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Power Platform Fundamentals

Notes by Neil Bagchi

1) Describe the business value of Microsoft

Power Platform (20-25%)
Describe the business value of Microsoft Power Platform
services
1. gain insights into data by using Power BI

2. Build applications quickly by using Power Apps

3. Automate processes by using Power Automate

4. Use connectors to access services and data

5. Create powerful chatbots by using the Power Virtual Agents web app and Power Virtual
Agents in Microsoft Teams

Describe the business value of extending business

solutions by using the Microsoft Power Platform
6. Describe how Microsoft Power Platform apps work together with Dynamics 365 apps

7. Describe how Power Platform business solutions can be used by Microsoft 365 apps
and
services

8. Describe how to use Microsoft Power Platform solutions with Microsoft Teams

9. Describe how Power Platform business solutions can consume Microsoft Azure services
including Azure Cognitive Services

10. Describe how Power Platform business solutions can consume third-party apps and
services

Power Platform Fundamentals 1

 11. Describe use cases for AppSource

12. Describe how Microsoft Power Platform apps work together

Describe Microsoft Power Platform administration and

security
13. describe how Microsoft Power Platform implements security including awareness of
Microsoft Dataverse security roles, Azure Identity Services, and Access Management
(IAM)

14. describe how to manage apps and users

15. describe environments

16. describe where to perform specific administrative tasks including Microsoft Power
Platform Admin center and Microsoft 365 admin center

17. describe data policies

18. describe how Microsoft Power Platform supports privacy and accessibility guidelines

19. describe Microsoft Power Platform privacy and accessibility capabilities

20. describe Microsoft Power Platform governance capabilities

2) Identify the core components of the

Microsoft Power Platform (10-15%)
Describe Microsoft Dataverse
21. describe the difference between databases and Dataverse

22. describe the differences between Dataverse and Dataverse for Teams

23. describe tables, columns, and relationships

24. describe how to use common standard tables to describe people, places, and things

Describe Connectors
25. describe triggers including trigger types and where triggers are used

26. describe actions

Power Platform Fundamentals 2

 27. describe licensing options for connectors including standard or premium tier

28. Identify use cases for custom connectors

Describe AI Builder
29. identify the business value of AI Builder

30. describe models including business card reader, detection model, form processing
model, and prediction model

31. describe how the Power Apps and Power Automate can consume AI Builder data

💡 Microsoft Power Platform offers a point-and-click approach that makes it easy

for anyone familiar with Microsoft Office to create custom business solutions, data
visualizations, and automated workflows.

It enables users to do three key actions on data to help drive business:

1) Gain insights from data (ANALYZE)
2) Drive intelligent business processes via apps (ACT)
3) Automate business processes (AUTOMATE)

Microsoft Power Platform is composed of four key products:

1) Power Apps
2) Power Automate
3) Power BI
4) Power Virtual Agents.

Power Apps
provides a rapid low code
development environment for building
custom apps for business needs. It
has services, connectors, and
scalable data service and app
platform (Microsoft Dataverse) to
allow simple integration and

Power Platform Fundamentals 3

 interaction with existing data. Power
Apps enable the creation of web and
mobile applications that run on all
devices.

Power Automate
lets users create automated
workflows between applications
and services. It helps automate
repetitive business processes
such as communication, data
collection, and decision
approvals. Power Automate
allows for the creation of
enterprise-grade process
automation.

Power BI
is a business analytics service
that delivers insights for
analyzing data. It can share
those insights through data
visualizations which make up
reports and dashboards to
enable fast, informed decisions.
Power BI scales across an
organization, and it has built-in
governance and security
allowing businesses to focus on
using data more than managing
it.

Power Virtual Agents

enables anyone to create
powerful chatbots using a
guided, no-code graphical

Power Platform Fundamentals 4

 interface, without the need for
data scientists or developers. It
minimizes the IT effort required
to deploy and maintain a
custom solution by empowering
subject matter experts to build
and maintain their own
conversational solutions.

Users can enable chatbots to perform an action by simply calling a Power Automate flow.
Flows help users automate activities or call-back end systems.

Connectors  AI Builder  Microsoft Dataverse

enable you to connect apps, lets users and developers scalable data service and
data, and devices in the add AI capabilities to the app platform which lets
cloud. Consider connectors workflows and Power users securely store and
the bridge across which Apps they create and use. manage data from multiple
information and commands AI Builder is a turnkey sources and integrate that
travel. There are more than solution that allows you to data into business
600 connectors for Microsoft easily add intelligence to applications using a

Power Platform Fundamentals 5

 Power Platform, enabling all your workflows and apps common data model to
of your data and actions to and predict outcomes to ensure ease and
connect cohesively. help improve business consistency for users.
Examples of popular performance without Microsoft Dataverse is the
connectors include writing code. common currency that
Salesforce, Office 365, enables the components of
Twitter, Dropbox, Google Microsoft Power Platform to
services, and more. work together. It’s the
foundation that enables the
consolidation, display, and
manipulation of data.

AI Builder used Microsoft Azure machine learning and cognitive skills. There is a separate
license for using this in Power Apps but the advantage is the non-requirement of writing any
code.

Power Platform Fundamentals 6

 ☞Business Value of Power Platform
Changing workforce expectations: As millennials and Gen Z become most of the
workforce, organizations need to adapt to fit the way they work. They have grown up in a
world of tailored experiences and collaborating through social media. To best apply their
abilities, organizations need to be able to deliver more custom, streamlined, and
collaborative digital experiences.

Increased costs for custom application development: Building custom applications

is time-consuming and expensive. Not only do you need to factor in the costs to initially
custom develop an application, but you need to factor in the costs to maintain it.

Need to become more agile: Historically, solutions can take months to build and roll
out. Once deployed, it can take weeks to implement every minor change. We no longer
have that luxury. Business strategies and needs change rapidly, so organizations need
to be able to quickly build solutions based on those changing needs.

Need to scale development efficiently: To meet ever-changing needs, organizations

need to change how they develop solutions. By responsibly enabling citizen developers
(Power Users) as part of development processes, we can create hybrid development
teams that empower the entire organization to grow.

Leveraging a low code/no-code approach minimizes the amount of time that development resources spend
working on items like screens, automation, and more. This frees them up to focus on the more advanced
portions of the solution where their skills are more appropriately used.

☞Data Connectors

Power Platform Fundamentals 7

 💡 Connectors are bridges from your data source to your app or workflow which
allows information to be conveyed back and forth.

The two types of data sources to which they connect:

Tabular data - A tabular data source is one that returns data in a structured table
format. Power Apps can directly read and display these tables through galleries, forms,
and other controls. Additionally, if the data source supports it, Power Apps can create,
edit, and delete data from these data sources. Examples include Microsoft Dataverse,
SharePoint, and SQL Server.

Function-based data - A function-based data source is one that uses functions to

interact with the data source. These functions can be used to return a table of data but
offer more extensive action such as the ability to send an email, update permissions, or
create a calendar event. Examples include Office 365 Users, Project Online, and Azure
Blob Storage.

Connectors are divided into standard and premium. Some popular standard connectors
are SharePoint, Outlook, and YouTube. Premium connectors require additional licensing for
your app and/or users. A few premium connectors are SQL Server, Survey Monkey, and Mail
Chimp. All Microsoft Power Platform business solutions can be used and implemented into
Microsoft 365 apps such as Teams. This allows users to play Power Apps within Teams or
run Power Automate from actions and events within Teams.

Components of Connectors
Once you have established a data source and configured your connector, there are two
types of operations you can use, triggers or actions.

Triggers are only used in Power Automate and prompt a flow to begin. Triggers can
be time-based, such as a flow that begins every day at 8:00 am, or they could be based
on an action like creating a new row in a table or receiving an email. You will always
need a trigger to tell your workflow when to run.

