Tech Insights

‘Have you ever thought of what is beyond the traditional CRM capabilities that you can do with all that technology around you? Ever thought of building customized apps to solve your problems despite having low coding experience?

Well, maybe it’s time that you get into more technological solutions for all your problems. This is possible with Canvas Power Apps.

Sometimes your team might need a separate app to manage a large chunk of work related to a big project you are working on. So, why not develop one for your team? Or there is some customer service flow that you want to centralize. An app can make the work easy to provide all the services in one place. So, developing an app to sort out the problems into a small piece of work is the ultimate way to get going in the right direction. And yes, that’s easy. ‘Canvas Power Apps’ has everything that you need. Develop, deploy, launch, and make your work a piece of cake.

Is it better than D365 for your organization?

 D365 Mobile Apps from Microsoft allows you to manage your business applications. Canvas Power Apps from Microsoft gives you an immensely great range of opportunities to design and develop your own app without having hard-core coding skills.

And no, it does not limit you with the features you can add. There is just an infinite number of features you can add.

In D365, you are limited to use the already developed apps. In Canvas Apps, you can do not only all these, but there is more. We will dive into all the details of app creation in Canvas Apps one by one.

Now, what is the deal with this low – coding thing? Why is it being said that you don’t require hardcore coding experience for building an app? So, let’s see why it is actually possible!

Canvas Power Apps need just one thing!

So, let me tell you how does it favor even non-coders to build their own app. Starting from a blank screen to a fully functional app – what do you need?

Just one thing – what kind of app do you want to build? Once you are clear with your needs, you can move on to the second step that is logging into Microsoft Power Apps with a Microsoft account.

Now, this may be a totally new thing for you. Don’t get worried about how to start. Canvas Power Apps may be simple to use, but first-time doubts are obviously there. Hence, there is a set of tutorials to help you out!

D365 also addresses these doubts through very structured documentation. While Canvas PowerApps has both structured documentation and videos for you to get started with the platform.

But if you think you can just click here & there and check out available things, then you can just jump into experimenting with all the elements present there. Otherwise, you can start with a systematic approach by first beginning with the tutorials given on the home page ranging from beginner to intermediate level.

The very first tutorial would guide you on how to begin working with Power Apps. And you must know that the tutorial has been very well designed with various sub-parts as short videos that should give a superb introduction.

Not only that, but it would also teach you to create a small app on your own with the help of data in an Excel workbook. The length of the total video maybe around an hour. But the tutorials have explained everything so smoothly that your one hour is worth it.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/get-started-with-powerapps/?WT.mc_id=gettingstarted_learn-inproduct-powerplatform

[Short video tutorials are available in it]

Some more tutorials for you

Now, one thing that is required is incorporating formulae for some additional features. This would seem a daunting task without the knowledge of coding but here comes in the handiness of Power Apps.

There’s no need for you to get into complicated things to add simple formulae and basic formatting.

They have a whole tutorial for you of around 40 minutes that again is very engaging and well-structured. Well, in no time, you will learn to incorporate these features into your app while designing.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/author-basic-formula-change-properties-powerapps/?WT.mc_id=gettingstarted_learn-inproduct-powerplatform

[Short video tutorials are available in it]

Told you it’s easy, isn’t it?

Now you want to proceed further, get ready. Everything is planned to help you out! The next tutorial would get you into the depths of app sharing and device environments and their creation. Along with these, you will also get to learn how to manage the app security for any possible threat and viewing & restoring different app versions.

Want to incorporate some external data for the working of your app? There a tutorial at the intermediate level. It would guide you to work with external data and embedding the derived features in your app. This is another one-hour well-structured tutorial divided into several short videos.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/work-with-external-data/?WT.mc_id=gettingstarted_learn-inproduct-powerplatform

[Short video tutorials are available in it]

So, these many tutorials to help a new user get hands-on experience. It is incredible. It’s better than going through the text document for the first time, right? Canvas Power Apps makes life easy by this as compared to D365 that only has text documentation. These might be too much to read for a first-time user.

After these tutorials, you might have got an idea of how simple app-building is using Canvas Power Apps.

But if you think you don’t have enough time or patience to watch all the tutorials, we can jump into the app-building process directly in this blog.

Now let’s discuss some really nice features of app creation. Let’s begin with the options present on the home screen.

App creation page

Well, now, we are in the most interesting part of this blog. Let us begin with the overview of app creation.

