Describe the business value of Power Platform

Question 1

Which 4 key products is Power Platform comprised of?

Answer 1

Power Apps: Provides a rapid low code development environment for building custom apps for business needs. Power Apps enables the creation of web and mobile application that run on all devices.

Power automate: Lets users create automated workflows between applications and services.

Power BI: Is a business analytics service that delivers insights for analyzing data. It can share those insights through data visualizations which make up reports and dashboards to enable fast, informed decisions.

Power Virtual Agents: Enables anyone to create powerful chatbots using a guided, no-code graphical interface, without the need for data scientists or developers

Question 2

What is the business value of Power BI (Business Intelligence)

Answer 2

Power BI (Business Intelligence) is a business analytics service that delivers insights for analyzing data. It can share those insights through data visualizations which make up reports and dashboards to enable fast, informed decisions. Power BI scales across an organization, and it has built-in governance and security allowing businesses to focus on using data more than managing it.

You can consider Power BI as the analysis and insights leg of the Power Platform. It takes business data and allows you to display it in ways that makes the most sense to users. A Power BI dashboard could potentially replace a standing meeting to report out on company metrics such as sales data, progress against goals, or employee performance.

Question 3

What is the business value of Power Apps?

Answer 3

Power Apps provides a rapid low code development environment for building custom apps for business needs. It has services, connectors, and a scalable data service and app platform (Common Data Service) to allow simple integration and interaction with existing data. Power Apps enables the creation of web and mobile applications that run on all devices.

Question 4

What is the business value of using Power Automate?

Answer 4

lets users create automated workflows between applications and services. It helps automate repetitive business processes such as communication, data collections, and decision approvals.

Don’t waste important productive hours on drafting the same email for a weekly update or walking approvals through. Not only for the individual user, Power Automate allows for the creation of enterprise-grade process automation. Power Automate’s simple interface allows every level of user to automate work tasks from beginners to seasoned developers.

Question 5

What is the business value of using Power Virtual Agents?

Answer 5

Power Virtual Agents enables anyone to create powerful chatbots using a guided, no-code graphical interface, without the need for data scientists or developers.

Power virtual agents addresses many of the major issues with chatbot building. It eliminates the gap between subject matter experts and the development teams building the chatbots. It removes the complexity of exposing teams to the nuances of conversational AI and the need to write complex code. It minimizes the IT effort required to deploy and maintain a custom conversational solution by empowering subject matter experts to build and maintain their own conversational solutions.

Question 6

What are four cross cutting features, which enable the Power Platform to be leveraged to its full potential?

Answer 6

1. AI Builder
2. Common Data Service
3. Connectors
4. Power Virtual Agents

Question 7

What is the business value of AI Builder?

Answer 7

AI Builder lets users and developers add AI capabilities to the workflows and PowerApps they create and use. AI Builder is a turnkey solution that allows you to easily add intelligence to your workflows and apps and predict outcomes to help improve business performance without writing code.

Question 8

What is the business value of Common Data Service?

Answer 8

Common Data Service is a scalable data service and app platform which lets users securely store and manage data from multiple sources and integrate that data in business applications using a common data model to ensure ease and consistency to users. Common Data Service is the common currency that enables the components of Power Platform to work together. It’s the foundation that enables the consolidation, display, and manipulation of data.

Question 9

What is the business value of Connectors?

Answer 9

Connectors enable you to connect apps, data, and devices in the cloud. Consider connectors the bridge across which information and commands travel. There are more than 275 connectors for the Power Platform, enabling all of your data and actions to connect cohesively. Examples of popular connectors include Salesforce, Office 365, Twitter, Dropbox, Google services, and more.

Question 10

What is the business value of Power Virtual Agents?

Answer 10

Power Virtual Agents is part of Power Platform, therefore integration into existing systems is streamlined with out-of-the-box integration with Power Automate and its ecosystems of hundreds of connectors. Users can enable chatbots to perform an action by simply calling a Power Automate flow. Flows help users automate activities or call back end systems. Users can utilize existing flows that have been created in their Power Apps environment or they can create a flow within Power Virtual Agents authoring canvas.

Question 11

What is Dynamics 365?

