It’s back to this time of year when Microsoft is holding its Build Developer event, and with that comes a lot of news for all kinds of Microsoft products. This includes Power Platform, Microsoft’s low-code development platform designed to make it easier for businesses to create applications without the need for advanced programming skills. This year, Microsoft is introducing Power Pages, a creator of low-cost websites, as well as Power Apps Express Design.
Power Pages is a new addition to the Power Platform family and makes it easier for businesses to create modern, secure websites using the low-code platform. Users can start designing a website from scratch by adding text, video, images, forms, etc., or you can use one of the templates provided by Microsoft to get started. While designed to be user-friendly for low-code users, it also integrates with Visual Studio Code, Azure DevOps, and GitHub so you can use these code tools for more advanced capabilities.
Another big news is the Power Apps Express Design feature. With this, it is now possible to enter any design entry, such as a PDF file, Figma designs or even a hand-drawn design, into Power Apps and see it as a suitable application with work controls and data storage . You can add more screens to the app by adding more images. This should make it easier for you to never go from design stage to having a working app.
Microsoft also announced Power Virtual Agents 2.0, the next iteration of its simplified bot-building tool that is part of Power Platform. This new iteration brings together the simple low-power capabilities of Power Virtual Agents and the advanced capabilities of the Azure Bot Framework Composer (for professional code users), creating a unified experience for all types of developers. The design canvas for Power Virtual Agents now includes new features, including the ability to switch between graphical and code views, as well as support for multimedia responses so that robots can send images, videos, adaptive cards, and more. You can sign up to preview these capabilities now.
Another new capability is Datamart in Power BI, which makes it easy to create datasets with data from different sources. Datamart uses Power Query to capture information from these different sources and automatically generates a dataset that can be used to create reports.
Microsoft also announced hosted RPA (Robotic Process Automation) robots, which enable cloud process automation. Hosted (or unattended) RPA bots can be created using a set of basic parameters and hosted on Azure-powered virtual machines, scaling as needed for different RPA scenarios. This service also does not require an Azure subscription.
Finally, Microsoft is making it easier for ISVs to build Power Automate capabilities in their own applications with an updated Power Automate insert SDK. In addition, Microsoft is introducing a payment model for Power Automate, which allows ISVs to pay for Power Automate on behalf of their customers, as they would with an Azure service. The SDK Technical Embed is available for testing today, but there will be more information about the pay-per-use plan in July in Microsoft Inspire.