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Announcing: Real-world Story Sessions at Microsoft Business Applications Summit

Headshot of article author Sameer Bhangar

The Power CAT team is excited to bring to you a series of eleven real-world story sessions at the Microsoft Business Applications Summit (MBAS), starting May 4th, 2021. In these sessions, you will hear directly from citizen makers, pro-developers, and IT Pros across a wide spectrum of organizations adopting Microsoft Power Platform. Hear their stories, watch their demos, and deep dive into details of their solution architecture. We hope these stories will spur ideas and inspire innovation and creativity within your own organization.

In addition to the Power Platform story sessions listed below, check out the Power BI deep dive story sessions hosted by Lauren Faber.

Real world story sessions from previous years are available at: 2020 | 2019. For a longer list of curated stories, videos and presentations, visit – https://aka.ms/PowerCATStories.

Summary list of sessions:

Session Title Links
Real world stories: Driving transformation with Microsoft Power Platform. Includes – Bayer, H&M, Trek Bicycles, RAC of Western Australia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and T-Mobile. https://aka.ms/MBAS/FS106
WestJet Airlines and San Diego Workforce Partnership use Power Virtual Agents for employee and customer bots https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD305
T-Mobile adds RPA to their Six Sigma toolbox with Power Automate Desktop, Process Advisor and AI Builder https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD306
Pembina embraces citizen development and Hanover Insurance drives business and IT-led automation with Power Automate Desktop (RPA) https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD307
Novo Nordisk and Cancer Research UK drive digital breakthroughs with Microsoft Power Platform https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD308
City of Ottawa and City of Kobe use Microsoft Power Platform to rapidly respond to citizen needs https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD309
H&M enables citizen development at scale and Toyota drives rapid approvals with Microsoft Power Platform https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD310
Professional developers at EY build complex enterprise solutions with Microsoft Power Platform https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD311
Eskom boosts productivity and Western States Caterpillar enables field employees with Power Apps https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD312
The rise of citizen development and empowering communities of makers with Microsoft Power Platform. Includes – EnBW, GSK,Publix Supermarkets, University of Wisconsin-Madison. https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD313
CBRE and Sonae MC embrace rapid automation with Microsoft Power Automate https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD314

Featured session:

FS106: Real world stories: Driving transformation with Microsoft Power Platform

Hear directly from citizen makers, pro-developers and business leaders on how individuals, teams and organizations have successfully driven digital transformation with Microsoft Power Platform. We will highlight organizations such as Bayer, H&M, Trek Bicycles, RAC of Western Australia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and T-Mobile.

Join live on May 4th at 2:45pm Pacific time: https://aka.ms/MBAS/FS106

On-demand sessions:

In addition to the featured session above, which will be played live, a rich set of story sessions will be made available in the on-demand catalog through the course of the week. Most sessions have two customer stories per session. You can find the complete list below.

OD305: WestJet Airlines and San Diego Workforce Partnership use Microsoft Power Virtual Agents for employee and customer facing bots

Session link: https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD305

WestJet Airlines

Lisa Eyamie, Senior Manager for End User Experiences, partnered with Microsoft Partner Avanade to build a fun and friendly Power Virtual Agents chatbot called “Romeo”. Romeo is integrated into the Microsoft Teams experience and used by WestJet employees as a widely used digital knowledge management chatbot. Lisa and team decided to ‘go big’ – making it available to all employees across a wide variety of ‘People and Culture’ topics – from benefits information to learning and development to hiring to latest deals, and a lot more. The content and topics covered by the bot were created by business users who are not software developers. The chatbot was built in less than a month and has helped further a culture of self-sufficiency and innovation at WestJet Airlines.

This session was recorded as part of the Customer Tech Talk series, and included in this MBAS series.

Speakers: Lisa Eyamie (Senior Manager, End User Experiences, WestJet Airlines), Ben Walters (Microsoft (host))

Products: Power Virtual Agents, Microsoft Teams integration, SharePoint

Watch: link

 

San Diego Workforce Partnership

The San Diego Workforce Partnership funds and delivers programs that empower job seekers to meet the current and future workforce needs of employers in San Diego County, an area covering 4.5K+ square miles with a population of 3.4 million residents. They built a chatbot for job seekers and employers to learn about available programs and better connect with each other. Job seekers can request employment assistance, career resources, get help preparing for interviews, learn about COVID related unemployment services, and supportive services like childcare. Businesses can get content to support employees during layoffs, support their hiring needs, and learn about available small business assistance programs. They have had a high success rate, with the bot being able to answer 80% of all queries. The team has made the Workforce Virtual Agent solution available as a package in AppSource and looking to have their success replicated by several of the 550 other similar workforce organizations across the United States.

Speaker(s): Peter Callstrom (CEO, SDWP), Shannon Moran (CTO, SDWP), Carmen Summers (SDWP Board Member, Microsoft)

Products: Power Virtual Agents

Watch: link

Learn more: customer story

“Having a bot, a virtual agent that can support our job seekers, dislocated workers, employers, the broader community, is a dream come true.” – Peter Callstrom, CEO, San Diego Workforce Partnership.

 

OD306: T-Mobile adds RPA to their Six Sigma toolbox with Power Automate Desktop, Process Advisor and AI Builder

Session link: https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD306

T-Mobile

Brian Hodel is a Power Platform developer at T-Mobile with a background in Six Sigma and continuous process improvement. At MBAS 2020 last year, Brian shared details about the “Orbit App” that is used by project leads and executives to manage approving new initiatives across T-Mobile. In this session, Brian describes how he expanded on the solution to take advantage of Power Automate Desktop, Process Advisor, AI Builder, and Power Virtual Agents.