Answer 11

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a set of applications that combine customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Organizations can use Dynamics 365 to access, aggregate, and analyze real-time data to drive continuous innovation. Dynamics 365 gives organizations the flexibility to adopt technology when they need it for improved business outcomes.

Question 12

What is Microsoft 365?

Answer 12

Microsoft 365 is a productivity cloud that delivers innovative and intelligent experiences, rich organizational insights, and a trusted platform to help people and organizations get more done.

Question 13

What is Microsoft Azure?

Answer 13

Microsoft Azure is an ever-expanding set of cloud services that can help your organization meet its business objectives. Build the solutions you need, with the tools you want to use, on a secure and trusted platform. Azure is built to allow you to Invent with Purpose. Azure taps into the powerful combination of data and AI to create the breakthrough experiences that today’s businesses require.

Question 14

What is the value of connecting the following business solutions to the Power Platform?

1. Dynamics 365
2. Microsoft 365
3. Microsoft Azure
4. Third-party services and apps

Answer 14

• Innovate the full potential of your business solutions on one connected platform
• Power BI: Combine data from Dynamics 365 and other sources such as SQL Server, Excel, Azure, SharePoint or even your own data warehouse, into a single view for actionable insights into your business.
• Power Apps: PowerApps enables users to build apps that easily connect to data and run on the web, iOS, and Android devices.
• Microsoft Automate: allows you to include powerful workflow automation in your apps with a no-code / low code approach, and it connects to hundreds of popular apps and services, including Outlook, SharePoint, Dynamics 365, Dropbox, OneDrive for Business, MailChimp, and Excel

With Power Objects you can unleash all the functionality Power Platform has to offer!

Question 15

Give 5 examples of how Power Platform implements security

Answer 15

1. Licenses
2. Connectors
3. User Context
4. App sharing & versioning
5. Environment & Data Policies

Question 16

Describe the role of Licenses in security implementation. Describe also what to watch out for in relation to licenses as a security implementation.

Answer 16

Licenses are a way to assign user permissions to any work with a given platform. In the Office365 admin panel, as long as we have the appropriate permissions, we can easily assign or take away licenses for the product or application to the user.

WHAT TO WATCH OUT: Licenses specify general access to the application, but do not define the level of permissions (read-only, edit, delete etc.). When allocating licenses to someone remember to ensure the appropriate level of rights in the application (the service) itself .

Question 17

Describe the role of Connectors in security implementation. Describe also what security pitfalls to watch out for.

Answer 17

PowerApps and Flow users have access to more than 200 connectors and they can even build their own connectors. The supplier is obliged to ensure that the connector provides the appropriate quality of security (authentication), support and SLA (Service-Level Agreement).

Microsoft will always review the connector and, if it meets certification criteria, approve it for publishing.

The supplier must also prove that he owns the website to which the published connector connects. Thanks to this, there will not be a situation when suddenly third companies will start racing for the title of the best supplier of connectors, producing the 10 of the same connections, thus littering the collection of connectors.

What to watch out for:

First of all, communication with the use of connectors is definitely secure - Microsoft enforces the use of proven standards to secure transmission data.

Question 18

Describe the role of User Context in security implementation. Also describe potential pitfalls.

Answer 18

The user is only working within his own context, and only working with data he has access to.

The pitfall is if data hasn’t been securily implemented (e.g. if everyone works out from the same shared excel file).

Question 19

Describe the role of App sharing & versioning in security implementation. Also describe some common pitfalls.

Answer 19

App sharing: For each application, you can define users who can use it and edit it. The owner can assign users as co-owner and user. Notice that even if we add a user as co-owner, he will not be able to delete the application or change the owner.

Version Control: Each application has a versioning mechanism. Each time the application is saved, it will leave a separate entry in the repository. Thanks to this, we can go back to any version at any time. In addition, the publicly available version for everyone is marked with the appropriate label. So the versioning mechanism allows you to sleep peacefully, that if any of the Co-owners spoils the application, everything will be able to recover.

What to watch out for?

Co-owners can not delete the PowerApps application - only the owner can do it. But if he does, then there is NO way to reverse it. So it is worth to export you application from time to time in a safe place.

Question 20

Describe the role of Environments & Data Policies in security implementation. Describe also what to watch out for.

