Ignite 2020, Low Code and Digital Transformation
Microsoft Ignite run on October 22-24, 2020 with a lot of information about Microsoft products and Digital Transformation. I will analyse some tools and professional certifications that can help to expedite this journey.
Power Platform and Low Code
The Power Platform was explained, in Ignite, as based on data that will be used to create any system followed by analysis of it. The result of analysis will be used to act in the sense to improve actual scenarios in the company or automate some tasks or processes. The analogy of the entire cycle is presented in the picture below.
When the concept is reassembled as product we have the 4 (four) products as described in the picture below.
Data is stored in the Conectors and Common Data (you can have a general view of Common Data Services here). Power Business Intelligence (BI) will interpret a relationship between the data stored and used it as a hint to automate some tasks through Power Automate. Insights of Power BI can be strong enough to create new applications and processes and PowerApps, as low code, can be used to create all quickly. PowerApps capitalizes the idea of citizen developer to develop new internal systems without a specialised professional.
Power Platform is not an isolated concept. As you can see in the picture below, it integrates with Microsoft Azure (infrastructure), Microsoft 365 (you can see a video with all products here) and Microsoft Dynamics 365. Dynamics 365 is an ERP with a group of products like Finance, Supply Change Management, Commerce and Human Resources and, in the same Dynamics family, the following products had been created with PowerApps: Sales, Customer Service, Marketing and Field Service. This last one is very interesting because it uses products with Extended Reality. A summary of all can be seen in the picture below.
Solution Architect Certification
Due to the changes in Power Platform the courses needed to get the solution architect certification changed. It will depend on the type of certification you intend to invest and I will use as example the Microsoft PowerApps + Dynamics 365 Solution Architect Expert (MB-600).
You can access the latest training and certification poster here to have a better understanding of all certifications. To receive the title of solution architect expert you will needed to apply to the certification of Power Platform Functional Consultant Associate (PL-200) and Power Platform Developer Associate (PL-400). Even if you do the MB-600 free course online, you must attend the the instructor-led-training to apply to the certification. it is interesting to have some knowledge of Azure to enrol to the course.
Personal Perspective of Digital Transformation using Microsoft
Digital transformation impacted Microsoft itself due to the increase demand of its products. Low code associated mainly with Dynamics 365 can decrease the time to implement a digital transformation in a company. However, I believe that an Enterprise Architect can bring more agility and effectivity during this journey due his/her professional skills of holistic view, definition of KPIs, integration of processes and technologies. Digital Transformation is not only an adoption of Microsoft technology. If you are interested in this career, you can read a little more about this profession here.
I wish you a nice week! :)