Actions are used in Power Automate and Power Apps. Actions are prompted by the
user or a trigger and allow interaction with your data source by some function. For
example, an action would be sending an email in your workflow or app or writing a new
line to a data source.

Custom Connectors

Power Platform Fundamentals 8

 💡 API stands for Application Programming Interface and holds a series of functions
available for developers.

Connectors work by sending information back and forth across these APIs and gathering
available functions into Power Apps or Power Automate. Because these connectors are
function-based, they will call specific functions in the underlying service of the API to return
the corresponding data.

💡 An advantage of building custom connectors is that they can be used in different

platforms, such as Power Apps, Power Automate, and Azure Logic Apps.

You can create custom connectors using different approaches:

Using a blank custom connector

From an OpenAPI definition

From a Postman collection

Import from GitHub

☞Data loss prevention, compliance, privacy, and

accessibility
Data loss prevention policies

💡 Create data loss prevention (DLP) policies to act as guardrails to help prevent
users from unintentionally exposing organizational data. DLP policies can be
scoped at the environment level or tenant level, offering flexibility to craft sensible
policies that strike the right balance between protection and productivity.

Connectors can be classified as either Business or Non-Business in the context of your

organization. Connectors that host business-use data should be classified as Business and
connectors that host personal-use data should be classified as Non-Business. Any
connectors that you want to restrict usage of across one or more environments should be
classified as Blocked.

Power Platform Fundamentals 9

 When a new policy is created, all connectors default to the Non-Business group. From
there they can be moved to Business or Blocked based on your preference. You can
manage connectors when you create or modify the properties of a DLP policy from
the Microsoft Power Platform admin center. These affect Microsoft Power Platform
canvas apps and Power Automate flows. To create a DLP policy, you need to be a tenant
admin or have the Environment Admin role.

Data Protection

💡 Data, as it is in transit between user devices and the Microsoft datacenters, are
secured. Connections established between customers and Microsoft datacenters
are encrypted, and all public endpoints are secured using industry-standard TLS.

Accessibility
An accessible canvas app will allow users with vision, hearing, and other impairments to
successfully use the app. In addition to being a requirement for many governments and
organizations, following the below guidelines increases usability for all users, regardless of
their abilities. You can use the Accessibility Checker to help review potential accessibility
issues in your app.

DATAVERSE

💡 Microsoft Dataverse is a cloud-based, low-code data service and app platform,

which is designed to be your central data repository for business data and
allows you to leverage the security and connectivity of Microsoft services.

Dataverse is available globally but deployed geographically to comply with your potential
data residency. It is not designed for stand-alone use on your servers, so you will need an
internet connection to access and use it. Behind the scenes, it powers many Microsoft
Dynamics 365 solutions such as Field Service, Marketing, Customer Service, and Sales. It is
also available as part of Power Apps and Power Automate with native connectivity built
right in. The AI Builder and Portals features of Microsoft Power Platform also utilize
Dataverse.

Power Platform Fundamentals 10

 Microsoft Dataverse offers a great deal of functionality such as:

Security:
Dataverse handles authentication with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to allow for
conditional access and multi-factor authentication. It supports authorization down to the row
and column level and provides rich auditing capabilities.

Logic:
Dataverse allows you to easily apply business logic at the data level. Regardless of how
a user is interacting with the data, the same rules apply. These rules could be related to
duplicate detection, business rules, workflows, or more.

Data:
Dataverse offers you the control to shape your data, allowing you to discover, model,
validate, and report on your data. This control ensures your data looks the way you want
regardless of how it is used.

Storage:
Dataverse stores your physical data in the Azure cloud. This cloud-based storage
removes the burden of worrying about where your data lives or how it scales. These

Power Platform Fundamentals 11

 concerns are all handled for you.

Integration:
Dataverse connects in different ways to support your business needs. APIs, webhooks,
eventing, and data exports give you the flexibility to get data in and out.

A Dataverse database is a single instance of Microsoft Dataverse that stores data in a set
of standard and custom data structures called tables. A table is a logical set of rows that is
used to store data. Rows within a table contain many columns to manage individual pieces
of information about a single row. You can create one or many database instances in
Microsoft Dataverse to host data behind your business solutions.

💡 Dataverse supports transactional multi-user applications, where quick response to

user demand is the priority. It is not intended to be a platform for long-running or
batch processing.

☞Common Data Model

The standard table design in a Microsoft Dataverse database is based upon an open data
model standard called Common Data Model.

💡 Common Data Model is a logical design that includes a set of open-sourced,

standardized, extensible data tables and relationships that Microsoft and its
partners have published in an industry-wide initiative called the Open Data
Initiative. This collection of predefined tables, columns, semantic metadata, and
relationships form the basis of the Common Data Model.

Power Platform Fundamentals 12

 Below you can see a screenshot of the standard contact table and the various types of
columns it includes.

💡 Tables were previously known as entities (upto 4Tb). Records are rows and
fields are columns.

Power Platform Fundamentals 13

 Types of tables
The three types of tables are:

Standard - Several standard tables, also known as out-of-box tables, are included with
a Dataverse environment. Account, business unit, contact, task, and user tables are
examples of standard tables in Dataverse. Most of the standard tables included with
Dataverse can be customized. Tables that are imported as part of a managed solution
and set as customizable also appear as standard tables. Any user with appropriate
privileges can customize these tables where the table property has a customizable set to
true.

Managed - Tables that aren’t customizable and have been imported into the
environment as part of a managed solution.

Custom - Custom tables are unmanaged tables that are either imported from an
unmanaged solution or are new tables created directly in the Dataverse
environment. Any user with appropriate privileges can fully customize these tables.

Columns are a way to store a discrete piece of information within a row in a table. You might
think of them as a column in Excel. Columns have data types, meaning that you can store
data of a certain type in a column that matches that data type

☞Understand Relationships
To make an efficient and scalable solution
for most of the solutions that you build, you
will need to split up data into different
containers (tables). Trying to store
everything in a single container would likely
be inefficient and difficult to work with and
understand. Tables that relate to one
another have a relational connection.
Relationships between tables exist in many
forms, but the two most common are one-
to-many and many-to-many, both of which
are supported by Microsoft Dataverse.

☞Environments in Dataverse

Power Platform Fundamentals 14

 💡 Environments are used to store, manage, and share your organization's
business data, apps, and flows in the Microsoft Power Platform.

Each environment allows you to provision one Microsoft Dataverse database for
use within that environment. Microsoft Dataverse environments allow you to
manage user access, security settings, and the storage that is associated with
that database.

Each environment is created under a Microsoft Azure Active Directory

(Azure AD) tenant, and its resources can only be accessed by users within
that tenant.

There are several types of environments that can be created such as

Sandbox, Production, Developer, and Trial

Any items that you create in that environment (including connections, gateways,
flows that are using Power Automate, and more) are also bound to their
environment's location. You can create more than one environment to manage solution
development and data storage by setting up one environment for development, another for
testing, and another for production use.

☞Business Rules
💡 Business rules allow you to apply and maintain business logic at the data layer
instead of the app layer. Put more simply, if you create business rules in Microsoft
Dataverse, they are in effect regardless of where you interact with the data.

Power Platform Fundamentals 15

 For example, business rules can be used in canvas and model-driven apps to set or clear
values in one or many columns in a table. They can also be used to validate stored data or
show error messages. Model-driven apps can use business rules to show or hide columns,
enable or disable columns, and create recommendations based on business intelligence.

💡 Business rules are usually defined for a table and apply to all forms, but you
can define a business rule for a specific model-driven form. Canvas apps
cannot have a business rule applied to a specific form, but they are still
enforced when interacting with the data.

The following business rule actions can be used by canvas and model-driven apps:

Set column values

Clear column values

Validate data and show error messages

Model-driven apps can also use business rules to:

Show or hide columns (model-driven apps only)

Enable or disable columns (model-driven apps only)

Create business recommendations based on business intelligence (model-driven apps

only)

The business rule shown below is configured to change the field Credit Limit VP Approver to
be a required field if the Credit Limit is set to greater than $1,000,000. If the credit limit is
less than $1,000,000 then the field is optional.

