Looking a little bit further in the future, what are you anticipating for 2021?
“I briefly touched on Premium Per User already, but we're eagerly waiting for even bigger changes coming to Power BI Premium in 2021. Ignite announced the birth Power BI Premium Gen 2, which will drastically change the underlying architectures. We'll see improved performance, options for autoscaling at peak times, and reduced restrictions on memory usage. I realize Power BI Premium isn't the standard for every organization, but trust me, this is a big deal!”, says Benni.
“The Power Apps component framework allows us to create our own custom user interface components which can then be integrated into Canvas Apps. This is a really powerful addition as you can create it once and use it in many different apps, greatly extending the features of the humble Canvas App. While it's been in public preview since last February, general availability is anticipated for March 2021. At around the same time, it will also be available for Power Apps Portals, so the same component can be used in different experiences”, says Jeroen. “Speaking of the Power Apps Portals, I believe that they remain a bit underused and underpowered at the moment. So we're looking forward to a few extra features that will be released for Portals in 2021; support for Power Virtual Agents and the Portals web API. That last one in particular promises to make the integration between Portals and other Power Platform components a lot more friction-free, which might drive the adoption of Portals for various scenarios.”
“Power Platform apps are built on the foundations of Microsoft Azure and therefore it is quite easy to use Azure components in your Power Apps. One of the most exciting new Azure services which is currently in preview is Azure Communication Services. Azure Communication Services provides voice and video calling, chat and SMS functionality as a hosted services in the Microsoft cloud. Being able to leverage voice, chat and SMS in Power Apps will take process automation to the next level”, adds Joris.
Heading for the future together
We work for a very broad group of customers in different sectors and in different departments. This enables us to share best practices and ideas. We also work closely with the Microsoft experts and acquire first-hand experience.
We established our virtual Power Lab team by combining the accumulated knowledge of our Office 365, Dynamics CRM and Data Insights teams. This enables us to merge expertise on various platforms and bring to life the Microsoft “Better Together” philosophy.