With the accelerating speed of business and the increasing dependence on technology, companies today are significantly changing the way they build in-house business solutions. Many now use low-code and no code technologies to help them deal with specific issues, but that's just the beginning. With this practical guide, power users and developers will discover ways to resolve everyday challenges by building end-to-end solutions with the Microsoft Power Platform.

Author Jason Rivera, who specializes in SharePoint and the Microsoft 365 solution architecture, provides a comprehensive overview of how to use the Power Platform to build end-to-end solutions that address tactical business needs. By learning key components of the platform, including Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI, you'll be able to build low-code and no code applications, automate repeatable business processes, and create interactive reports from available data.

• Learn how the Power Platform apps work together
• Incorporate AI into the Power Platform without extensive ML or AI knowledge
• Create end-to-end solutions to solve tactical business needs, including data collection, process automation, and reporting
• Build AI-based solutions using Power Virtual Agents and AI Builder

As you know, all companies have their share of challenges, ranging from inconsistent data collection, to poor reporting, to a lack of repeatable processes & more. You can solve these problems if you have the necessary tools to tackle them incrementally. In this book, I’ll help get you started by showing you how to build solutions to your unique challenges with the Microsoft Power Platform.

For over 15 years, I’ve been helping companies of all sizes by building custom solutions to solve their individual business challenges. I started my career in 2005 as a SharePoint developer, and I’ve long leveraged Microsoft tools to build customized solutions to address customer needs. Often, this involves filling in gaps left by purchased tools that didn’t meet all of their needs. In other cases, I’ve built solutions designed to function according to a business’s specifications. Over the years, as the tools continued to evolve, I found myself building more & more solutions with the Power Platform.

Why I Wrote This Book

I’ve always enjoyed sharing what I learn, so I started blogging early in my career, then began speaking at local user groups and conferences, and eventually started hosting my own events. The topics of my presentations have varied, but over the last four years most have involved a combination of tools that include the Power Platform and AI. After one such presentation, an opportunity to write a book about building Microsoft 365 solutions presented itself, and I jumped at the opportunity…​well, maybe I hesitated a little.

The idea of writing a book has interested me since I was in high school, and early in my career, I read many industry-related books that were coauthored by several people. I envisioned myself doing something similar, where I would write a handful of chapters in a book collaboration. Then came the cloud, and continuous enhancements to products. I remember being in early talks with Andy Kwan, acquisitions editor for O’Reilly, and joking with him that in any given presentation of mine, you’re guaranteed to hear me utter the words, “Oh, that’s been changed.” So the thought of writing a book in a time when things change so rapidly gave me some pause. In fact, while most of what’s in this book functions the same way as it did when I first started writing, there were some chapters and images that needed updating to incorporate UI changes that occurred during the writing process.

The most significant change came in May 2022, when Microsoft announced a new member of the Power Platform: Power Pages. A new chapter was needed and images had to be updated. Several chapters were also edited to address the addition. Lucky for me, I hadn’t made as much progress as I’d hoped to in my early days of writing; otherwise, the book would’ve been done and outdated before hitting the shelves. While those continuous improvements made writing the book challenging, it provides you with opportunity. What I’ve found in my journey of building solutions with the Power Platform is that although there have been times where I couldn’t solve a problem directly due to a limitation in the tools, eventually an update comes around that eliminates those limitations. The tools evolve and continue to get better. So whether you are someone new to the Power Platform, a power user, a developer, or an architect, my goal in this book is to show you the possibilities and expose you to each of the tools and how they can work together to create solutions.

Review

The book 'Building Solutions with the Microsoft Power Platform' covers everything about the Power Platform in detail. I like the journey Jason has covered as a Power Platform Developer, Architect, or IT Liaison. He has done an excellent job in describing all aspects of the Power Platform as a tool within Microsoft 365. For users who are looking to learn or for experienced ones who want to see more in Power Platform, this is a must-read.

--Manpreet Singh,

Architect, Cognizant

About the Author

Jason Rivera is a SharePoint architect, developer, and consultant in Philadelphia. Specializing in SharePoint and Microsoft 365 solution architecture, he plans and implements tailored solutions with the goal of enhancing communication, productivity, and collaboration. Jason has over a decade of experience in designing and implementing business solutions that integrate with line of business systems to achieve each customer's unique goals. His work has taken him from the DC area to New York, working with companies in various industries from local small businesses to global corporations.