Power Platform Fundamentals 16

 By applying this business rule at the data level instead of the app level, you have better
control of your data. This can ensure your business logic is followed whether it is being
accessed directly from Power Apps, Power Automate, or even via an API. The rule is tied to
the data, not the app.

☞Admin Center
The Microsoft Power Platform admin center lets you manage
the tasks of setting up users, permissions, and many other
important features and capabilities of Microsoft Dataverse.
Settings are grouped into the following broad categories and
are accessible by selecting the link on the left-hand side of
the portal, as shown in the following figure.

Environments - This section lists all instances of

Microsoft Dataverse.

Analytics - See how your resources are being used in

your environment

Resources - View and assign capacity to your

environment

Data policies - This section lets you set up policies to

restrict which data connectors can be used with Microsoft

Power Platform Fundamentals 17

 Dataverse to limit what data can flow into or out of
Microsoft Dataverse tables.

Data integration - This section lets you create or add

pre-defined connections and monitor these connections
between Microsoft Dataverse and other data stores like
Salesforce or SQL Server.

4) Demonstrate the capabilities of Power Apps

(25-30%)
Identify common Power Apps components
47. describe the differences between canvas apps and model-driven apps

48. describe use cases for formulas

Build a basic canvas app

49. describe types of data sources

50. connect to data by using connectors

51. create an app from data

52. use controls to design the user experience

53. publish and share an app

Build a basic model-driven app

54. create a model-driven app from tables

55. modify forms

56. create and modify views

57. publish and share an app

Power Platform Fundamentals 18

 💡 Power Apps is a no-code/low-code platform for building apps that build off of
concepts similar to formulas in an Excel workbook such as SUM and TEXT.

You can use Power Apps to build simple solutions like vehicle inspection forms and status
reports or complex business solutions for purchasing processes and inventory management.
We can even enable AI through in-built cognitive services powered by AI Builder and Azure.
With over 275 connectors you can easily connect to data, using the underlying data service
and app platform, Microsoft Dataverse, or a multitude of online and on-premises data
sources like Dataverse, SharePoint, Dynamics 365, Office 365, SQL Server, and Azure
SQL.

☞Different types of Power Apps for different scenarios

Power Apps can create three types of apps: canvas, model-driven, and portals. Each is
suited to different scenarios and end-users.

Canvas Apps
Canvas apps are a great option when you
want to build an app from a blank canvas.
You start by choosing the screen size:
tablet or mobile, then you have a blank
screen from which to build. You can interact
with data in your app by adding data
sources. Drag and drop various controls
and add the desired functionality by writing
Excel-style formulas. Canvas apps provide
you with complete flexibility when building
your apps.

Model-driven Apps
Model-driven apps build from data in Microsoft Dataverse. Power Apps will build you a great-
looking, fully functional app to act upon and interact with this data. With model-driven apps,
there is no need to worry about choosing the app size; it is responsive, meaning it works on
mobile or tablet with no extra work by you. You define the relationships, forms, views,
business rules, and more at the data layer, inside of the Dataverse, giving you enough
control to get your business result without writing all of the formulas yourself.

Power Platform Fundamentals 19

 Portals
Portals bring the power of no-code
solutions to building externally facing
websites. Through the Power Apps
interface, you can build an anonymous or
authenticated website that allows users to
interact with data held in Dataverse. The
same drag and drop experience you enjoy
when building apps is available to build
these rich, interactive websites.

Add artificial intelligence to your app with no code

Power Apps has "democratized" artificial intelligence by providing a wizard-based interface
for building and training your model. This unlocks the power of Azure Machine Learning and
Cognitive services without writing a single line of code or creating complex machine learning
models.

Currently, there are four available AI models in Power Apps:

Prediction - This model predicts whether something will happen or not based on
previous data history.

Form processor - This model extracts text from an image like a business card reader.

Power Platform Fundamentals 20

 Object detector - This model identifies objects from an uploaded image or taken photo
and then provides a count of the number of objects present.

Text classification - This model categorizes text by its meaning, making it easier to
analyze.

☞Security and Administration

To manage security for Power Apps, you can
access https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/. Here you will find options for creating
and managing environments, monitoring licenses, working with Data Loss Prevention
policies, and managing Dataverse Data Integration projects. This allows you to manage the
Power Apps throughout your tenant from one single place.

Power Apps also has its own set of PowerShell cmdlets for app creators, administrators, and
developers that allow you to automate many of your administrative duties. A common use
case of the PowerShell cmdlets is to automate the discovery and permission management of
all apps in your tenant, allowing you to better understand and manage apps as they are
created and spread throughout your company.

Canvas App
Power Apps has many different components to build solutions including screens, inputs,
galleries, forms, and more.

Power Apps Studio

💡 Power Apps Studio is the name of the web interface you use to build your app.

With Power Apps, there is no client to download or install for building apps. Everything is
done from the browser by logging into https://make.PowerApps.com.

App format
The first step in creating your app is to choose the format of your app: Mobile or Tablet.
While both formats can be used interchangeably on a mobile device, a tablet, or a computer,
each has different defaults around the sizing of the screens and controls. Once you choose
the format for an app, you cannot change it.

Power Platform Fundamentals 21

 Galleries

💡 The Gallery control is used to display rows from a table of data based on your
selected formating.

The display of a row is then defined by a template, which you can customize to meet your
needs. This allows you to control which columns are shown and how they are formatted.
Power Apps will then apply this template automatically to every row in your data.

Forms

💡 Forms are focused on working with a specific record, often based on a

selection from a gallery.

In this experience, a user browses a gallery to find and select the desired row to view the
details on the form. Forms enable a user to not only view detailed information but to save
new records and edit existing ones. The various actions performed with forms are
controlled by form modes allowing the form to serve many purposes.

Input Controls

💡 Power Apps has a large selection of Input controls for customization: Text inputs,
buttons, dropdowns, toggles, date pickers, and sliders are a few examples.

You can add these controls to galleries, forms, and screens to build a functional and
aesthetic experience for your app. All inputs have a multitude of settings for default data,
formatting, and actions which allow you to build an app that has the right user experience for
your business process.

Intelligent Controls
In addition to common inputs as covered above, Power Apps also provides a rich set of
controls for more advanced operations. There are hardware-backed controls that allow
access to the camera, bar code scanner, GPS, and more hardware features. There are
also service-backed controls like the business card reader or object detector which
allow you to add artificial intelligence to your app without writing code.

Power Platform Fundamentals 22

 Functions

💡 Functions are the glue that binds all these controls, inputs, and data sources
together.

You can use one or more functions to create formulas in your apps. These formulas are
similar to the language you use in Excel and can be used for actions such as sending data
to a data source, formatting information, creating animations, and more. No complicated
code is necessary, simply powerful functions with straightforward inputs to enhance your
app.

☞Build a Canvas App

Controls in Power App

💡 A control is a UI element that produces an action or shows information. Many

controls in Power Apps are similar to controls that you've used in other apps:
labels, text-input boxes, drop-down lists, navigation elements, and so on.

Power Platform Fundamentals 23

 By leveraging controls, you can provide the user experience that best reflects what you want
to deliver. You can access Power Apps controls on the Insert tab.

A few common controls that can add interest and impact to your apps include:

Galleries - These controls are layout containers that hold a set of controls that show
rows from a data source. These are commonly used when you want to display
multiple records at a single time.

Forms - These controls show details about your data and let you create and edit
records.

Media - These controls let you add background images, include a camera button (so
that users can take pictures from the app), a barcode reader for quickly capturing
identification information, and more.

Charts - These controls let you add charts so that users can perform an instant
analysis while they're on the road.

