Microsoft Power Platform

Power Platform is a collective term for four Microsoft products: Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate and Power Virtual Agent. They provide the means to help people easily manipulate, surface, automate and analyze data and can be used with Office 365 and Dynamics 365.

Microsoft Copilot Studio: Unlock the Future of AI-Powered Productivity and Automation

Microsoft Copilot Studio: Unlock the Future of AI-Powered Productivity and Automation

Evelyn Dennis

Microsoft Copilot Studio offers a powerful toolkit for building and customizing AI copilots tailored to your business. It merges advanced conversational capabilities, including custom GPTs, generative AI plugins, and manually crafted topics, empowering users to create personalized AI-driven solutions with ease.

Microsoft Copilot Studio - Future of AI-Powered Productivity

Comprehensive AI Development

With Copilot Studio, businesses can build, test, and publish both standalone copilots and chatbots, all while managing them securely. This full end-to-end process—designing, deploying, analyzing, and managing copilots—happens within a unified web experience, simplifying workflows and ensuring consistency. Additionally, as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, everything created goes live instantly, streamlining deployment.

Seamless Integration with Microsoft Power Platform and Azure

Built on the Power Platform and integrating seamlessly with Microsoft Azure technologies like Azure OpenAI Studio, Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure Bot Service, Copilot Studio is designed to cater to both IT professionals and creators. It supports customization for Microsoft 365 or creating standalone copilots, such as those for specific functions like IT support or sales enablement. This flexibility allows businesses to address targeted challenges with specialized AI copilots.

Key Features of Copilot Studio

Microsoft Copilot Studio - Future of AI-Powered Productivity and Automation

1. Integrated Solution Explorer: Navigate and manage projects seamlessly within Copilot Studio.
 2. Updated GPT-4o Model: An enhanced model ensuring accurate, relevant responses.
 3. Topics and Actions: Organize workflows with structured task management.
 4. Large File Support: Generate responses from files up to 512 MB.
 5. Non-Text Element Citations: Cite tabular data, diagrams, images and other non-text elements from uploaded files as knowledge sources in responses.
 6. UI Improvements: Enhanced user interface in Teams and Web chat for better citations and AI-generated labels.
 7. Performance Enhancements: Faster web chat and authoring canvas performance, even for complex topics.
 8. Variety of Knowledge Sources: Extensive collection connectors for platforms like Salesforce, SAP ERP, SharePoint, ServiceNow, and more which help Copilot ingest more data from various sources.

Positive Impact on Business Scenarios

1. Automating Routine Tasks: Custom copilots automate repetitive tasks, freeing up employees to focus on more strategic activities. For example, ICG, a startup construction firm, uses Copilot to write customer proposals six times faster, allowing their sales team to pursue more opportunities and increase revenue.

2. Improving Decision-Making: By providing intelligent insights and data analysis, custom copilots help businesses make better decisions. PKSHA, a software development firm, reported a 75% reduction in time spent on data analysis, enabling their customer success team to provide quicker and more insightful recommendations.

3. Enhancing Customer Service: Custom copilots can assist customers directly, improving service quality and response times. For instance, UiPath helped an insurance customer save over 90,000 hours through greater efficiency with Copilot.

4. Boosting Productivity: By integrating with various business applications and data sources, custom copilots streamline workflows and enhance productivity KPMG has seen a 50% boost in employee productivity by leveraging Copilot for tasks like generating reports and accessing real-time insights.

5. Accelerating Time to Market: Businesses are experiencing faster time to market for new products and services. In a survey, companies with up to 300 employees reported a 12% faster time to market due to Copilot’s capabilities.

Flexible Licensing Options for Copilot Studio

The $200-per-month* Microsoft Copilot Studio tenant capacity license provides up to 25,000 messages each month, ideal for organizations with high-volume interaction needs. Each user involved in creating copilots also requires a zero-cost “Per User” license, which limits development access to licensed users while maintaining broad usability across the tenant.

Organizations requiring additional capacity can purchase extra capacity packs, each adding 25,000 messages per month.

