Don’t you love it when your work desk is organized? The table is clean, your laptop is freshly sanitized, and your pen stand has all your stationery neatly arranged in sections. All your stuff is in one place. That is exactly what the Power Platform does. It offers all the sets of low-code tools you and your team need to take your business to the next level. 

The Microsoft Power Platform consists of four primary services – Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, and Power Virtual Agent. 

Power Apps

They can be used to create low-code and no-code applications that users can interact with. You don’t need traditional developer tools to create them. Therefore, a significantly larger set of people within an organization can build and deploy applications that are easier to maintain as the underlying platform is updated.  

Power Automate

This is exactly what it sounds like – it automates a set of instructions that you would otherwise have to do manually. It helps remove human error and instead provides robotic precision to iterative tasks. 

Power BI

Power BI collects raw data and processes it into creative and easy-to-understand graphs and charts which help give insights to the statistics involved with your business. It makes Business Intelligence simpler and more interactive. 

Power Virtual Agents

This service helps you build chatbots even without prior knowledge of developing one. These chatbots can hold conversations with users that interact with them. Here you can provide the chatbot with reactions to situations using Power Automate and make the user experience smoother. 

Of course, there are a few more features provided by the Power Platform – The Dataverse helps maintain databases and keeps your information secure and connectors connect various data and services. 

Why choose the Power Platform?

The Power Platform is perfect for businesses since it has everything under one roof. From business analytics and intelligence with Power BI, to interactive chatbots for websites and apps using Power Virtual Agents, to the apps themselves with the help of Power Apps – everything your business needs can be provided by the Power Platform. Plus, the low-code and the no-code graphical interface makes it so that someone without sound technical knowledge can create and maintain services that would otherwise be more difficult and time-consuming. 

Certifications You Can Do

There are several certifications that can help you utilize the resources that the Power Platform provides.  

Fundamental Certification PL-900 

The PL-900 – Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals certification is a must-have when you are getting Power Platform-certified. It walks you through the different services that are provided by them and trains you to use them to increase your and your team’s productivity. It explains how the Power Platform can be versatile across Dynamics 365 apps, Microsoft 365 apps and services, Microsoft Azure services, and 3rd party apps and services. 

Role–Based Certifications 

Microsoft also offers role-based certifications like the PL-100 Power Platform App Maker Associate, PL-200 Power Platform Functional Consultant Associate, PL-400 Power Platform Developer Associate, PL-600 Power Platform Solution Architect Expert, and DA-100 Data Analyst Associate. Some of them include a brief introduction to the Power Platform in case you decide to skip the fundamentals and jump right into the big picture. 

• PL-100 

The PL-100 Power Platform App Maker Associate training centers around Power Apps. In the learning process, you create model-driven and canvas apps, automate business processes, create, and use detailed analytics reports, and build an AI from scratch. It is perfect for someone who wants to delve into app development but does not want to trouble themselves with learning programming.  

• PL-200 

The PL-200 Power Platform Functional Consultant Associate Certification is highly interactive, with multiple labs at every stage to test your understanding. You take in various skills like working with dataverse, making model-driven and canvas apps, and portals with Power Apps, automating cloud flows, desktop flows and business process flows, building chatbots, using Power BI to analyze data, and finally put it all together in the final module. If you want hands-on experience with the Power Platform, this is the course for you. 

• PL-400 

The PL-400 Power Platform Developer Associate requires a technical background – you need to have development experience with JavaScript, JSON, TypeScript, C#, HTML, .NET, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, RESTful Web Services, ASP.NET, and Power BI. Along with creating model-driven and canvas apps, and automation with Power Automate, you also learn to develop with the Power Platform – it isn’t limited to low and no code.  

• PL-600 

The PL-600 Power Platform Solution Architect Expert requires the most effort, but it also holds the highest value. You not only gain technical skills but also leadership, initiation, design, security, and implementation skills. It requires either Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Functional Consultant Associate or Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Developer Associate Certifications as a prerequisite. It is perfect for people who want to master the Power Platform and develop soft skills.  

• DA-100 

The DA-100 Data Analytics Associate Certification specializes in analyzing raw and processed data using the Power Platform. It gets you started with Microsoft Data Analytics and walks you through the various features of Power BI as Business Intelligence and Analytics Software. 

 CloudThat offers multiple courses to get your journey with Power Platform started. Enroll now in our courses and bridge the skill gap between your business and blooming success!

WRITTEN BY Ananya Pandey