Explore Generated App

All apps that are generated from data have the same set of screens that you can view from
the Screens pane:

Power Platform Fundamentals 24

 A) Browse screen (top)- This screen
appears by default. In it, you can browse,
sort, search, and refresh the data from the
data source. In the browse screen, you can
add items to the data source by selecting
the plus sign (+).

The browse screen has multiple controls.

Controls in the browse screen that you'll
want to become familiar with include:

BrowseGallery1 - This Gallery control

takes up most of the screen and shows
data from your data source.

NextArrow1 - When this Icon control is

selected, it opens the details screen.

IconNewItem1 - Another Icon control

that When selected, opens the
edit/create screen.

B) Details screen - The details screen

shows all information about a single item.
On this screen, you can open an item to
edit or delete it. Some of its controls are as
follows:

DetailForm1 - This control contains

other controls and contains a data card
for each column of the row that is being
displayed.

Address_DataCard1 - This is a card

control. Each card represents a single
column of the row. In this case, it shows
the Address from the Site Inspector
table, as shown in the previous unit.

IconEdit1 - When this control is

selected, it opens the edit/create screen

Power Platform Fundamentals 25

 so that the user can edit the current
item.

C) Edit/create screen - In this screen, you

can edit an existing item or create a new
one. Some of its controls include:

EditForm1 - This control contains other

controls and contains a data card for
each column of the row that is being
edited.

Address_DataCard2 - This is a card

control that shows the address from the
Site Inspector table, as shown in the
previous unit.

IconAccept1 - When this control is

selected, it saves the user's changes.

Functions
If you've used Microsoft Excel functions, you'll be comfortable building apps in Power Apps.
To create a formula, you will combine one or more formulas with the required and optional
parameters. Here are some common functions (full list) and an explanation of what they do:

Filter - This function is often used with galleries or tables of data to narrow down the
rows returned from your data source. You do this by specifying one or more columns in
your data set to perform a logic test on, which will allow you to return data that falls in a
certain date range, has a set value, or was created by the user for example.

Match - This function allows you to check a value to see if it follows a given pattern. You
can use this to check if the user entered a properly formatted email address and, if they
did not, show them a warning that a valid email is required. This function serves well for
conditional formatting.

Power Platform Fundamentals 26

 Distinct - This function allows you to return the unique values from a list of data, making
it easier to build dynamic dropdowns that show users only the valid values for the given
column.

Math functions - Power Apps include a range of math formulas for working with your
data from the simple such as Sum or Average to the complex such as Atan and Sin to
work with radians.

Share App
When you share an app with other people, they can run it in a browser, or in the players for
Apple iOS and Google Android. For detailed steps, please see Share an app - Learn |
Microsoft Docs

Model-driven App

💡 Model-driven app design is an approach that focuses on adding dashboards,

forms, views, and charts to your apps. With little or no code, you can build apps
that are simple or very complex.

In canvas apps, the app maker has total control over the app layout. In model-driven apps,
on the other hand, much of the layout is determined by the components you add. The
emphasis is more on quickly viewing your business data and making decisions instead of on
intricate app design.
Model-driven apps have three design phases:

1. Model your business data

The model-driven design uses metadata-driven architecture so that designers can

customize apps without writing code. To model business data, you determine what data
the app will need and how that data will relate to other data. Metadata means data about
data and defines the structure of the data stored in Microsoft Dataverse.

2. Define your business processes

Defining and enforcing consistent business processes is a key aspect of model-driven

app design. Consistent processes help ensure that your app users can focus on their
work and not worry about having to remember to perform a set of manual steps.
Processes can be simple or complex, and they often change over time.

Power Platform Fundamentals 27

 3. Build the app
You build your app by selecting and setting up the components you need in the App
Designer.

☞Building blocks of model-driven apps

Data
The table below shows the different data components that can make up a model-driven app
which can determine what data the app will be based upon. It also shows what designer is
used to create or edit the data component.

Component Description Designer

Tables are items with properties that you track. Examples

include contacts and accounts. Many standard tables are
Table available. You can customize a non-system standard table (or Table designer
production table). You can also create a custom table from
scratch.
Columns are properties that are associated with a table and help
define that table. A column is defined by a data type, which
determines the type of data that can be entered or selected.
Column Examples of data types include text, number, date and time, Table designer
currency, and lookup (which creates a relationship with another
table). Columns are typically used in forms, views, and
searches.

Power Platform Fundamentals 28

 Component Description Designer

Relationships define how tables can be related to each other.

There are 1:N (one-to-many), N:1 (many-to-one), and N:N
Relationship (many-to-many) relationships. For example, adding a lookup Table designer
column to a table creates a new 1:N relationship between the
two tables and lets you add that lookup column to a form.

This type of column shows a control that lets the user select
among predefined options. Each option has a number value and
Choice Table designer
a label. Choice columns can require either a single value or
multiple values.

User interface
The table below shows the user interface components which determine how users will
interact with the app and what designer is used to create or edit the component.

Component Description Designer

Apps determine the app fundamentals, like components,

App App designer
properties, the client type, and the URL.

Site map
Site map A site map specifies the navigation for your app.
designer

Forms include a set of data entry columns for a given table. A

Form form can be used to create a new data row or edit an existing Form designer
one.
Views define how a list of rows for a specific table appears in
View your app. A view defines the columns shown, the width of each View designer
column, the sorting behavior, and the default filters.

Power Platform Fundamentals 29

 Logic
The logic components determine what business processes, rules, and automation the app
will have. Microsoft Power Apps makers use a designer that is specific to the type of process
or rule they are needing.

Type of logic Description Designer

Business process flows walk users through a standard business

process. Use a business process flow if you want everyone to Business
Business
handle customer service requests the same way. Or you can process flow
process flow
use a business process flow to require staff to gain approval for designer
an invoice before submitting an order.

Workflows automate business processes without a user

Workflow
Workflow interface. Designers use workflows to initiate automation that
designer
does not require any user interaction.
Actions are a type of process that lets you manually invoke Process
Actions
behaviors, including custom actions, directly from a workflow. designer
Business rules apply rules or recommendation logic to a form to
set field requirements, hide or show fields, validate data, and Business rule
Business rule
more. App designers use a simple interface to implement and designer
maintain fast-changing and commonly used rules.

Power Platform Fundamentals 30

 Type of logic Description Designer

Power Automate is a cloud-based service that lets you create

Flows automated workflows between apps and services to get Power Automate
notifications, sync files, collect data, and more.

Visualization
The visualization components determine what type of data and reporting the app will show
and have available and which designer is used to create or edit that component.

Component Description Designer

Charts are individual graphical visualizations that can appear

Chart Chart designer
in a view or a form or that can be added to a dashboard.

Dashboards show one or more graphical visualizations in one Dashboard

Dashboard
place that provide an overview of actionable business data. designer

A combination of
Embedded Power BI adds embedded Power BI tiles and dashboards to chart designer,
Microsoft Power your app. Power BI is a cloud-based service that provides dashboard
BI business intelligence (BI) insight. designer, and
Power BI

Some examples of visualizations in a model-driven app:

☞Design of model-driven apps

For each table in App Designer, you'll be able to specify the following:

Power Platform Fundamentals 31

 Forms – Defining how users will see and interact with the data

Views – A list view of the rows for each table

Based on what option you have selected; you can specify which specific forms and views to
include for that table by selecting the table form or view and choosing either Manage
forms or Manage Views.

You can include multiple forms and views per

table. For example, in the screenshot below,
we're including multiple views to help manage
donations. If you do not select any view or forms,
the system will assume that you want to include
all items.

New content is added to the application by selecting the Add page button. When you add a
new page, you specify which type of page you want to use.

Power Platform Fundamentals 32

 There are three options to choose from:

Table based form and view: Display records of table in a full-page list view. Forms
associated with that table are also included.

Dashboard: Displays charts and tables from multiple entities to visualize data on a

single page. Multiple dashboards can be added to a model application.