Message Consumption & Billed Messages

Billing is based on each message a user sends to trigger a response from Copilot which is counted as a billed message, with rates as follows:

  • Regular (Non-generative AI): Counts as 1 message.
  • Generative AI (Gen AI) answers using your data: Counts as 2 messages.

Examples:

  • If a user asks for store hours and the Copilot responds, that’s 1 billed message.
  • If Copilot greets the user on a website, that’s 1 billed message.
  • If a user asks about store hours for a holiday, and Copilot uses Generative AI to provide an answer, it counts as 2 billed messages.

Fast and Flexible Deployment

Time Management

  1. Rapid Deployment: Copilot Studio allows businesses to transition to AI-driven chatbot solutions in just four weeks. This expedited migration process minimizes downtime and accelerates the time-to-value for organizations looking to implement chatbots
  2. Proof of Concept (PoC): The platform offers a tailored PoC that enables businesses to visualize the potential impact of their chatbot solutions quickly. This feature allows stakeholders to assess the effectiveness of the chatbot before full deployment, thereby saving time on unnecessary iterations and adjustments.
  3. Low-Code Development: With a low-code interface, Copilot Studio empowers users without extensive technical backgrounds to create and customize chatbots. This accessibility reduces the time required for development and allows for quicker iterations based on user feedback

Implementation Features

  1. Customizability: Copilot Studio supports the creation of bespoke AI copilots tailored to specific business needs, allowing for greater flexibility in design and functionality compared to pre-built solutions. This customization ensures that the chatbot can effectively address unique operational requirements, enhancing overall implementation success.
  2. Integration Capabilities: The platform seamlessly integrates with existing CRM systems and workflows, ensuring that chatbots enhance current operations without causing disruptions. This integration capability is crucial for effective implementation, as it allows chatbots to utilize existing data and processes.
  3. Comprehensive Tools: Copilot Studio provides a wide array of conversational AI tools, including GPT-4o model, AI plugins. It also contains a large collection of pre-built out of the box connectors to help connect to various platforms. These tools facilitate the development of sophisticated chatbots capable of handling complex queries and providing personalized interactions, which are essential for effective customer engagement.
  4. Multi-Channel Deployment: The ability to deploy chatbots across various platforms—such as websites, mobile apps, and Microsoft Teams—ensures that businesses can reach their customers wherever they are, enhancing user experience and operational efficiency
Microsoft Copilot Studio AI-driven insights

Embrace the Future with Microsoft Copilot Studio

Microsoft Copilot Studio is redefining how businesses harness AI to achieve greater efficiency, streamline decision-making, and deliver superior customer experiences. Its suite of powerful tools—from integrated solution explorers to advanced GPT-4o capabilities—supports customized AI copilots for various business needs. These copilots automate tasks, deliver insights, and enhance customer engagement across multiple channels.
 
With its flexible licensing options and rapid deployment capabilities, Copilot Studio is accessible to businesses of any scale, facilitating a seamless transition to AI-enhanced operations. The platform’s built-in low-code and no-code features empower even non-technical users to create high-quality solutions, while powerful integrations with Microsoft Azure, Power Platform, and a vast array of external connectors ensure compatibility across systems.
 
Whether you aim to automate sales, improve customer service, or accelerate project timelines, Copilot Studio enables you to tailor your copilots to meet specific business demands. And as a SaaS platform, it brings AI solutions to life instantly, allowing you to achieve measurable results without delay. Explore Microsoft Copilot Studio today and unlock the transformative potential of custom AI copilots tailored to your organization’s unique requirements.

Microsoft Power Pages Launched

HABY JOSEPH

The most powerful way to publish and share your ideas. 

microsoft-power-pages

Microsoft has just recently made it easy for their creators to obtain a brand-new platform designed for building affordable business-centric websites, named Microsoft Power Pages (MPP). Whether you have a low-code plan or are a professional developer working on the project, the initiatives taken by this company will empower you to create engaging content more easily and swiftly. So, this affordable and scalable solution empowers you to build business-centric websites easily and quickly. 

power-platform-page-cycle

Streamline business processes and easily automate workflows using low-code development tools. 

