Michael Ochs

In this session we'll take a look at using a low-code approach to getting started with Power Virtual Agents and extending the capabilities of PVA using the Microsoft Bot Framework. Makers of all skill levels will learn how to create Bots using Power Virtual Agents and how the Power Platform's "no cliffs" design extends to creating Bots to allow for specific business scenarios that may not be able to be met out of the box.

Power Catalog is a feature of Power Platform that allows makers and users to easily find and install apps, components and templates within their organization. It also enables administrators and approvers to curate and control the quality and security of the Power Platform artifacts. However, until recently, Power Catalog was only accessible through a command line interface, which limited its usability and adoption. In this session, you will learn about the new in-maker experiences for Power Catalog, which provide a graphical user interface for publishing and acquiring components from the catalog. You will also get an overview of the existing catalog functionality and the benefits of using it for different scenarios and audiences. Finally, you will see a live demonstration of some of the new features and capabilities that will be available soon for everyone.

In this session we’ll be covering the ALM Apps and Components that are being developed for the CoE Starter Kit. The components are intended to be a starting point for customers to implement healthy Power Platform ALM practices in their organization leveraging Azure DevOps and GitHub. The two Apps that are part of the ALM Components are geared toward two different audiences.

In this session we’ll look at what tools, practices and lessons can be shared from the CoE Starter Kit team to make developing Power Platform projects possible in the wild using open source. The primary focus will be on how power platform OSS is different from traditional OSS and where there are similarities that can be adopted. Attendees will learn how to start their own Open Source projects.

The cost of storage and API calls in Power Apps and Dynamics 365 can be a concern for many organizations. The good news is there are ways to reduce your cost for storage and for integrations by leveraging Virtual Entities. In this session we'll take a look at building a custom data provider that connects to Azure SQL and eliminates the need to push certain kinds of data out of your Azure hosted or on-prem databases and into the potentially more costly DataFlex (formerly CDS) storage for your Model Driven App to consume.

In this session we'll demonstrate how you can use a little bit of code to make Flow even more powerful. The session is intended for every level of Flow user, as long as you have a good understanding of Flow's capabilities and it's purpose. For as much as Flow can do there are just as many things it can't and when you reach the end of Flow's capabilities you may require a little bit of code to help your project to the finish line. This is primarily a demo session and we'll show how to build custom Flow plugins, from scratch, that leverage Azure Functions to extend Flows capabilities. The session focuses on two areas of extending out of the box flow capabilities. 1. Handling data validation that can't be accomplished using out-of-the-box functions 2. Extending existing connectors to provide more capabilities to grow your Flow to places never seen before. Make sure to stay tuned all the way to the end!

In this session we’ll delve into the strange and mysterious world of Power Platform Application Life Cycle management. We’ll discuss challenges related to applying ALM best practices, using the Power Platform, as well as the tools, resources, and practices necessary to thwart those challenges. The session will include a demo of end to end ALM Automation of Power Platform solutions using the latest tools available in the Center of Excellence Starter Kit’s ALM Accelerator for Power Platform.