How will the advancements in low-code/no-code platforms and technologies shape the future of Power Apps and its role in empowering citizen developers and businesses to build custom solutions and automate processes?
Srinu Tamada
Technical Manager
Acuvate
Modern application development is undergoing a revolution, with citizen developers now able to build their own applications and only reaching out to professional developers when necessary. AI-based assistance is now removing the need for developers or third-party dependencies and providing more sophisticated solutions. In 2023, Low-Code/No Code applications will add more features and capabilities to support citizen developers, which will be key to the success of the Power Platform.
I expect to see significant changes in Power Apps, including:
More accurate generation of Power Apps from images and Figma, which will add flexibility for business users to create Apps directly from their mockups.
Enabling end users to generate custom reports on demand directly within Power Apps, allowing them to generate reports that are more relevant to their needs.
ChatGPT search enablement on data sources, which will eliminate the need for users to write search queries and make the process more efficient.
Citizen developer, professional developers, and businesses will be empowered as more AI like Chat GPT gets integrated into Power Apps and the Power Platform. The barrier to entry will continue to lower as you will be able to talk to the AI and explain what process or application you’re trying to implement, and it will help you build out the solution. Some of this can be seen in Power Automate with its natural language assistant.
Chris McKee
Sr. Cloud Solution Architect
Microsoft
Colt Coan
Senior Manager, Digital Innovation
Epiq
I believe the journey for many organizations has become a balance of enabling their citizen developers to provide immense value to how they work through the use of the Power Platform, while also reducing the time to delivery for IT and pro-developers who can find a blend of traditional development with a simple interface and user friendly ALM strategy.
With natural language understanding capabilities becoming more frequent, and the barrier of entry continually being lowered, I believe we will see a boom of shared service teams with an aligned vision across departments, relying on low-code tools for the most business critical solutions.
Low-code/no-code platforms are becoming increasingly popular for their ease of use and ability to democratize app development. In the future, this trend is likely to continue and shape the role of Power Apps in empowering citizen developers and businesses to build custom solutions and automate processes. Power Apps already provides a low-code/no-code platform for building business applications, and its integration with other Microsoft products like Dynamics 365 and SharePoint will make it even more appealing to users. The advancements in low-code/no-code technologies will enable Power Apps to become more accessible, intuitive, and efficient, allowing users with little or no coding experience to build complex solutions quickly. This will help businesses increase their speed to market and drive digital transformation.
Naresh Kuncham
Senior Technology Expert
CBI SPRL
EY Kalman
Power Platform Techvangelist
Kainos
Microsoft Business Applications Solution Architect, Microsoft MVP’ The emergence of Power Platform several years ago has enabled Digital Transformation in ways that organisations could only previously dream about. The usage of low code platforms allows business users who are not ‘professional developers’ to have within their grasp tooling to allow them to create solutions.
With these, they are able to solve their own personal & team challenges, and quickly deploy solutions to address these. This in turn reduces the need to rely on professional development teams, as well as speeding up project lifecycles & ROI realisation. Examples such as Heathrow Airport have proven this at scale!
The emergence of low-code/no-code platforms and technologies have been a game-changer as businesses have enabled citizen developers and organizations to rapidly develop custom solutions and automate processes in a simple and cost-effective way. As businesses continue to embrace these powerful technologies, Power Apps will be uniquely positioned to expand due to its strategic investments in technology. The drag-and-drop features of Power Apps enable users to quickly design and build automated workflows and apps without writing code, allowing them to save time and resources while maintaining control over their data and processes. Furthermore, Power Apps could potentially be used to create an API layer between systems, allowing further automation and simplifying complex integration projects. As the advancements in low-code/no-code platforms and technologies continue to grow, Power Apps will continue to remain at the forefront, empowering citizen developers and businesses to create reliable and secure solutions to meet their evolving needs.
Sai Ankith
Sr. Dynamics 365/ Power Apps Consultant
Microsoft
Jamie Willis-Rose
Technical Specialist
Microsoft
I have two thoughts on this: for me personally, the Power Platform has transformed my career. I think there are a lot of professionals who will follow the low-code path to new careers either in their current industry/organization or a whole new career path will open up for them like it did for me.
The other thought I have is that low-code enables organizations to tap into the deep well of employee experience to find better solutions to common problems. Power Apps and Power Automate in particular can let an end user move a tedious process from email and Excel to an app that can be shared with an entire team in mere minutes.
I also think we have to discuss automation and AI. Both will probably do more in the next 10 years to change the way we work than any other technology ever has. Automation has already transformed other industries like automotive and broadcasting. Organizations will move more and more repetitive task off employees into automation and some roles may no longer exist in 10 years, especially with the ascent of AI. The good news is that automation and AI will create new roles and career opportunities. You just have to be willing to learn.
