The course is part of this learning path
In this course, we take an introductory look at the productivity tools included within Microsoft 365. We go over the wide range of benefits each tool can provide and give examples of how and when to use each tool.
Learning Objectives
Have a greater understanding of each tool and be able to explain in detail what each tool can do and the situations in which it could be used.
Intended Audience
Users new to Microsoft 365.
Prerequisites
An understanding of general technical concepts.
Power Platform is a collection of 4 tools used to make powerful solutions for organizations. These tools also are provided with Microsoft 365 depending upon your organizations licensing and include Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, and Power Virtual Agents. Each of these tools provides a unique solution to meet a range of business needs. The strength of each of the apps in Power Platform is that they are require little to no knowledge of coding and therefor allow anyone to create powerful tools for an organization
To quickly go over them we will start with Power Apps. Power Apps is a tool you can use to create custom applications for an organization.
These apps can be used on both mobile an PC device and have a range of different uses. Some examples of this are an app used to track budget spending of employees or an internal service request app for employees. Power Automate on the other hand is a tool you can use to automate business processes.
These can be processes like automatically uploading an email attachment to your OneDrive or even sending a message to another user in Microsoft Teams. It is important to know that Power Automate was previously known as Microsoft flow and you may hear some refer to it as Flow. Just know that if you hear Flow, it is referring to Power Automate.
Power BI is a tool used to analyze data and create data visualizations and reports. You can pull data from different sources and connect it all within a dashboard to showcase different information or share it with others in the organization. And finally, we have Power Virtual Agents.
This is a tool that allows users to create a custom chatbot for their organization. Much like the other applications, it uses a no-code graphical interface that allows anyone to create chatbots without the need for developers. Some examples of things you could make with Power Virtual Agents are an IT support chatbot or an information chatbot that can provide information on your organizations stock or hours. Each of these apps provides different tools to create solutions for any organization.
Lee has spent most of his professional career learning as much as he could about PC hardware and software while working as a PC technician with Microsoft. Once covid hit, he moved into a customer training role with the goal to get as many people prepared for remote work as possible using Microsoft 365. Being both Microsoft 365 certified and a self-proclaimed Microsoft Teams expert, Lee continues to expand his knowledge by working through the wide range of Microsoft certifications.