Power Pages makes it easier for organizations to rapidly create and manage beautiful and highly customizable websites without technical expertise from IT. This solution is significantly different from Power Apps Templates, a feature of PowerApps, which only allowed users to quickly create external portals. Power Pages takes the portal experience even further by providing much more powerful capabilities for page creation using a visual, low-code model that does not require any coding skills at all. This allows employees or customers to easily build their own pages or for IT professionals to customize applications on behalf of their organization, with advanced security capabilities built right in along with modern design tools and other customizations that larger organizations need. 

Low-code web development is not just useful for basic projects like a site to showcase a company profile or use as an e-commerce platform for other content! With Power Pages, you can do that and so much more such as support enterprise-wide, professional solutions at scale.
– Charles Lamanna, Corporate Vice President 

Power-Pages-Buil-Without-Boundaries

Build powerful business websites in minutes 

With an adaptable extensibility path for Microsoft Power Platform, it is now much simpler across broad varieties of industries to streamline business processes and enhance efficiency through automated workflows to ultimately streamline business processes and streamline end-to-end business procedures for any company. Microsoft Power Platform is far better by itself. Users can now complete comprehensive low-code business processes and completely automate workflows that generate a seamless end-to-end business solution for your company. Microsoft Power Platform functions together perfectly. 

Power-Pages-Modern-Secure-Responsive

Microsoft Power Pages Features in a Nutshell 

  • A powerful design studio that allows you to customize your power pages site in just a few clicks. 
  • Create your own layouts and styles and preview the changes in real-time. 
  • Customize your website without needing to code. This makes creating a website as easy as designing a PowerPoint Slideshow. 
  • Choose a style that fits your brand. Choose from over many pre-built themes that can be customized and extended to match your brand. 
  • Publish your website to the web and get your new site up and running in minutes using unlimited content blocks and pages. 
  • Design your own website pages with drag-and-drop technology. 
  • A one-stop solution for website building, modeling, visualizing and publishing. 
  • Save time in achieving your goals: Create professional modern-looking, engaging and interactive websites within a few minutes. 
  • Make your website a central hub for all your business information. 
  • Create a powerful site that drives conversions and increases sales. 
  • Build a site with a single click and focus on business. 
  • Create responsive and engaging pages that can be viewed on any device. 
  • Highly customizable, drag & drop user interface. 
Power-Pages-Easy-for all

Limitations of Using CMS in Website Development 

  • Plugin and widget dependency and hidden costs 

Users must be dependent on plugins and widgets for most of their functionalities and charges to access full features. 

  • Site load speed and Maintenance 

Running a CMS site takes a tremendous amount of effort to maintain, from customized configurations and plugins, installed themes, site configuration and security updates. 

  • Common vulnerabilities  

To name a few are Brute Force Attack, SQL Injection, Cross-Site Scripting, DDoS Attack, File Inclusion Exploits, Directory Traversal 

  • Scalability and functional limitations 

When software systems and data sources become too much to handle, CMS is unlikely to integrate well with the workflow of the larger ecosystem so having a good system in place is vital. If you have too many users using the system or are using it for a specific purpose, the software will not be able to keep up with system demands. 

Design Studio
Power-Pages-Templates-Design-Studio

There’s a fantastic new feature that’s added in the latest version of Studio that allows you to edit your page layouts more easily. You can add and change components like text, images, sections, lists, forms and more – so we hope this will help you create even better designs going forward. 

The Power Pages design studio is an intuitive interface that enables low-code makers to build and configure rich business web apps. 

Power Pages Themespower-pages-themes-web-builder-platform

Power Pages delivers mobile-ready templates and a fluid visual experience with a supercharged design studio, along with a new, integrated learning hub that quickly enables you to build sites as unique as your business.  

When creating a site, you might have to create, update, or read business information. Consider a page that’s used for collecting feedback, showing a list of available classes, or rescheduling an appointment. Typically this type of information is stored in a database. Microsoft Power Platform has a powerful cloud-based data service called Dataverse. Dataverse not only stores information like a traditional database, but also provides features for security, analytics, automation, and more. 

Power Pages sites are unique, but they have components that use these model-driven app views and forms as a foundation to build interactive, data-driven webpages. 