Custom: Allows you to design and build the type of page you want by dragging
interactive components into the canvas.

☞Data model
Model-driven applications use a metadata-driven architecture. This means a large portion of
the model-driven app is based on how your data is modeled. There is no need to write
custom code to alter the app design. You can view the app metadata by reviewing the Table
in Microsoft Dataverse.

Power Platform Fundamentals 33

 The screenshot below shows examples of columns and the different data types

💡 If a column needs to be changed to a different data type, (i.e. text column to a

choice column), then you will need to delete that column and recreate with the
correct data type. This will cause you to lose any data associated with that
column.

☞Understand the needs of the user

Model-driven apps are created using the App Designer. You will choose the tables,
dashboards, business process flows, forms, and other components that you want to make
available in your app, and then the app will be created for you. This means you will need to
spend more time understanding what your user needs than how it is going to look.

Power Platform Fundamentals 34

 Business Logic
When incorporating business logic in your app, there are two primary options available. You
can set Business Rules on your Microsoft Dataverse tables or you can build Business
Process Flows.

With Business Rules, you will define behaviors at the data layer. Business Rules are great
for setting conditions for when a field is required, setting a default value, or even showing or
hiding a field based on criteria. An example could be a table for tracking expenses. You
could have a column for the type of travel and then build a business rule that dictates that if
a user chooses an automobile then the mileage field is required, else it is optional. This
gives you the power to make sure you maintain data consistency in all scenarios.
Business process flows are used to guide users through using your app. These workflows
can provide visuals on next steps based on the status of the data and facilitate other actions
that you want to occur as the user uses the app. Business Process Flows let you bring
automation to your app and make it more of a guided experience than just a place to enter
data.

☞Create or set up a security role

The Power Apps environment includes predefined security roles. These roles reflect
common user tasks, and the access levels that are defined follow the security best practice
of providing access to the minimum amount of business data that is required to use the app.
The following predefined roles are available with a Power Apps environment. Unless
otherwise noted, all the privileges have global scope.

Security role Privileges Description

Users who have this role can create new resources that
are associated with an environment, including apps,
connections, custom application programming interfaces
Environment
None (APIs), gateways, and flows that use Power Automate.
Maker
But these users can't access the data in an environment.
To learn more about environments, see Announcing
Power Apps environments.

This role has full permission to customize or administer

the environment, including creating, changing, and
System Create, Read, Write,
assigning security roles. Users who have this role can
Administrator Delete, Customize
view all data in the environment. To learn more,
see Privileges required for customization.

Power Platform Fundamentals 35

 Security role Privileges Description

Create (self), Read This role has full permission to customize the
System (self), Write (self), environment. But users who have this role can view rows
Customizer Delete (self), only for environment tables that they create. To learn
Customizations more, see Privileges required for customization.

Read, Create (self), Users who have this role can run an app in the
Microsoft
write (self), delete environment and perform common tasks for the rows they
Dataverse User
(self) own.

This role lets code run as or impersonate another user.

Act on behalf of This role is typically used with another security role to
Delegate
another user provide access to rows. To learn more, see Impersonate
another user.

Apps can be based on a custom table. Because the table is custom, privileges must be
explicitly specified before users can work in it. To do this, you can use either of the following
approaches:

Expand an existing predefined security role so that it includes privileges for rows that are
in the custom table.

Create a custom security role to manage privileges for users of the app.

Security roles control a user's access to data through a set of access levels and
permissions. The combination of access levels and permissions that are included in a
specific security role sets limits on the user's view of data and interactions with that data.

5) Demonstrate the capabilities of Power

Automate (10-15%)
Identify common Power Automate components
58. identify flow types including cloud, desktop, and business process flows

59. describe use cases for flows and available flow templates

60. describe how Power Automate uses connector triggers and actions

61. describe loops and conditions including switch, do until, and apply to each

62. describe expressions

63. describe use cases for approvals

Power Platform Fundamentals 36

 64. describe the Power Automate apps, including Power Automate Desktop, Power
Automate mobile, and Power Automate portal

Build a basic cloud flow

65. create a flow by using an instant, automated, or scheduled flow template

66. modify a cloud flow

67. use flow controls to perform data operations

68. run a cloud flow

💡 Power Automate is used to automate repetitive business processes. It was

previously known as flow.

Beyond simple workflows, Power Automate can send reminders on past due tasks, move
business data between systems on a schedule, talk to more than 275 data sources or any
publicly available API, and can even automate tasks on your local computer like computing
data in Excel.

Common scenarios and capabilities of Power Automate:

Automating repetitive tasks like moving data from one system to another

Guiding a user through a process so they can complete the different stages

Connecting to external data sources via one of the hundreds of connectors or directly
via an API

Automating desktop based and website processes with robotic process automation
(RPA) capabilities

Power Platform Fundamentals 37

 You don't have to choose just one data source either. Microsoft Power Platform easily
supports multiple data connections allowing you to bring data together from many platforms
into a single automation.

Finally, if your data isn't retrievable by one of the 600 plus connectors, then Power Automate
also allows you to create custom connectors, letting you talk to any data source via a
swagger file.

☞Flow Types
Power Automate works by creating flows, of which there are three types:

Cloud flows

💡 These are flows that you build with a trigger and then one or more actions.

There are a multitude of triggers and actions available such as the arrival of an email from a
specific person, or a mention of your company in social media, thanks to the existing
connectors. You'll see these as My flows and Team flows in Power Automate. The only
difference between a My flow and a Team flow is ownership. With a My flow you're the sole
owner, while a Team flow has more than one owner.

Business process flows

Power Platform Fundamentals 38

 💡 These flows are built to augment or create a guided experience when using
Model-driven apps and Microsoft Dataverse.

Desktop flows

💡 These robotic process automation (RPA) flows allow you to record yourself
performing actions on your desktop or within a web browser.

You can then trigger a flow to perform that process for you. You can also pass data in or get
data out of the process, letting you automate even "manual" business processes.

☞Security and Administration

From the Microsoft Power Platform admin center, you have full access to Power
Automate tenant wide. You have the ability to create and manage environments, implement
Data Loss Prevention policies, work with Data integrations, manage user licenses, and
quotas. The admin center gives you management capabilities across Power Automate.

Power Automate also offers a full set of PowerShell cmdlets. These cmdlets allow you
deeper controls and to work better in large-scale scenarios. Using the cmdlets for auditing
gives you more control and insight on Power Automate's usage throughout your tenant.

☞Important concepts in Microsoft Power Automate

💡 Power Automate flows are built with triggers and actions. Triggers determine
what starts the flows, while actions determine what happens.

You can think of the trigger as the starting action for the flow. The trigger can be something
like a new email arriving in your inbox or a new item being added to a SharePoint list.

Actions are what you want to happen when a trigger is invoked. For example, the new email
trigger will start the action of creating a new file on OneDrive for Business. Other examples
of actions include sending an email, posting a tweet, and starting an approval.

Some examples of types of actions you can have in a flow include:

Power Platform Fundamentals 39

 💡 Loops – Runs an action until conditions are met to move to the next step of the
flow
Switch – Identifies a single case to execute based on the evaluation of input
Do Until – Executes a block of actions until a specified condition evaluates to true
Apply to each – Executes a block of actions for each item in the input array
Expressions – underlying definition that describes the actual logic that runs in
your flow that can be manually written

You can also perform data operations in your flow, such as Compose, Create CSV table,
Join, or Select. These concepts will come into play later when you build your own flows
from scratch.

Trigger or run the flow

With Power Automate, you do not think of running a flow the same way as you do with
running a Power Apps app. Instead, you perform the activity that triggers the flow to
run.
When defining triggers, there are a few different types:

When something changes: These are triggers that run when data is changed. It could
be a new item created in SharePoint, a lead is updated in Dynamics, or when an event
has been deleted from Outlook for example.