When you are on the main page, on the left side, you can see a ‘plus’ sign with the label ‘Create’ in the fourth place. If you scroll down on the screen from top to bottom, you will see that you got three options to build the app:

• ‘Start from blank’
• ‘Start from data’
• You can start building your app from an existing template.

We will let you know what you all options you have, what you can do with the available options in simple words. Just hold on.

Build your app from scratch to give your idea a shape

Okay, so you might have some fantastic ideas in your mind to solve that very recent challenge at your workplace, right? Thanks to the user-friendly app creation interface. So, just a few things that you might need to make a list for. You need an outline.

Yes, so what you need to decide is what are the actions and how these should be executed, their order, and the last, but quite important thing is the design or the look of your app. In D365 apps, you just have the option to add data to your existing database and view it, which limits your capabilities.

You can build an app using templates too

Are you stuck with the design part of the app? Feeling clueless about how to start? There’s a simple solution for this – creating apps from themes or templates.

You will get a list of templates with their relevant names mentioned. You can choose any of the ones as per your organization’s needs. So, just relax and decide what you want to do. Canvas Power App has it all sorted for you.

Do you know for both the method, we saw just now, there is a gripping and useful thing you might want to know?

You can connect your cloud-storage data to your app using the connection option present on the left-hand side menu in the app creation area.

Did you know that you can build apps using data too?

Here, you will find at first glance that you have four cloud data options to be used in the app – Common Data Service, SharePoint, Excel, and Azure SQL Database. You can select any of the alternatives as per your choice. The only pre-requisite is that your data/sample data must be uploaded on the chosen platform.

Apart from these four, there are other data services also that you can use. To know more, click on the fifth label. Your data records can be stored in any data service you choose for storage. However, D365 stores data only in the Common Data Service.

Screen orientation of the app

There is one more interesting difference. You can also customize the orientation and screen size of Canvas Power Apps on phones and tablets. However, D365 has a fixed orientation for phone – portrait, and for tablet – landscape.

[Source: Microsoft Power Apps |YouTube]

With D365, you have access to only CRM features that are already embedded. With Canvas App, you can embed any extra features you want. It can be anything, from a simple progress tracker of training module creation or just creating an app for a wholly different use for your organization.

So, you see how easy it is to create an app using data also? Canvas Power Apps not only make it easier for your organization to create apps but also to share it.

Easy to share

Now, just making an app doesn’t end your task. The developed app needs to be available to some of your other employees/colleagues. This might be for adding some features, for maintenance purposes, etc.

You can share the app with only the selected employees in your organization or with all employees. And this is just a few clicks away.

Sometimes a need may arise to share it with someone outside your organization. You need not worry about this. This is equally easy. So, you see how easy app sharing is!

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/manage-apps-in-powerapps/?WT.mc_id=gettingstarted_learn-inproduct-powerplatform

[Short video tutorials are available in it]

Now, that we have seen ways to create an app on the Canvas platform, we should also have a glimpse of the same in D365.

So, what modes are present in D365?

Well, D365 also has three modes to create ‘Work Flows’ – ‘Start from blank’, ‘Start from a template’, and ‘Start from a connector’. All these options may be different and give you different ways to start. However, one thing common is that they are all made available to you for building workflows.

The workflows are basically designed to automate your daily tasks that otherwise just take up a lot of your time. So, D365 for Phone actually allows you to automate lots of tasks that are common across organizations.

Canvas Power App can be used for doing this along with a user-friendly interface in the form of a new app. So, that sets apart Canvas Power Apps from D365 for Phone.

In D365, the workflows would automate your task in a series of steps that occur from a ‘Trigger‘. So, now what are ‘Triggers’? These are basically an event or a set of events, the occurrence of which would trigger the workflow to get started step-by-step and recording the relevant data and performing the instructed actions.

Why you should prefer Canvas Apps over D365?

The triggers mentioned above are already defined in D365. You have to choose the appropriate one from the list. While Canvas Power Apps, in a way, allows you to create your own trigger and then the ‘Work Flow’ for which you can just create a basic app/portal and save it for your work environment. Easy and useful, right?

Still, want some more clarification that why should you give a try to Canvas Power Apps? Well, let’s see a few more points to let you know how advantageous Power Apps is.

This platform is not only easy to use but, with the proper understanding of your own requirements, it can build the most reliable apps.

What’s more to it? Why is it so reliable?

Well, it’s because the platform allows the facility of app testing and preview run to find out any possible shortcomings of the app structure that can be easily rectified. Be it any kind of use, Canvas Apps is a solution for each and everything. Widens your horizons when compared with the limited uses of D365 for CRM purposes.

