Kiandra Insights

Top 5 takeaways from the Microsoft Business Applications Summit (MBAS) 2021

William Cornwill - Kiandra Power Platform expert
by
William Cornwill
Kiandra Power Platform expert
|
May 18, 2021
William Cornwill
Kiandra Power Platform expert
May 18, 2021
Microsoft's icon against a colourful patterned background

Earlier this month I virtually attended the Microsoft Business Applications Summit (MBAS). I woke up at 1am and watched live sessions all night until the Sun came up the next day.

This yearly event showcases the new advancements in both Microsoft’s low/no code application space–Power Platform, and the Dynamics 365 platform.

There were several announcements this year which I believe will be game changers for users and creators of Power Platform solutions.

1. Power BI Goals (Public Preview)

A very exciting announcement, which had a flurry of twitter activity, was the public preview release of Power BI Goals. This solution will allow organisations to create AI and data-driven scorecards and present them natively in Microsoft Teams. You will need a Power BI Premium license, and from what I have seen so far will be well worth it.

2. Modern app designer (May 2021)

A fantastic new feature is the ability to now publish Canvas app pages within your Model-driven app interfaces. This will create very rich and visually appealing user interfaces. In addition, model-driven apps are getting a new forms creation tools which starts from the data rather than from blank.

3. Converged authoring roadmap

Coming in October 2021 will be a merged authoring experience for Power Apps Canvas Apps combing both the current Teams and Web authoring experiences. This time next year, April 2022, we will also see a new Power Apps Studio which proposes to combine both the Canvas and Model-driven app creation experiences into a single authoring environment.

4. Organisation-wide apps

Canvas apps developed in Microsoft Teams can now be shared with your colleagues across the organisation. The no longer need to be a member of the team where the application was created.

5. Five new application templates

The five existing application templates; Milestones, Bulletins, Issue Reporting, Employee Ideas, and Inspections are being expanded with Profile+ coming in April, Boards and Discussions coming in May and two others coming in June. These templates make it quick to deploy and implement solutions for businesses which can be customised to meet specific requirements.

I am looking forward to all these new capabilities landing in the platform and many more as the platform grows and matures.

Power BI goals

Modern apps designer

Application templates

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