On a schedule/ recurring flows: You

can set up a flow to be triggered at a
certain time of the day and with a
recurrence. This allows for processes
such as checking every day at 8 AM to
see if there are account renewals
pending and if so, sending an email to
the necessary people.

On a button press: This trigger takes shape in many ways. This can be when a flow
virtual button is run through the mobile app, or a physical button is clicked with 3rd party
options, or even when a button is pressed inside of Power Apps. This gives you and/or
the users control to "run" a flow on demand.

Power Platform Fundamentals 40

 Buttons are flows that are started through manual action.

From the Power Automate mobile app, you can access these features:

Activity Feed

Browsing

Buttons

Managing Flows

For example, you can create a button to send a Working from home today email to your
manager. If you live far from your workplace, you can then use this button on days when
the traffic is a mess!

☞Approval Center
Whenever in a scenario or flow, an approval is required to proceed ahead, we can use the
approval center to manage these approvals. For example, the social media team of a
company can be responsible for approving or rejecting tweets made by the tweet
contributors. Therefore, that team remains in control of the account and the content that
goes out to customers.

Power Automate helps users to manage their approvals through the approval center.
Choose  Approvals under Actions on the left-hand menu. Here you will be able to see any
approvals you have sent or received and your approval history. Power Automate displays
the details of the request including the requestor, approver, and outcome. You can approve

Power Platform Fundamentals 41

 or reject requests directly in your email, or you can come to the approval center and do so
directly.

Business Process Flow

Business process flows are used to guide a user through the steps of your business process
when working with Model-driven apps and Microsoft Dataverse. Read more at Build a
business process flow - Learn | Microsoft Docs

3) Demonstrate the capabilities of Power BI

(20-25%)
Identify common Power BI components
32. identify and describe uses for visualization controls including pie, bar, donut, and scatter
plots and KPIs

33. describe the Power BI Desktop Reports, Data, and Model tabs

34. compare and contrast Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service

35. compare and contrast dashboards, workspaces, and reports

36. describe the Power BI security model

Connect to and consume data

37. connect to and combine data from multiple sources including Microsoft Excel

38. describe how to use Power Query to clean and transform data

39. describe and implement aggregate functions

40. identify available types of data sources including Microsoft Excel

41. describe use cases for shared datasets

42. describe use cases for template apps

43. describe options for viewing Power BI reports and dashboards

Build a basic dashboard using Power BI

44. create a Power BI report

Power Platform Fundamentals 42

 45. create a Power BI dashboard

46. publish and share reports and dashboards

💡 Microsoft Power BI is a collection of software services, apps, and connectors that

work together to turn your unrelated sources of data into coherent, visually
immersive, and interactive insights.

Connect to Data
You can connect Power BI Desktop to many types of data sources, including on-premises
databases, Microsoft Excel workbooks, and cloud services (Azure services). Currently, there
are over 110 Power BI-specific connectors to cloud services such as GitHub and Marketo.
You can also connect to generic sources through XML, CSV, text, and ODBC. Power BI will
even extract tabular data directly from a website URL.

Power Platform Fundamentals 43

 Once Power BI Desktop connects to the data sources, we can structure data and transform
it, meaning that we can split and rename columns, change data types, and create
relationships between columns.

☞ Power BI concepts
The major building blocks of Power BI are: datasets, reports, and dashboards. They are
all organized into workspaces, and they are created on capacities.

Capacities

💡 Capacity is a dedicated set of resources reserved for exclusive use. It offers
dependable, consistent performance for your content. Capacities are
either shared or dedicated.

A shared capacity is shared with other Microsoft customers, while a dedicated capacity is
fully committed to a single customer. Dedicated capacities require a subscription. By
default, workspaces are created on a shared capacity.

Workspaces

💡 Workspaces are containers for dashboards, reports, datasets, and dataflows in

Power BI. There are two types of workspaces: My workspace and workspaces.

My workspace is the personal workspace for any Power BI customer to work with your
own content. Only you have access to your My workspace. You can share dashboards
and reports from your My Workspace. If you want to collaborate on dashboards and
reports or create an app, then you want to work in a workspace.

Workspaces are used to collaborate and share content with colleagues. You can add
colleagues to your workspaces and collaborate on dashboards, reports, and datasets.
With one exception, all workspace members need Power BI Pro licenses.

Workspaces are also the places where you create, publish, and manage apps for your
organization. Think of workspaces as staging areas and containers for the content that will
make up a Power BI app. So what is an app?

Power Platform Fundamentals 44

 💡 An app is a collection of dashboards and reports built to deliver key metrics to the
Power BI consumers in your organization. Apps are interactive, but consumers
cannot edit them. App consumers, the colleagues who have access to the apps,
do not necessarily need Pro licenses.

Datasets

💡 A dataset is a collection of data that you import or connect to. Power BI lets you

connect to and import all sorts of datasets and bring all of it together in one place.
Datasets can also source data from dataflows.

Datasets are associated with workspaces and a single dataset can be part of many

workspaces. When you open a workspace, the associated datasets are listed under
the Datasets tab. Each listed dataset represents a collection of data, for example, a dataset
can contain data from an Excel workbook on OneDrive, an on-premises SSAS tabular
dataset, and/or a Salesforce dataset. There are many different data sources supported.
Datasets added by one workspace member are available to the other workspace
members with an admin, member, or contributor role.

Shared Datasets:
‼
Business intelligence is a collaborative activity. It's important to establish
standardized datasets that can be the 'one source of truth.' Discovering and reusing
those standardized datasets is key. When expert data modelers in your organization
create and share optimized datasets, report creators can start with those datasets to
build accurate reports. Your organization can have consistent data for making
decisions, and a healthy data culture. To consume these shared datasets just
choose Power BI datasets when creating your Power BI report.

Reports

💡 A Power BI report is one or more pages of visualizations such as line charts,

maps, and treemaps.

Power Platform Fundamentals 45

 Visualizations are also called visuals. You can create reports from scratch within Power BI,
import them with dashboards that colleagues share with you, or Power BI can create them
when you connect to datasets from Excel, Power BI Desktop, databases, and SaaS
applications. For example, when you connect to an Excel workbook that contains Power
View sheets, Power BI creates a report based on those sheets. And when you connect to a
SaaS application, Power BI imports a pre-built report.

💡 There are two modes to view and interact with reports: Reading view and Editing
view.

When you open a report, it opens in Reading view. If you have edit permissions, then you
see Edit report in the upper-left corner, and you can view the report in Editing view. If a
report is in a workspace, everyone with an admin, member, or contributor role can edit it.
They have access to all the exploring, designing, building, and sharing capabilities of the
Editing view for that report. The people they share the report with can explore and interact
with the report in Reading view.

Dashboards

💡 A dashboard is something you create in the Power BI service or something a

colleague creates in the Power BI service and shares with you.

It is a single canvas that contains zero or more tiles and widgets. Each tile pinned from a
report or from Q&A displays a single visualization that was created from a dataset and
pinned to the dashboard. Entire report pages can also be pinned to a dashboard as a single
tile.

Template Apps:
‼
The new Power BI template apps enable Power BI partners to build Power BI apps
with little or no coding and deploy them to any Power BI customer. As a Power BI-
partner, you create a set of out-of-the-box content for your customers and publish it
yourself.

Dashboards vs Reports

Power Platform Fundamentals 46

 Capability Dashboards Reports

Pages One page One or more pages

One or more reports and one or more

Data sources A single dataset per report
datasets per dashboard.

Drilling down in Only if you pin an entire report page to a

Yes
visuals dashboard.

Available in Power Yes. Can build and view reports in

No
BI Desktop Power BI Desktop.

No. Can't filter or slice a

Yes. Many different ways to filter,
Filtering dashboard. Can filter a dashboard tile in
highlight, and slice.
focus mode, but can't save the filter.