Run, Scale, and Monitor all your applications. 

Microsoft Azure offers developers a comprehensive and flexible set of cloud technologies and tools in a robust, global-scale infrastructure to create websites, mobile apps, games, and enterprise solutions. You may need help from experts that can help you make important business decisions that will affect your project’s success whether it be about marketing or finance, for example. Finding a trusted source that lets you consult with them regarding complicated matters is the only way you will be able to overcome those obstacles without crashing your vehicle on the first speed bump you come across along the way. Power-Pages-Share-With-Confidence

Our expertise lets you focus on your business website builder platform. 

When visitors come to your site, allow them to securely access and share information using Microsoft’s Dataverse. This cloud-based platform supports improvements on security when adding a layer of protection for data sources within Microsoft Azure. Additionally, you can use it. 

When we think of Microsoft Power Pages, we think of free resources. We love their comprehensive learning material and after the 5-day trial, many people choose to sign up for Office 365 and keep those tools at their fingertips all year round! People love the full control plan because it allows users to create a fully customized website that everyone can use. 

Where customers are using power pages 

  1. FAQ Pages 
  2. Enterprise Websites 
  3. Community Services related websites 
  4. Customer self-service web applications 
  5. Partner/vendor on-boarding, tracking and support 
  6. Interactive and data driven web site for business partners/vendors 

Low Code Application Tools

HABY JOSEPH
Low Code Application tools

Companies that are ahead of the game

Businesses are increasingly relying on the latest technological advancements in order to stay competitive. Low code application tools, which allow for rapid development of mobile and web applications without coding, can be a significant asset for companies looking to leverage technology as a way of streamlining their processes and increasing efficiency and are increasingly relying on the latest low-code application tools to build and deploy applications that can scale with their needs.

Many businesses are adopting low code application tools that allow non-technical or business users. These tools enable them to develop software without writing any lines of code. The result is a rapid development process that can be tailored for specific needs and scaled quickly as needed. Low code application tools can be a great way for businesses of all sizes, from startups to enterprises, to get started with developing custom apps without having an in-house team of coders. This is why low code application tools have become so popular in recent years.

Every day business needs change, but it is impossible to change the infrastructure and platform used for creating applications. It is not easy to find a solution that allows you to quickly build new applications without changing the current infrastructure. But thanks to the low code development, this problem can be solved. Low code application development technology allows creating a new application without writing a single line of code. It allows creating fully-functional applications in a  short time.

Low code application development platforms have the following features: .

Tools for Visual Modeling – creating simple and nice user interface(UI) 

Not all app builders are created equal. Low-code platforms enable you to create a working app in less time than it would take to do it yourself. And since data drawn on a visual model is readable by anyone, no coding skills are necessary. 

Application lifecycle management 

A low-code development platform helps your team build better software faster. Low-code services remove the need for boilerplate code that is cumbersome and time consuming to write, enabling less technical employees to build better apps in less time with superior support.  

Security 

It is important to look closely into the security features of any low-code solution you are considering  
in order to protect your apps and overall platform. Does such platform integrate well with your existing enterprise security, provide multi-factor authentication and role based access? 

Scalability 

Low-code systems should be versatile.  It should be able to support your business as it grows, allowing you to hire more staff and work faster but still have oversight over every aspect of the project from conception to delivery. So it should easily allow you to adapt to any given change in your business process as per your dynamic growth. 

Cross-platform compatibility 

Cross-platform compatibility is a useful feature of low-code platforms. In addition to the ability to use the low-code platform on any device running major operational systems, its cross-platform compatibility allows users to build apps that can also run on all core platforms and devices.   

Monitoring and Reporting 

Any app that can keep track of complex and involved processes or activities like marketing can easily be monitored using low-code. By monitoring such activities closely, app developers can recognize areas in need of improvement to make sure the business is running smoothly. 

Functionality out-of-the-box 

The ability to build apps out of the box is not an advantage of low-code systems alone though. There are a number of development tools available where you can just select an action, and the action will be built for you automatically – so there’s no need to code that part yourself. 