In Canvas Apps, you can link any of the Microsoft services without any hassle, in a super simplified way when compared to D365.

• D365 allows you to select and add features in the form of ‘Flows’ & ‘Connectors’ to create new ‘Views’ or ‘Menus’ and choosing from a wide range of flows.
• In Canvas Power Apps, new apps and features can be developed just by clicking and dragging the elements and you will realize that it is quite intuitive too.

Adding data to your organization is also an important part. Both Canvas Power Apps and D365 for Phone allows you to do that:

• In D365, you can actually add data by using ‘Create quick menu’ and then from a drop-down selecting the type of record or activity.
• In Canvas App, you can just create a new interface to make this task easy and interesting.

The flexibility in Canvas App is that you can actually define a whole new sort of record to be added to your database. So, even for adding data, Canvas Apps provide great flexibility. Just decide what more data should be added, you are good to go.

Don’t these features seem very attractive, easy, and time-saving? Once you have hands-on with Canvas Power App, you will get to learn more about its advantages.

You can add features of Microsoft to D365 but, for that, you will need to add external functionalities of Microsoft, and this makes it cumbersome to work with D365. Canvas is very easy to use, and its interface is intuitive enough to create anything new without even delving into the documentation part of it.

So, now you got can confidently solve that problem at work for which you require to build an app. Or maybe, you just want to centralize all the process of some work, just develop the right app for it. Begin working with Canvas Apps to see its usefulness and ease.

First impression is everything. Want to have that everlasting first impression on your users and customers using your online service? You have landed up at the correct place!

For an online service/application, the first step is logging into it and if this is smooth then you have great chances to have gained the trust of your clients and customers.

How easy is it to establish secured business collaborations online? Or you want to give access to a specific service to selected employees. When you are working in your organization, it’s not just you or your employees, but there are collaborations at different levels. But now since we are shifting more and more to an online environment these collaborations are also becoming online. So, one very important question that might come to your mind is how secured are these online collaborations for your organization’s confidential data and plan? There’s a secure and easy way for collaborations out there for you.

Microsoft understands your dilemma and has a solution to your problem in the form of Azure AD. Azure AD allows different methods for you to give access to people outside your organization.

What are the ways out there to do this? Another very common but important question is whether this is a tough and complicated process? Well, we have got the answers to all these questions.

There are two ways to provide access to people outside your organization using Azure AD – B2B (Business-to-Business) and B2C (Business-to-Customer). While B2B authentication has its own uses, B2C may be a more suitable choice as compared to B2B. Why? Let’s see.

As we move further with the features and authentication process for each, you will realize that in B2B you can allow different levels of administrative and security roles in different environments for your invited users.

While in B2C you can let the user sign up to use your tenant services or you can also assign them security and administrative roles for collaboration. This may or may not allow them to make changes to your tenant.

Azure AD B2B is easy to understand and set-up for use, but Azure AD B2C is more user-friendly. B2C allows you also to make your repository of customer journeys sorted to a great extent.

Let’s look into its features and then that would give you more insight over the differences and benefits of B2C over B2B authentication type.

[Inviting users for collaboration]

[Image Source: Microsoft Docs, B2C Sign up configuration]

What are the features of Azure AD B2B?

Business collaborations online have become basic but the threats are ever-increasing with increasing technology. Suppose you have some new employees to your organization to a particular department. So, Azure AD B2B is here to help you with your business collaborations along with multiple security levels.

1. You can invite other businesses to collaborate with you by inviting them through Azure AD B2B authentication.
2. Then you can assign to them a particular security role that seems appropriate to you and also assign a license to them for authentication.

[Image source: Microsoft Docs]

All these in just a few simple steps. But then there is this very important question – do they also need to have Azure AD credentials? Well, no.

They can sign in to your environment through your invite using their own credentials. This is a very handy feature that saves you from the hassle of creating a new account temporarily and password for it.

Bulk Invitation

Apart from single collaborations, many times you need to invite a large group of people and not just a single person? For example, you might have just entered into partnership with a new organization and all their employees will work in your organization.

So, for a large number of people you can’t just carry out the same process, isn’t it? There’s a solution to this also. For inviting a bulk, you can simply install and use Azure Active Directory PowerShell by visiting the following link:

https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/AzureADPreview/2.0.0.98

What are the features of Azure AD B2C?