Feature content on
colleagues' Home Yes Yes
page
Yes. Can set multiple dashboards Yes. Can set multiple reports
Favorite
as favorites. as favorites.
Yes, provided you have edit
Natural language
Yes permissions for the report and
queries (Q&A)
underlying dataset.

Yes. Available for dashboard tiles in certain

Set alerts No
circumstances.

Yes. Can subscribe to a report

Subscribe Yes. Can subscribe to a dashboard.
page.
Can see
No. Can export data but can't see tables and
underlying dataset Yes
fields in the dashboard itself.
tables and fields

Power Platform Fundamentals 47

 ☞Data Modeling and Visualizations
In Power BI Desktop, you will begin to build reports in the Report view. You will be working
in five main areas:

Power Platform Fundamentals 48

 1. Ribbon - Displays common tasks that are associated with reports and visualizations.

2. Report view, or canvas - Where visualizations are created and arranged.

a. The Data view allows you to view all of the data available in your report. This is an
easy way to quickly check data types and validate data.

b. The Model view allows you to visually set the relationship between tables or

elements. A relationship is where two or more tables are linked together because
they contain related data. This enables users to run queries for related data across
multiple tables.

3. Pages tab - Located along the bottom of the page, this area is where you would select
or add a report page.

4. Visualizations pane - Where you can change visualizations, customize colors or axes,
apply filters, drag fields, and more.

5. Fields pane - Where query elements and filters can be dragged onto the Report view or
dragged to the Filters area of the Visualizations pane.

Explore the Filters pane

Another way to filter data is by opening and modifying filters is the Filters pane. The Filters
pane contains filters that were added to the report by the report designer. As a consumer,
you can interact with the filters and save your changes but cannot add new filters.

The four types of filters are:

Report – once a report is ready with multiple pages, filters on all pages will come into
effect.

Page – Applies to all the visuals on the current report page.

Visual – Applies to a single visual on a report page. You only see visual level filters if
you have selected a visual on the report canvas.

Drillthrough – Allows you to explore successively more detailed views within a single
visual.

We have many options for certain filtering options depending on the data type of the column
selected. Here we have 3 options for states. There are other options available for date type
column.

Advanced filtering lets us enter certain character patterns or values to filter on.

The top N filter filters the visuals based on the top N values of the selected column.

Power Platform Fundamentals 49

 Use BUTTONS in Power BI:
‼
Using buttons in Power BI lets you
create reports that behave like
apps, and thereby, create an
engaging environment so users can
hover, click, and further interact with
Power BI content. You can add
buttons to reports in Power BI
Desktop and in the Power BI
service. When you share your
reports in the Power BI service,
they provide an app-like experience
for your users.

☞Views in Power BI
1) Report View/ Report Tab
We create all our visualizations and associated reports and dashboards in this view.

Power Platform Fundamentals 50

 2) Data View/ Data Tab
This is the view where we get to see the raw data and make minor changes like changing
table name, column name, and/or data types

Power Platform Fundamentals 51

 3) Model View/ Model Tab
This view is used to create/modify relationships between multiple data sources/tables and
create a star schema or fact-dimension data model similar to SQL.

☞Visualization
Column and Bar Chart
Column and Bar charts are the most
commonly used visualization for depicting
any data. There are multiple options
present in Power BI from the stacked bar
chart (common), a clustered bar chart,
100% stacked bar chart. There are specific
cases when each of these are used. We
can use the format tab to change the visual
appeal.

Pie Chart
The pie chart tends to be one of the
infamous charts. It is very difficult to judge
the slice size just by visual approximation
as can be seen in the image. The best case
when a pie chart should be used is when
we have no more than 4-5 categories of
data.

Power Platform Fundamentals 52

 Map
There are two options for using the map chart as
shown in the images. One of them uses bubble
size to describe the relative magnitude of the
selected column. There is an option to change it
to heat map as well using the format tab

The other option is to use the filled map which

fills the state completely. here also we can use
the format tab to define a custom rule for filling
the color to depict the variance in the selected
column magnitude

Tables Chart
Tables are a neat way of showing all the
important data without taking up much
space. Conditional formatting and data bars
can be inserted using the format tab.

TreeMap Chart

Power Platform Fundamentals 53

 When we have a lot of categories or
subcategories that are difficult to fill in a
column or bar chart without having to scroll,
a treemap can be a good alternative. It
takes up little space and provides a good
idea about the top items from the selected
columns.

Line Chart
Widely used option to depict time series
data. It is simple and can be broken down
by data hierarchy with the click of a button.
When single DOWN ARROW is selected, it
will dive down only into particular
hierarchies i.e. particular year, or month, etc
Selecting DOUBLE ARROW will dive down
by aggregating the next hierarchy level i.e.
sum of revenues across all years for a
particular month or quarter

Finally, the LAST ARROW is used to dive

down into the hierarchy level in a normal
manner

Two ways to create a new visualization in Power BI Desktop are:

Drag field names from the Fields pane and then drop them on the report canvas. By
default, your visualization appears as a table of data.

In the Visualizations pane, select the type of visualization that you want to create. With
this method, the default visual is a blank placeholder that resembles the type of visual
that you selected.

☞Transform data
Sometimes, your data might contain extra data or have data in the wrong format. Power BI
Desktop includes the Power Query Editor tool, which can help you shape and transform
data so that it's ready for your models and visualizations.

Power Platform Fundamentals 54

 1. In the ribbon, the active buttons enable you to interact with the data in the query.

2. On the left pane, queries (one for each table, or entity) are listed and available for
selecting, viewing, and shaping.

3. On the center pane, data from the selected query is displayed and available for shaping.

4. The Query Settings window lists the query’s properties and applied steps.

On the center pane, right-clicking a column

displays the available transformations.
Examples of the available transformations
include removing a column from the table,
duplicating the column under a new name,
or replacing values. From this menu, you
can also split text columns into multiples by
common delimiters.
The Power Query Editor ribbon contains
additional tools that can help you change
the data type of columns, add scientific
notation, or extract elements from dates,
such as day of the week.

💡 Tip:
If you make a mistake, you can
undo any step from the Applied

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 Steps list.
As you apply transformations,
each step appears in the Applied
Steps list on the Query Settings
pane. You can use this list to
undo or review specific changes,
or even change the name of a
step. To save your
transformations, select Close &
Apply on the Home.

Format data
You might need to format data so that Power BI can properly categorize and identify that
data. With some transformations, you'll cleanse data into a dataset that you can use in
Power BI. Examples of powerful transformations include promoting rows into headers,
using Fill to replace null values, and Unpivot Columns.

What is an aggregate?

💡 Sometimes you want to mathematically combine values in your data. The

mathematical operation could be sum, average, maximum, count, and so on.
When you combine values in your data, it's called aggregating. The result of that
mathematical operation is an aggregate.

Most datasets have more than one type of data. At the most basic level, the data is either
numeric or it isn't. Power BI can aggregate numeric data using a sum, average, count,
minimum, variance, and much more. The service can even aggregate textual data, often
called categorical data. If you try to aggregate a categorical field by placing it in a numeric-
only bucket like Values or Tooltips, Power BI will count the occurrences of each category or
count the distinct occurrences of each category. Special types of data, like dates, have a few
of their own aggregate options: earliest, latest, first, and last.

Some of the options that may be available for aggregating a field:

Power Platform Fundamentals 56

 Do Not Summarize. With this option chosen, Power BI treats each value in that field
separately and doesn't summarize them. Use this option if you have a numeric ID
column that the service shouldn't sum.

Sum. Adds all the values in that field up.

Average. Takes an arithmetic mean of the values.

Minimum. Shows the smallest value.

Maximum. Shows the largest value.

Count (Not Blanks). Counts the number of values in that field that aren't blank.

Count (Distinct). Counts the number of different values in that field.