Interfaces with drag-and-drop 

Every citizen developer and professional developer relies on the convenience drag-and-drop features provide during application creation. In fact, the low-code development platform that you will be working with today has a lot of features to make your job much easier including the option to take advantage of drag-and-drop capabilities! 

Code / Module Reusability  

One of the features that software development platforms can’t deliver out of the box is a large number of pre-built, customizable modules and functionalities. These commonly shared functionalities are essential to building more than one application, which is why it’s important for a low-code platform to allow for these ready-made elements to be freely chopped up, rearranged, or even repurposed. 

Integration with existing Applications  

A key feature for large organization is to extend their traditional web applications or ERP system or CRM to all the users for more business scenarios and improvements. Low code platform should support quick integration using APIs or connectors in a standard manner. 

Low Code is the first visual programming language that lets you build software without writing any code. So, You don’t need to code your next web app.

Why Businesses are choosing Low Code No Code Solution 

Business process management is no longer a time consuming and painful task. With the help of Low Code Process Automation Platform, you can automate your business processes from start to finish. 

It can save you hours on end by automatically processing data for your customers, employees, and partners. Your employees will be able to execute tasks without doing repetitive tasks which can improve their morale and productivity. It also removes the need for manual updates to spreadsheets or databases which could increase your company’s efficiency. 

The Low Code No Code platform is a tool for building and deploying apps on any device or cloud environment. It’s a great option for businesses of all sizes, from startups to enterprise organizations. With the platform you are able to easily create web applications with drag-and-drop functionality and prebuilt app templates that can be customized in minutes with no programming required! The intuitive interface makes it easy to build your own custom app in minutes, so you’re up and running quickly and effortlessly. 

When you look at the evolution of application development, it is clear that low code rapid application development is the future. Low code development gives organizations opportunities to create robust applications that are easy to manage and maintain, without having to learn how to code. 

Example Use Cases 

Employee Onboarding 

A very useful onboarding task app is one which might provide an employee a list of contacts they need to connect with, along with links to policy documents, company directory information and various content. These sort of apps can be highly effective ways to make sure new employees know who they need to reach out to for various things as soon as they’re on board! 

Applications for Servicing Requests 

A platform that offers many different resources for businesses to reach out to customers in various ways. It helps users build interactive tools meant for businesses to use and share with others via the cloud or through mobile. The solution also provides businesses with an on-demand app store which features links, scripts, apps and other solutions. 

Supply chain management 

Sometimes users enjoy ordering goods through mobile apps, but it’s important that their business is also managed more easily. By using a supply chain management portal on the iPad or iPhone, businesses can quickly share information between departments, track inventory and communicate with customers in real time. 

SaaS App Development 

The traditional way of doing things can be a bit tiresome at times. Imagine having to continually go through the same processes (performing some of the same tasks) over and over again. How much time would you save if there was a quicker way? A low-code technology makes it easier to reduce time spent correcting bugs, automating repetitive tasks and implementing features in the first place! 

App for Budget Request and Approval 

Low-code enables professionals to build, connect and productionize their own business applications from scratch with very little technical assistance. Its cloud-native architecture allows the software to increase or decrease in size based on the needs of the organization. 

IoT enabled Integration  

IoT enables business solutions to move faster internally and enhance customer engagement. Current challenges in the consumer goods industry can be quickly addressed with IoT-enabled products and expertly-designed mobile apps like the ones we create for our clients. 

Regulatory Compliance 

In order to comply with laws, many businesses must enact internal rules and regulations (ESG, CSR etc..). Low-code development reduces the amount of paperwork businesses have to fill in. An important perk to being a business owner is that you get to spend some more time away from the office while still making sure your company remains entirely legal. 

Low code is the best way to build fast enterprise-grade applications. 

Low code is a robust alternative to traditional, rigid, and time-consuming software development methods. It offers its users point-and-click configuration for their apps, which is why it can be leveraged by developers with minimal programming skills. Low code is also beneficial for enterprises because of its role in accelerating the entire application development process. 

Listing a few Enterprise Low Code No Code Platforms  

The benefits of using low code process automation platform are endless, but one thing is for sure – it will change the way you do business forever!