We looked at only the business collaboration side until now. Service/application users are great and the most important part of your business, isn’t it? Hence, B2C authentication has been designed for you keeping this as the primary focus. The primary features of Azure AD B2C are:

1. Sign-up and sign-in through an existing account from a different service provider.
2. Customized login process for a personalized experience.
3. Easy scalability and security.
4. Can be assigned administrative/security roles.

It is a different service that creates a repository for customer identity, apart from the user repository (B2B), and provides them easy access to your offered services.

1. You can allow your customers to log in through their already existing identity from a different service provider than Azure, including social accounts.
2. You might have observed that people tend to use services that seem more friendly and intuitive to use and navigate. So, for this, Azure AD B2C allows you to create a user-friendly interface to let them enter their credentials for sign-up and sign-in.
3. The customer journey can be customized, as you want, through Azure AD B2C. This data can be stored in the cloud and retrieved every time the customer visits and sign-in to your website. This facilitates you to provide your users to get a customized experience.
4. You can also give access to tenants as an administrator role or limited access to tenants. This would be similar to B2B authentication.
5. This would definitely attract a greater number of users to your service portals. Azure AD B2C also keeps into account the security and scalability factor for your organization.

Now, as you are better aware of the features of both the authentication type, why not get to know the ease of process in brief for respective authentication types?

[Image source: Microsoft Docs]

Authentication process of Azure AD B2B

As the admin of your organization, you can invite users using three different methods and set up different levels of security roles.

1. You can invite the other users to your environment that has a security group.
2. You can permit users to your environment not to have a security group.
3. You can also invite a bulk of guest users using a .csv file with just a few clicks.

[Image source: Microsoft Docs]

You can refer to the detailed steps in the following Microsoft Guides to get started.

Add B2B collaboration users in the Azure portal – Azure AD | Microsoft DocsB2B collaboration code and PowerShell samples – Azure AD | Microsoft Docs

Authentication process of Azure AD B2C

As stated earlier itself that B2C is a more suitable way for collaborations online. Let us look at the authentication process and specifications for Azure AD B2C in simple terms and determine why it is useful for your organization. 

Azure AD B2C provides different kinds of user accounts that can be categorized as the following:

1. Work account -These are the users with work accounts are given permission to manage resources in a tenant, and permitted to an administrator role, they can also manage tenants. They can create new consumer accounts, block/unblock accounts, reset passwords, and set permissions or assign an account to a security group.
2. Guest account – You can invite external users to your tenant as guests. An example of such a scenario for inviting a guest user to your Azure AD B2C tenant is when you share the administration responsibilities.
3. Consumer account – You can let the consumer create an account on your portal through your Azure AD B2C directory. You can let users complete the sign-up user journey in an application you’ve registered in your tenant and allow this customer journey to get completed in various steps after every sign-in by recording the different activities. 

[Image source: Microsoft Docs]

Multi-Factor Authentication

For B2C accounts if you want to let users access your sensitive/other important applications then they should have Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) enabled to address the security issues (for example, verification of phone number). This is a good way to ensure an extra layer of security for them and for your organization. 

Now, that you have the knowledge of not only the features but also the overview of the procedure, what do you think what suits you best? You must have got somewhat a clear answer. So, let me take you to the last part and put an end to the little doubt you may have.

Deletion of B2B and B2C accounts

When a B2B account is deleted, the user cannot access it and it is completely managed by the host. However, the lifecycle of a B2C account is not managed by the host, rather it is managed by the user itself or the application. So, the user can decide when to stop using the services of a particular organization but still be able to access it using their account. 

B2C accounts don’t need the user to be associated with the organization. Hence, if at some point a user was associated with the organization and later on, they leave, still they would be able to use their B2C account for the services available to the outside user.

Comparing B2B and B2C at a glance

Conclusion

In B2B you need to send an invite to the collaborating parties. In B2C the customers/users just need to sign up on your portal with any identity and their credentials of that service provider.

In B2C, you don’t need to get worried about password resets, scalability, and security of bulky data, it is taken care of by Azure AD services automatically.

So, clearly, B2C authentication has an edge over B2B authentication.

So, you can just compare all the major differences between B2B and B2C at your fingertips now. Hope it helps!

Azure Stream Analytics is a fully managed PaaS offering that enables real-time analytics and complex event processing on fast-moving data streams. Thanks to zero-code integration with over 15 Azure services, developers and data engineers can easily build complex pipelines for hot-path analytics within a few minutes. Today, at Inspire, Microsoft is announcing various new innovations in Stream Analytics that help further reduce time to value for solutions that are powered by real-time insights. These are as follows: