The Power Platform 2024 Release Wave 1 is packed with new features. The theme this time is around infusing AI into all aspects of the platform. That’s Copilot for App Builders and Copilot for administrators too. Here, we will pick the key features to highlight. Let’s dive right in.
The Power Platform by Microsoft continues to evolve, bringing innovative solutions to the forefront of digital transformation. The 2024 Release Wave 1 is no exception, introducing groundbreaking features across Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, and Power Pages. This post delves into the top 10 features set to redefine how businesses leverage technology for success, from initial planning through to customer engagement and beyond.
What’s new in
Power Apps
New look for model-driven
The highlight here is New look for model-driven apps is now enabled by default for everyone. Other bits include some UI updates to the maker experience for security settings and mobile app settings.
Use AI to create and edit Power Apps
Generative AI to test Canvas Apps, visualising and working with complex data using Copilot. Ability to ask Copilot things like explaining formulas or adding Canvas App screen. We think this one is actually a revolutionary feature.
Share tables and apps like sharing a Word document
Currently, sharing an app is complicated and involves creating new security roles and
defining permissions. We’ve improved this experience by creating a simplified sharing
experience that is as user-friendly as other Microsoft 365 products. Makers will be able to share their tables and apps more easily without having to deal with the complexity of our security model.
Makers will see a sharing dialog where they can select a list of users as well as what access to share with. Dataverse will then create security roles based on the access configuration and automatically assign to the selected users.
🔥Monthly updates instead of twice per year!
For Model-driven apps, users receive new and improved features as they are ready instead of waiting until a twice yearly release. If you tick the value as “Auto” for the Channel field in the settings, then the environment will update monthly starting from 2024 release wave.
What’s new in
Power Pages
🔥File upload enhancements
Microsoft is making it easier for makers to configure file uploads options across different storage option
inside design studio. File upload enhancements in this feature include:
- Increased file size limits for file uploads for Sharepoint storage
- Drag and drop files
- Upload files from various cloud storage locations or use the camera
- Configure the file upload across storage from the design studio
Some goodies for Power Pages developers
These include Performing website actions using Power Platform CLI and Using Site Checker from Microsoft Power Platform CLI.
What’s new in
Power Automate
Overall, Microsoft is investing in these areas when it comes to Power Automate (Easier building, better privacy and process mining):
- Easier experiences to build, troubleshoot and manage automations: Copilot in
Power Automate allows more of your organization to apply the power of
generative AI to build richer automations faster, and make it easier to manage your
automation estate. - Ensuring scalability and privacy: Power Automate continues to simplify large-scale
management, and bolstering governance and privacy controls. - Democratization of process mining: Through AI to recommend actionable
insights, additional out of box capabilities, and deep integration with Dynamics
365 Supply Chain Management, process mining is democratizing process insights
to all citizen makers.
🔥Copilot for Power Automate!
This one is marked hot because we think it is allowing Power Automate to ride the wave of AI. Making it super easy, and much faster to automate business processes.
Copilot for Power Automate Process Mining can democratize process and task mining for business users and process mining experts by arming them with insights into their processes and guiding them to solutions using generative AI where available.
With Copilot for Power Automate Process Mining, users can:
1. Discover processes in event logs.
2. Uncover top insights about a process, including details on durations of steps in the
process, steps requiring rework, bottlenecks, and more.
🔥🔥3. Get recommendations on automations and solutions to eliminate inefficiencies in
the process.
Ingest process data from data lakes
You no longer have to transform or port your data in specific sources for Process
Mining. Instead, Power Automate Process Mining can connect directly to your existing data pipelines in your Azure data lake.
You now have a choice to enable Power Automate Process Mining to connect directly to your Azure data lake with your existing data pipelines. This eliminates steps of data transformation or porting across sources, enabling easier data ingestion. Direct connection to your Azure data lake also enables scaling process data to hundreds of gigabytes.
What’s new in
Microsoft Copilot Studio
Copilot and AI innovation
Industry-leading generative AI capabilities in Microsoft Copilot Studio do the work so you and your team don’t have to.
Copilot admins and makers can see new and improved analytics directly in the Microsoft Copilot Studio app, and they can instantly take actions to address low customer satisfaction (CSAT) and improve the deflection rate.
Copilot configuration
Copilot configuration customizes and configures how your organization or business uses Microsoft Copilot Studio copilots.
Microsoft Copilot Studio enables makers to connect to their consumer and enterprise audiences on a variety of channels. In conjunction with the Azure Communication Services, Copilot Studio is introducing support for WhatsApp, SMS through Communication Services, and Communication Services Chat, a multipoint chat service.
Customers can provision an Azure Communication Services resource, and then bring it to Microsoft Copilot Studio where they can connect their copilot to these new channels.
Speech and IVR
Craft rich AI-powered voice solutions using the Microsoft Copilot Studio advanced authoring canvas and native voice support.
Microsoft Copilot Studio incorporates native voice authoring capabilities when used with the Voice channel in Dynamics Omnichannel for Customer Service integrations.
These capabilities include:
- Dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) input, including single and multi-digit processing so users can use their phone keypad to interact with the bot
- Silence detection for prompts, including retries and reprompts, and configurable actions on no response
- Barge-in control for determining whether the bot can be interrupted or not
- SSML support so you can configure how the bot sounds on a per-message basis, including playing audio files to the user in place of text-to-speech
- Long running operation latency message
- Enhanced speech recognition based on bot content
Remember to
Prepare for and embrace the updates!
The Power Platform 2024 Release Wave 1 marks a significant leap forward in empowering businesses to innovate and engage with customers effectively. By harnessing these new capabilities, organizations can enhance their digital transformation efforts, from initial product planning to ongoing improvement and customer engagement. To explore all the capabilities included in this release, visit the official Microsoft release plan page. Stay informed on the latest updates and insights by following the Power Platform Team’s news.
Remember, embracing these updates can significantly contribute to the success of your product launches and overall business strategy. The future of digital transformation begins here, with Microsoft Power Platform leading the way.