☞Security
Similar to many Microsoft services, Power BI is built on Azure. This is Microsoft's cloud
computing infrastructure and platform, which ensures the same level of security for Power BI
as other Microsoft services. Users sign in with their credentials held in Azure Active
Directory and control the level of sharing for every report, data or dashboard, determining
whether recipients can edit or only view items.

☞Administration
💡 Power BI administration is the management of a Power BI tenant, including the
configuration of governance policies, usage monitoring, and provisioning of
licenses, capacities, and organizational resources.

Power Platform Fundamentals 57

 Power BI is designed for self-service business intelligence. The administrator is the guardian
of data, processes, and policies in the Power BI tenant. A Power BI administrator is a key
member of a team that includes BI developers, analysts, and other roles.

☞Dashboard
Dashboards in Power BI are one-page collections of visualizations that are created from
within the Power BI service (online). You can create dashboards by pinning visuals from
reports.
Learn more about how to create a dashboard: Build a dashboard - Learn | Microsoft Docs

☞Collaborate and Share

Power BI service makes it easy to share your datasets, dashboards, and reports with your
colleagues.

1. Click My Workspace on the left side Navigation pane. If you have multiple workspaces,
you can click on Workspaces and make the appropriate selection from the dropdown.

2. Click the share button by the Contoso Manufacturing Sales dashboard.

Power Platform Fundamentals 58

 1. Type in the names or emails of those you wish to share your dashboard with and set the
options to determine the user permissions.

2. Select Share.

6) Demonstrate the capabilities of Power

Virtual Agents (5-10%)
Describe the capabilities of Power Virtual Agents in
Microsoft Teams
69. describe use cases for Power Virtual Agents within Microsoft Teams

70. describe topics, entities, and actions

71. describe message nodes, question nodes, conditions, trigger phrases, and the authoring
canvas

Build and publish a basic chatbot

72. create a chatbot

73. create a topic

74. call an action

Power Platform Fundamentals 59

 75. launch a Power Automate flow from a chatbot

76. publish a chatbot

💡 Power Virtual Agents are adaptable Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots, at your
service. They can solve common customer and internal-facing issues
automatically, freeing up staff to focus on complex requests and high-value
interactions.

You can easily create your own virtual agents, powerful chatbots, without the need for
developers or data scientists, by using a guided, no-code graphical interface.
Using Power Virtual Agents, you can:

Empower your teams by allowing them to easily build chatbots themselves without
needing intermediaries, coding, or AI expertise.

Reduce costs by easily automating common inquiries and freeing human agent time to
deal with more complex issues.

Improve customer satisfaction by allowing customers to self-help and resolve issues

quickly, 24/7 using rich personalized bot conversations.

☞Highlights of Power Virtual Agents

1. Get started in seconds. Power Virtual Agents is a software-as-a-service (SaaS)
offering. It allows you to easily sign up, create your chatbot, and embed it into your
website with just a few clicks. There is no infrastructure to maintain or complex systems
to deploy.

2. Empower your subject matter experts. Using Power Virtual Agents, you are in the
driver's seat. Your SMEs can create chatbots quickly and easily using a novel, intuitive,
code-free graphical interface, eliminating the need for AI expertise or teams of
developers.

Power Platform Fundamentals 60

 3. Enable rich, natural conversations. Microsoft’s powerful conversational AI capabilities
enable your end-users to have rich multi-turn conversations that quickly guide them to
the right solution. And, unlike most products on the market, there is no need to retrain AI
models. Simply provide a few short examples of the topic you want the chatbot to
handle, build the conversation using the graphical editor, and your chatbot is ready to
handle customer requests.

Power Platform Fundamentals 61

 4. Enable chatbots to take action. Chatbots that can chat with your users are great, but
chatbots that can act on their behalf are even better. With Power Virtual Agents, you can
easily integrate with services and back-end systems out-of-the-box or through hundreds
of easy-to-add custom connectors using Power Automate. This makes it simple to create
a chatbot that not only responds to the user but also acts on their behalf.

Power Platform Fundamentals 62

 5. Monitor and improve chatbot performance. Power Virtual Agents lets you keep an
eye on how your chatbots are performing using powerful metrics and AI-driven
dashboards. Easily see which topics are doing well and where the chatbot can improve,
and quickly make adjustments to improve performance.

6. Better together. Power Virtual Agents works hand-in-hand with Dynamics 365

Customer Service Insights to provide a holistic view of your customer service operations.
You can use Customer Service Insights and Power Virtual Agents together to determine
which topics are trending or consuming support resources, and then easily automate
them.

☞Components of Virtual Agents

When you create chatbots with Power Virtual Agents, you author, and edit topics. Topics are
discrete conversation paths that, when used together within a single chatbot, allow for users
to have a conversation with a chatbot that feels natural and flows appropriately.

Topics

Power Platform Fundamentals 63

 💡 A topic defines how a chatbot conversation plays out. A topic has trigger
phrases—these are phrases, keywords, or questions that a user is likely to type
that are related to a specific issue—and conversation nodes—these are what you
use to define how a chatbot should respond and what it should do.

You can author topics by customizing provided templates, creating new topics from scratch,
or getting suggestions from existing help sites. The AI uses natural language understanding
to parse what a customer actually types and find the most appropriate trigger phrase or
node.

Use system and sample topics

When you create a chatbot, a number of topics will be automatically created for you.

These are:

Four prepopulated User Topics are titled lessons. These lesson topics can be used to
help understand simple to complex ways of using nodes to create chatbot
conversations.

A number of System Topics. These are prepopulated topics that you are likely to need
during a chatbot conversation. We recommend you keep these and use them until you
are comfortable with creating an end-to-end chatbot conversation.

You can edit both of these topic types in the same manner as for topics you create; however,
you cannot delete them.

Power Platform Fundamentals 64

 Entities
A big part of chatbot conversations in Power Virtual Agents is natural language
understanding, which is the ability for the AI to understand a user's intent. For example,
natural language understanding is involved when a user might say "I tried to use my gift card
but it doesn't work" and the chatbot is able to route the user to the topic related to gift cards
not working—even if that exact phrase isn't listed as a trigger phrase.

💡 One fundamental aspect of natural language understanding is to

identify entities in a user dialog. An entity can be viewed as an information unit
that represents a certain type of real-world subject, like a phone number, zip code,
city, or even a person's name.

Prebuilt entities:
Out of the box, Power Virtual Agents comes with a set of prebuilt entities, which represent
the most commonly used information in real-world dialogs, such as age, colors, numbers,
and names.
Custom entities:
The prebuilt entities cover commonly used information types, but on some occasions, such
as when building a chatbot that serves a specific purpose, you will need to teach the
chatbot's language understanding model some domain-specific knowledge.

Actions

💡 You can enable your chatbot to perform an action by calling a Microsoft Power
Automate flow. Flows can help you automate activities or call backend systems.
For example, you can use flows with end-user authentication to retrieve
information about a user after they sign in.

You can call flows from within topics, as a discrete Call an action node. You can utilize flows
that have already been created in your Power Apps environment, or you can create a flow
from within the Power Virtual Agents authoring canvas.

Flows typically use variables to input and output information. The variables can then be used
in other nodes within the topic.

Power Platform Fundamentals 65

 ☞Publishing
💡 With Power Virtual Agents, you can publish chatbots to engage with your
customers on multiple platforms or channels. These include live websites,
mobile apps, and messaging platforms like Microsoft Teams, Facebook,
Slack, line, Skype, and Telegram.

After you have published at least once, you can connect your chatbot to additional channels.
Each time you want to update your chatbot, you publish it again from within the Power
Virtual Agents app itself. This will update the chatbot across all the channels where you've
inserted or connected your chatbot.

You can also configure a Power Virtual Agents chatbot to provide authentication capabilities,
so users can sign in with any OAuth2 identity provider, such as Azure Active Directory
(Azure AD), a Microsoft account, or Facebook.

Power Platform Fundamentals 66