Digital Transformation with Dataverse for Teams

Srikumar Nair, Charles Lamanna

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781800567016
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Desktop Applications
• Index: Computer Science

Design, build, and deploy multi-platform apps to overcome crucial business problems by leveraging the capabilities of low-code and no-code development enabled through Microsoft Power Platform and TeamsKey Features• Find out how you can accelerate the digital transformation of your organization as a citizen developer• Build your first app with the help of step-by-step guidance and add capabilities with flows and bots• Learn about lifecycle management for applications, environments, and licensingBook DescriptionMicrosoft Dataverse for Teams is a built-in, low-code data platform for Teams and enables everyone to easily build and deploy apps, flows, and intelligent chatbots using Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents (PVA) embedded in Microsoft Teams.Without learning any coding language, you will be able to build apps with step-by-step explanations for setting up Teams, creating tables to store data, and leverage the data for your digital solutions. With the techniques covered in the book, you'll be able to develop your first app with Dataverse for Teams within an hour! You'll then learn how to automate repetitive tasks or build alerts using Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents. As you get to grips with building these digital solutions, you'll also be able to understand when to consider upgrading from Dataverse for Teams to Dataverse, along with its advanced features. Finally, you'll explore features for administration and governance and understand the licensing requirements of Microsoft Dataverse for Teams and PowerApps.Having acquired the skills to build and deploy an enterprise-grade digital solution, by the end of the book, you will have become a qualified citizen developer and be ready to lead a digital revolution in your organization.What you will learn• Gain a deeper understanding of Microsoft Dataverse for Teams by exploring various business scenarios• Design, build, and deploy enterprise-grade applications for Teams• Develop Power Automate flows and PVA bots using Dataverse for Teams• Discover administration and security best practices• Understand the licensing requirements and advanced features of Microsoft Dataverse• Identify scenarios in your organizations where your citizen development skills can be leveragedWho this book is forThe book is for citizen developers, business professionals, or anyone looking to develop applications to solve critical business problems. Basic knowledge of using software like PowerPoint, Excel-like formulae, and navigating between application screens is all you need to get started with this book.

Section 1: Introduction to Microsoft Dataverse for Teams

This section of the book introduces you to digital transformation and why it is essential for all organizations to go through it to survive. It also shows how low-code/no-code platforms have a critical role to play in bridging the gap created due to a shortage of the manpower that is needed to achieve digital transformation for all the organizations around the world. In this section, you will also be introduced to Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Dataverse for Teams as well as building your first low-code/no-code app.

This section comprises the following chapters:

• Chapter 1, Introducing Digital Transformation and the Role of Low-Code/No-Code Platform
• Chapter 2, Exploring Microsoft Dataverse for Teams
• Chapter 3, Building Your First App with Microsoft Dataverse for Teams
• Chapter 4, Enhancing Your App with Images, Screens, and File Attachments

Chapter 1: Introducing Digital Transformation and the Role of Low-Code/No-Code Platform

This book will help you to develop an understanding of what digital transformation is and why it is important to each one of us. It will also introduce you to a low-code/no-code platform built into Microsoft Teams, and help you develop proficiency in solving challenges faced by your organizations in their journey to achieve digital transformation. This book is intended to be used by anyone who wishes to build apps, bots, and workflows, and who wants to help automate a lot of manual processes within their organization, whether they're a student, a teacher, an entrepreneur, a doctor, or even a volunteer at a non-profit organization. As you progress through the first couple of chapters in this book, you will realize that with very basic skills, such as creating formulas, and a basic understanding of how you want your screens to look, you will be building very effective digital solutions for your organization.

In this chapter, we will take a quick look at the new trends that are impacting our personal and work lives (that is, the consumer world and business environments) and how every one of us needs to be prepared to use these changes in technology to our advantage, especially in our professional careers.

This chapter also begins to introduce you to Power Platform and Microsoft Dataverse for Teams, which not only helps you to build apps, bots, and flows with minimum training, but also accelerates the pace of digital transformation within your organization. Microsoft Dataverse for Teams provides rich data storage for all types of data, along with enterprise-grade governance and security. You will be able to acquire apps and install them with one-click deployment, almost like downloading an app to your personal smartphone from an app store.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Understanding Digital Evolution
• Digital Evolution in Organizations
• Digital Transformation
• Introducing Microsoft Power Platform

Understanding Digital Evolution

The twentieth century belonged to organizations that adopted rapid mechanization and industrialization, riding on the wave of the third industrial revolution. The World Wars accelerated the need for countries and organizations to benefit from this wave of industrialization. There were a few other waves that followed and defined the progress of digital and automation experiences, such as the evolution of personal computing, the increased reach of the internet and the dot.com wave, and the advent of smartphones. All these innovations helped organizations and individuals to redefine the boundaries of what can be achieved and how much can be achieved in a short space of time. While it may have addressed some of the short-term goals of digital reach and automation, the desire for a total transformation of business process and productivity continues to grow like never before.

Here is a chronology of some significant milestones in the evolution of digital technology and how these advances have improved automation levels in various aspects of our lives:

Figure 1.1 – Evolution of digital experience

On the consumer digital experience front, the last decade has seen a significant rise in mobile computing and hardware reducing in size to become personal wearables. The best evidence of this is the rising market for mobile computing devices. Even though the sale of such devices might have been impacted by the worldwide contraction of the economy owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, mobile phones still constitute more than 80% of the total devices market for 2020.

