Ignite brings together technology leaders and experts to discuss new and upcoming technology. We round up the key points from this year’s event.
Understandably, this year’s Ignite event was held virtually, with Teams sessions, keynote broadcasts and virtual reality helping bring together IT professionals, decision makers, architects, developers, and data professionals to explore the latest tools. Although the scope of the event was wide, here are the salient points relating to Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform.
Dynamics 365
New and improved integration with Microsoft Teams
- Sales. Track career movements of contacts using LinkedIn Sales Navigator and connect sales records to Microsoft Teams without leaving Dynamics 365 Sales.
- Marketing. Set up, promote and report on events hosted on Microsoft Teams directly from Dynamics 365 Marketing. Nurture attendee relationships during and after the event across multiple channels.
- Customer Service. Access Microsoft Teams chat functionality directly from Dynamics 365 Customer Service and easily find and collaborate with colleagues.
Power Platform
Power Automate improvements to include Windows 10 Power Automate Desktop at no additional cost
Power Automate already provides a vast array of process automation options and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) provides extra options for integration with legacy systems or systems with no API. To further encourage uptake of RPA, Microsoft announced that Power Automate Desktop for Windows 10 would be available free of charge.
Power BI Premium Per User licence released
Power BI Premium provides large-scale analysis options for organisations with intensive reporting requirements or huge volumes of data. However, the high monthly cost put the product out of the reach of all but the larger businesses. A new ‘Per User’ licence is now available, providing most of the benefits of Premium, including Pagination Reports, at a fraction of the monthly cost.
Power Fx – new low-code programming language announced
Currently used as the language to develop canvas apps in Microsoft Power Apps, Power Fx will eventually become the consistent language across the Power Platform. The language will be immediately familiar with users of Microsoft Excel, flattening the learning curve greatly.
Microsoft Teams
A number of improvements were announced for Microsoft Teams:
- Microsoft Teams Connect. Helps organisations to collaborate seamlessly with customers, partners, suppliers or other external contacts through shared channels. This feature is currently in private preview
- PowerPoint Live in Teams. Deliver richer presentation experiences and lead meetings more confidently with notes, slides, meeting chat and participants all in a single view. This feature is available now.
- Presenter Mode. Customise how your video feed and content appear to an audience. Options will include
– Standout – shows the presenter’s video feed in front of the shared content
– Reporter – shows content as a visual aid above the speaker’s shoulder
– Side-by-side – shows the presenter’s video feed alongside their content as they present.
Standout will become generally available this month, with Reporter, Side-by-side and other options coming soon. - New Security, Privacy and Compliance features. These include invite-only meetings, the ability to disable video to prevent disruptions and end-to-end encryption for one-to-one calls.
- Interactive customer webinars. With support for up to 1,000 attendees, Teams’ end-to-end webinar support includes custom registration, rich presentation options, host controls and post-event reporting. Teams webinars can also seamlessly scale to a 10,000-person view-only broadcast experience – during this pandemic period, this 10,000 limit has been increased to 20,000.
Summary
Microsoft’s commitment to further developing their existing software and platforms while also developing new technologies was very much apparent at Ignite 2021 and we look forward to using and implementing them for clients in due course. If you wish to discuss any of the above points with one of our experts, please get in touch.