Answer 20

Environments:

Environment, are special containers for applications and connectors under tenant. Tenant can have many environments, and each environment can contain a lot of applications and connectors. What is important, environments do not share content with each other, and what’s more, each of them can have a unique definition of macros and users. Users can use the content of the environment. Makeers can create their own apps in it. It is easy to imagine the example architecture of environments in the organization: production, testing and development.

Data Policies:

In addition to environment permissions, you can also define Data Policies, which are special rules about which connectors can share information with each other.

What’s important – the created policy works immediately on all applications. Where they find unlicensed connectors, they simply stop reporting data. In the case of Flow, they will be turned off.

Question 21

Describe how to manage apps

Answer 21

If you’re an Environment Admin, Global admin, or Power Platform admin, you can manage the apps created in your organization. Admins can do the following from the Power Platform admin center:

• Add or change the users with whom an app is shared
• Delete apps not currently in use

The Power Apps are managed from the Power Platform admin center. Sign in, go to Resources, select the app to manage and select you desired action

Question 22

Describe how to manage users

Answer 22

No notes at this time.

Question 23

Identify admin centers

Answer 23

The Power Platform admin center provides a unified portal for administrators to manage environments and settings for Power Apps, Power Automate, and model-driven apps in Dynamics 365 (such as Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Service)

Question 24

Describe 7 Power Platform admin center capabilities

Answer 24

Environments: View, create, and manage your environments. Select an environment to see details and manage its setting.

Analytics: Get a detailed view of key metrics for Power Platform apps.

Resources

Help + support: Get a list of self-help solutions or create a support ticket for technical support.

Data Integration

Data gateways

Data policies

Question 25

Describe how the platform supports compliance

Answer 25

To help your organization comply with national, regional, and industry-specific requirements governing the collection and use of individuals’ data, Microsoft provides the most comprehensive set of compliance offerings:

Trust Center: A centralized resource for obtaining information on Microsoft’s portfolio of products (security, privacy, compliance, transparency).

Data Location: Microsoft operates multiple data centers world-wide that support the Microsoft Power platform applications. When your organization establishes a tenant, it establishes the default geographical (geo) location. In addition, when creating environments to support applications and contain Common Data Service data the environments can be targeted for a specific geo. A current list of the geos for the Microsoft Power Platform can be found here https://www.microsoft.com/TrustCenter/CloudServices/business-application-platform/data-location

To support continuity of operations, Microsoft may replicate data to other regions within a geo, but the data will not move outside the geo to support data resiliency. This supports the ability to fail over or recover more rapidly in the event of a severe outage. There are some reasonable exceptions to keeping data in the specific geo that are listed on the above site primary focused on legal and support. It’s also important to note, that you or your users can take actions that expose data outside of the geo. Other services can also be configured to access the data and expose it outside of the geo. By default, authorized users can access the platform and your applications and data from anywhere in the world where there is connectivity.

Data Protection:

Data as it is in transit between user devices and the Microsoft datacenters are secured. Connections established between customers and Microsoft datacenters are encrypted, and all public endpoints are secured using industry-standard TLS. TLS effectively establishes a security-enhanced browser to server connection to help ensure data confidentiality and integrity between desktops and datacenters. API access from the customer endpoint to the server is also similarly protected. Currently, TLS 1.2 (or higher) is required for accessing the server endpoints.

Data transferred through the on-premises data gateway is also encrypted. Data that users upload is typically sent to Azure Blob storage, and all metadata and artifacts for the system itself are stored in an Azure SQL database and Azure Table storage.

All environments of the Common Data Service database use SQL Server Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) to perform real-time encryption of data when written to disk, also known as encryption at rest.

By default, Microsoft stores and manages the database encryption keys for your environments so you don’t have to. The manage keys feature in the Dynamics 365 admin center gives administrators the ability to self-manage the database encryption keys that are associated with environments of Dynamics 365 (online). You can read more about managing your own keys here but generally it is recommended have Microsoft manage the keys unless you have a specific business need to maintain your own.

Resources to manage GDPR Compliance

Microsoft have tools and resources available for the Power Platform to assist administrators in the their efforts to comply with GDPR.

Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance Center

Power Automate Audit Log Events