration to Make Your Business Future-Ready
As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella commented, “the case for digital transformation has never been more urgent. Digital technology is a powerful deflationary force in an inflationary economy. Businesses small and large can improve their productivity as well as the affordability of their products and services by building tech intensity.”
For the past 23 years, AgreeYa has been helping organizations to modernize their workplace, stay connected, and be productive through its Microsoft-based services and solutions. As a Microsoft Global Systems Integrator and Gold Partner, we are best positioned to help organizations to leverage the power of Microsoft technologies to enhance collaboration among employees, improve productivity, and scale up their business.