Through the Microsoft App-In-A-Day workshops I’ve delivered in the past, it’s clear the demand for process automation and new app creation, is increasing considerably quicker than the number of new IT developers joining the workforce. This is leaving a huge gap, where we need to empower business users to become direct IT contributors for all the “low hanging fruit”. This provides more time for expierenced developers to take on technically difficult tasks, but requires them to also focus on giving business users the tools they need to achieve their requirements. Power Apps is perfect for helping fill this ever increasing gap.
Christy O'Kane
Senior D365 Consultant
Incremental
Dennis Newcomb
Microsoft Power Platform and Office 365 Consultant/Developer
Digital MS 365
The rise of low-code/no-code platforms and technologies is expected to streamline the development process and reduce the reliance on traditional middlemen, such as business analysts and software developers. With low-code platforms, individuals within organizations are empowered to build custom solutions and automate processes, reducing the need for specialized technical skills. This shift towards citizen development is expected to result in a more decentralized and collaborative approach to application development, allowing organizations to create solutions that are tailored to their specific needs. The use of low-code platforms is likely to lead to a more efficient development process, with faster time to market and lower costs, while still delivering high-quality solutions. Ultimately, low-code/no-code technology is expected to eliminate the need for traditional middlemen and enable organizations to take a more hands-on approach to solution development.
As we continue to make improvements to the Power Platform and Dynamics 365, which is built on the Power Platform, we are already seeing more organizations take advantage of these tools. More and more organizations are empowering their employees with the tools and training to improve and automate their most common tasks across the organization. Allowing faster digital transformation than ever before. With our center of excellence and improved admin experiences, IT can more easily monitor, and rest assured that data is not being lost or handled incorrectly. I think these trends will continue, and we will see even more use cases and scenarios emerge in the Supply Chain Management area of organizations as we continue to see difficulty in the economic conditions around the world.
Rachel Profitt
Senior Program Manager
Microsoft
Daniel Westerdale
IRFS17 Power Platform Consultant
Beazley
With the ubiquity of MS Office and SharePoint Online, business users have also easy access to Power Apps and Power Automate: “citizen development”, through the seated licenses. The entry bar is further lowered with innovations in AI technologies, allowing Power Automates and, eventually, whole Power Apps to be created on the fly by users, simply describing what they want. This is going to be disruptive as businesses will need to ensure that crucial guard rails such as licensing, governance, security, and application lifecycle management are accessible, without impeding innovation within the organisation.
Low-code and no-code platforms are revolutionizing the way businesses create custom applications and automate processes.
Although Power Apps is well-positioned within Microsoft 365 to take full advantage of these changing times, the audience of users is still those with an IT background or at minimum experience of Excel based formulas.
My passion is to help those complete beginners get started building Power Apps. I believe Microsoft still has a long way to go before my role in this is redundant and citizen developers truly have autonomy.
My prediction is this goal can only be reached via AI.
We are seeing great start with Power Apps ideas that helps anyone create low code using natural language.
In the future this would need to encompass the entire solution.
Dougie Wood
Creative Director
Valto
Laura W
Power BI Specialist
Avanade
Low code solutions have been available for a long time, Excel VBA powering many of them. The advantage Power Platform brings to the citizen developer is the solutions are cleaner and less code is required. For the business as a whole the huge advantage is these brilliant solutions that can become business critical are visible to IT admins so can be supported and incorporated into the company tech ecosystem.
The bar to start building will keep getting lower while the quality of what is built will continue to get higher. Between Microsoft’s continued focus on making the product easier to use while more performant and the growth of community to help people learn how to build the evolution will be awesome. It is easy for those of who have been doing this for years to forget, the platform is still young and we are all still early adopters.
Shane Young
Power Apps and Power Automate MVP for PowerApps911
Power Apps Guru
Jon Russell
Power Platform Consultant
ANS
It’s never been more important to understand business process and where improvements can be made than right now. Empowerment of those closest to the business issue that they are trying to solve through the use of low-code technologies needs to be the fundamental building block in a company’s ecosystem.
Personally, coming from a client side background I could see the potential of the Power Platform and how it can spark creativity in those closest to the business problem they were trying to improve.
Ecosystem is the key word here. Clients need to be empowered to understand the whole landscape to ensure their journey into the Power Platform is successful and rewarding.
AI will play a major role in this, especially with Microsoft’s investment into Chat GPT. Power Automate is planning to allow voice input to tell it what automation you want and for AI to build it. I also asked Chat GPT the question and its answer is: Well, with advancements in low-code/no-code platforms, it looks like the future of Power Apps is brighter than a sunshine-filled beach day! No more hours of frustration trying to write complex code, as these platforms will make it a breeze for even the least tech-savvy person to build custom solutions and automate processes. Power Apps and its ilk will become as easy to use as playing with building blocks, enabling businesses and citizen developers to focus on the creative and fun parts of solution building. So, sit back, grab a tropical drink, and get ready for Power Apps to take you on a ride to a future filled with streamlined processes and custom solutions!
Phil Croucher
Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Director
Grok Software Ltd
