Microsoft MVP and Principle Technologist, Keith Whatling Discusses Power BI and the latest Microsoft Technology Trends

Microsoft Technology is a broad term that refers to the computer software and hardware products created and distributed by Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft is the world's largest software maker, and its products are used by millions of people in businesses and homes worldwide. Microsoft also provides cloud computing solutions such as Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.

In our segment, Influencer Insights, we invite leading industry professionals to discuss new technological trends, P2P relationships, and Microsoft Business Solutions. Let's hear what Keith Whatling says about the latest technology trends.

Let Us Quickly Get To Our Expert's Point Of View.

Question 1- What, according to you, are some of the top Microsoft technology trends to watch out for in 2023?

Wow, I mean, start with the big question, like, let's skip the first 4 Star Wars movies and go straight for Empire strikes back (and yes, I'm not ordering the movies in the order that George Lucas intended us to be disappointed).

I spend a lot of my time pondering these sorts of questions, and there are many answers for many people. The software people want the answer to be some new thing or upgrade, and the infrastructure people want some easier technical thing or cloud feature. Instead, I'll answer from the perspective of the ever-elusive end user in these scenarios.

Contextual communication is the most significant trend we'll see this year that will make meaningful changes to the end user. The ability to mention stuff will expand at a rate of knots. What I mean by this is that the ability in an email, teams, or another chat-type app thing will bring data together in the context of where we do most of our work these days, and that's Teams. Work is getting harder, and we're being asked to do "more with less," as Satya has reminded us, and the "more" that we're being asked to do is often more complex too. On top of that, I think organizations will realize they can control the Search bar at the top of our fave Microsoft Apps; Microsoft Search is just so damn powerful, yet almost every organization I speak to does not have the most basic configuration of it.

From my backyard in Power Platform and cloud applications, I see two main trends: the move away from the "star of the show" of Power Apps and a far greater diversification of choice of Power Platform Technology. User-facing solutions are increasingly being deployed in an app-less state for end users; the success of Power Virtual Agents married with Power Automate, and AI builder has meant that many traditional front-end App or Portal deployments are being deployed in Power Virtual Agents as the main interface. As the world becomes more familiar and used to using chatbots, by the end of 2023, we will see this pattern more and more. Microsoft's involvement in Open AI and, by proxy, ChatGPT is a daily conversation topic right now.,

And lastly, I see many developers discovering Power Platform within organizations and using it as their application and automation layers. I've found this in varying sizes of organizations, where an internal team of traditional developers using a variety of frameworks and coding languages starts to use Power Platform to gain a significant advantage in time to value and a huge reduction in errors and vulnerabilities in their code now the extraordinary thing is that these organizations are in almost all cases, using Premium Licensing but making zero use of Dataverse and Model Driven Applications. With the latest additions and enhancements to Dataverse around business events, virtual tables, and modern commanding, these teams have an epoch moment when we demo Dataverse and Model Driven.

Question 2: What are some opportunities you would be looking at next year?

I think Accelerators will be a far more significant component for this coming year in Power Platform. Microsoft has just released a Government Accelerator; my team is constantly looking for repeatable patterns. Still, most of these accelerators are not processes or codes but more data schemas and data best practices built atop the success seen with the Common Data Model and the Open Data Initiative. Organizations want the Software to adapt their business, not the other way around, so data schema is far more vital to them than a process that a huge tech organization dictates, requiring mass unpicking for the organization to continue to use its hard-won entrepreneurial flair and uniqueness. So I'll be sure looking to these for delivering even more success.

The other opportunity this year that seems to be more of a regular gig is large-scale Power Platform strategy as part of the core or indeed the core component of organization infrastructure. We're more often than not being brought in to implement the digital imperative that Satya has been speaking about; this is taking our platform beyond standard IT nuts and Bots governance and moving Power Platform into the core systems, platforms, and Infrastructure within a business. What I find most odd is that five years ago, when I realized this was possible on this platform, Microsoft had the tools and, more importantly, the Customer Success stories to support this narrative. Add to that CIO and CTO being challenged by their peers regarding their implementations, then is a fascinating time. I think the coolest one is when CIOs are now coming into an organization with previous experience, and Power Platform is their "Big Bet," as it were, to cement their position of digital innovation.

Question 3: Would you like to share some tips on Power BI implementation?

Two things really, worlds apart, but here goes. Remember to consider the importance of data infrastructure and services outside of Power BI. PBI is a great tool, but there are other bits of kit Microsoft has to support Power BI and the data platform, so my first advice is that it's more than just Power BI.

At the utter opposite end of that is my other bit of advice. Make your reports line up, and try to make them look nice. The human brain gets annoyed at things that are not aligned on a page, and it sometimes renders the whole system as "not finished or polished." The tip here is to make a box or two on the screen, set the size, and drag that box around to ensure that the tables line up, space around titles, etc. We used to do this in Quark Express back in the day; things needed to look expensive.

Question 4: What is the potential for Microsoft Partners in the UK?

Businesses are nervous, and I think their buying patterns are going to change a little; I feel they will go more with smaller, more agile development buying additional features on top of a smaller package of work, carving up your initial "complete" solution into more manageable parts to reduce risk. Teams are going to have to change their working practices and are going to have to maintain high standards of delivery and documentation in a rapid to consume pattern for this to happen.

Question 5: How can we leverage Microsoft 365 and Power Apps for improved collaboration?

My advice here is to look beyond SharePoint as a data source; there are many other areas of M365 that Power Apps / Platform can play nicely with, and Bookings and projects are outstanding bets. I also think Canvas apps embedded in outlook and Chrome as extensions or edge in the sidebar are excellent ways of marrying apps and where people are working.

But for really collaborative improvement, I would look to Dataverse and bring that together with M365 to bring Activities to the fore in an organization. The ability to have contextual conversations linked to a record is something 90% of customers have yet to learn is virtually out of the box with Dataverse. So yeah, it's not a SharePoint answer but a blend of the right technology.

Get to Know Our Influencer

What is the best event that you attended recently? What were your key takeaways?

South Coast Summit, without a doubt, what did I take away? I hope I gave more than I assumed. This thing we're doing has made a difference in the real world. People started geeking out, which changed the world because they did what they loved.

What’s your success mantra?

It's always my fault; when there is an issue in my team/project/company, there's always something more I could have done to mitigate it. You have to accept that if you knew you should have done something more, and if you did not know, it's because you were not paying attention. So yeah, take responsibility. It's stressful and means long hours, but I hope people feel supported and safe.