The consumer digital evolution is waiting to explode further with the wearables market, where personal healthcare data from millions of consumers will be monetized over the coming years. We have already seen the smartwatch industry boom, with Apple taking a large share of the market. Amazon has also announced its Halo Band, which claims to help customers to improve their health and wellness.

While there is much to study and analyze in the consumer digital evolution space, for the purpose of this book, we will focus on the digital evolution and transformation that is happening in enterprises and organizations.

Digital Evolution in Organizations

Organizations have realized the power of data – it is the new oil. Data is flowing in terabytes and petabytes per second, through social media and through Internet of Things (IoT) devices that are being wired to all living and non-living things on the planet. To give some examples, here are some of the top scenarios where organizations are using social media:

• Monitoring Twitter feeds for mentions and sentiment analysis, such as reactions based on negative tweets, and offering to resolve personal complaints
• Offering discounts and coupons to customers who "like" and promote the organization's brand
• Identifying and targeting a social group of customers for special campaigns based on location, age, social status, likes, search history, and so on
• Using professional networking sites such as LinkedIn feeds or Twitter ads to influence senior IT leaders and decision makers and generate leads for your business software or professional services that your organization offers

This demonstrates the evolution of marketing and customer service processes with the advent of social media, which helps organizations to improve their branding as well as improve their customer reach.

While this digital evolution continues, organizations need to be ready to harness the power of digital evolution to their advantage. Technology is not stagnant and keeps evolving as a byproduct of digital evolution. Who would have thought that one of the oldest industries, which delivers your daily pack or bottle of milk, would use 5G connected cows (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-telecoms-5g-cows/5g-connected-cows-test-milking-parlor-of-the-future-idUSKCN1RN1IY) to increase their output of premium quality milk? As you can see in this example, an industry where you wouldn't expect technology to make inroads is pioneering the latest technology to make operations more efficient, make products more desirable, and exceed customer expectations.

At this juncture, it is important to understand the digital transformation process in detail, which we will cover in the next section, along with why it is important for all organizations to not just survive but make large strides to thrive in the ever-emerging world of technology.

Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is the process of using advancements in technology to continuously evaluate and:

• Empower employees
• Transform products and services
• Streamline Operations
• Exceed customer expectations:

Figure 1.2 – Pillars of digital transformation

There are several definitions available on the internet, but the one that I mentioned here has the essence of what most organizations desire to do through their digital transformation endeavors.

Each of the pillars that form the bedrock of any digital transformation has significance, and one cannot be deemed more important than the other. However, depending on the maturity of the organization and market conditions, one of the pillars might need to be prioritized over the other by the organization's leaders.

One of the most challenging and crucial portions of this digital transformation is to energize and empower your workforce to not only participate but also lead and accelerate this transformation at grassroots level. Let's take a closer look at how employees can be empowered on this mission.

Empower employees

How do you empower employees of an organization to lead and accelerate the digital transformation journey? This empowerment comes from making employees contribute directly to the digital transformation and making them equal partners in celebrating the wins and dissecting the losses.

About 10-15 years ago, a frontline worker or information worker would at best be providing a set of requirements to the business analyst, who would then draft hundreds of pages of Business Requirements Documents (BRDs). These BRDs would then get passed on to the Information Technology (IT) department to build the next set or a new version of a Line of Business (LOB) application. LOB apps are built or procured from third-party vendors and their purpose is to solve typical business problems within an organization or within an industry. Examples include a talent management app for HR, invoice approval or tax calculation apps for finance, and an expense reporting app for all employees. During the building process, there will be various sub-phases of planning, design, development, and testing, before the application is ready for consumption. By the time the application is ready for production use, it is already too late, because the next version, and most of the ground assumptions and principles, would have changed or evolved, such as the number of users, scenarios, stakeholders, and business goals. There is a heavy price to be paid for this failure and, evidently, the pace of transformation suffers a great deal.

Another point worth noting is that millennials are a significant portion of the workforce today, and that percentage is going to increase in the upcoming years. What does this mean? This population is much more ambitious and technically literate, and they are going to be using technolog...

Table of contents

• Digital Transformation with Dataverse for Teams
• Foreword
• Preface
• Section 1: Introduction to Microsoft Dataverse for Teams
• Chapter 1: Introducing Digital Transformation and the Role of Low-Code/No-Code Platform
• Chapter 2: Exploring Microsoft Dataverse for Teams
• Chapter 3: Building Your First App with Microsoft Dataverse for Teams
• Chapter 4: Enhancing Your App with Images, Screens, and File Attachments
• Section 2: Deep Dive into Microsoft Dataverse for Teams
• Chapter 5: Understanding Microsoft Dataverse
• Chapter 6: Automating with Microsoft Dataverse for Teams
• Chapter 7: Building Power Virtual Agents Bots with Microsoft Dataverse for Teams
• Section 3: Application and Environment Life Cycle Management
• Chapter 8: Managing the Application Life Cycle and Environment Life Cycle
• Chapter 9: Upgrading to Microsoft Dataverse Environment
• Section 4: Enterprise Readiness and Licensing
• Chapter 10: Ensuring Enterprise Readiness: Security and Governance
• Chapter 11: Licensing for Microsoft Dataverse and Dataverse for Teams
• Other Books You May Enjoy