Speakers: Brian Hodel (Power Platform Developer, T-Mobile), Pranav Rastogi (Microsoft (host))

Products: Power Automate Desktop (RPA), Process Advisor, AI Builder, Power Virtual Agents.

Themes: Pro-dev adoption of Power Platform, Center of Excellence.

Watch: link

 

OD307: Pembina Corporation embraces citizen development and Hanover Insurance drives business and IT-led automation with Power Automate Desktop (RPA)

Hear from two customers in this session – Pembina Corporation and Hanover Insurance. They will talk about how each of their organizations have adopted RPA capabilities in Power Automate.

Session link: https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD307

Pembina Corporation

Jeff Hiscock, an IT Enterprise Architecture Manager at Pembina Corporation, based in Calgary, is helping lead the vision and strategy to enable more business units drive rapid automation with Microsoft Power Platform. Cameron Relke is a Commercial Analyst in the Transmission Business Unit, who, as a citizen developer has innovated within his business through adopting Power Automate Desktop. By doing so, he has automated the mundane aspects of his own job and advanced his career. Learn from Jeff and Cameron on how they’re collaborating across IT and business units to scale rapid automation with the Power Platform.

Speakers: Jeff Hiscock (IT Enterprise Architecture Manager, Pembina), Cameron Relke (Commercial Analyst, Pembina), Kent Weare (Microsoft (host))

Products: Power Automate, Power Automate Desktop (RPA).

Themes: Citizen development, Center of Excellence, IT + Business partnership

Watch: link

 

Hanover Insurance

With a mission to be the premier P&C franchise in the independent agency channel, Hanover Insurance is a leading provider of specialized property and casualty insurance products to individuals, families, and businesses. In this session, hear from business leader Mina Rona and Automation leader Prashant Hinge on how they have leveraged Power Automate Desktop and Power Apps to automate time consuming manual tasks during the underwriting process. This in turn has saved Hanover hundreds of hours, and inspired the teams to think of more opportunities and solutions to further save time spend by their skilled staff.

Mina Rona is Vice President and Chief Underwriting Officer with over 24 years of experience in the insurance industry. Prashant Hinge is Assistant Vice President responsible for innovation and strategic integration. In addition to the technical solutions, this story highlights the strong collaborative partnership that has made the strategy and implementations a success.

Speakers: Mina Rona (Vice President and CUO, Hanover Insurance), Prashant Hinge (AVP Innovation and Strategic Integration, Hanover Insurance)

Products: Power Automate Desktop (RPA), Power Apps

Themes: IT + Business partnership

Watch: link

 

 

OD308: Novo Nordisk and Cancer Research UK drive digital breakthroughs with Microsoft Power Platform

Session link: https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD308

Novo Nordisk

Novo Nordisk is a Danish multinational pharmaceutical company that has been manufacturing and marketing treatments for chronic illnesses for almost hundred years. Specializing in treatments for Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes, Novo Nordisk produces a staggering 50% of the world’s insulin supply, providing this invaluable drug to 32.8 million people worldwide. In this session, Søren Klim (Director of Digital Innovation) and Kaja Andersen (Power Apps Developer) share their story of how the Clinical Development Digital Innovation team at Novo Nordisk is spearheading the adoption of the Power Platform, and inspiring other areas of the business to follow in their steps. They started their journey in Dec 2019, with access to a set of premium licenses and the full capabilities of Power Platform, including Power Portals. They accelerated adoption during COVID-19, built several applications, and are rapidly expanding to other parts of the organization.

Speakers: Søren Klim (Director of Digital Innovation, Novo Nordisk), Kaja Andersen (Power Apps Developer, Novo Nordisk), Manuela Pichler (Microsoft (host))

Products: Power Apps (canvas apps, model-driven apps, portals), Power Automate, Power BI, Dataverse, integration with Microsoft Teams.

Themes: Citizen development, Pro-developers adopting low code, full platform usage with premium capabilities

Watch: link

Cancer Research UK

Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world’s leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research, influence, and information. In this session, James Beckenham (Senior SharePoint Admin) will talk about how Power Apps and Power Automate solutions integrated with Microsoft Teams have helped provide scalable business solutions to staff across CRUK. The platform has also helped enable a culture of innovation by empowering employees across the organization to build mission-driven apps, including apps to automate procurement, connect research teams, and help patients find cutting-edge trials. To date, Cancer Research UK has more than 30 apps helping it streamline processes and increase collaboration among researchers.

Speakers: James Beckenham (Senior SharePoint Admin, Cancer Research UK)

Products: Power Apps, Power Automate, integration with Microsoft Teams

Themes: Apps used by IT and business teams, citizen development.

Watch: link

Learn more: customer story

 

OD309: City of Ottawa and City of Kobe use Microsoft Power Platform to rapidly respond to citizens’ needs

Session link: https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD309

City of Ottawa

Jeffery Kozera is a Senior Developer/Integrator in the Automation Solutions Unit at the City of Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. Jeffery shares his experience as a pro-developer adopting Microsoft Power Virtual Agents and the Power Platform suite of low code technologies. He created an internal chatbot for employees, and an external chatbot for citizens. The COVID-19 virtual assistant was built in under two weeks and has collectively saved ~65,000 phone hours. Jeffery also explains how has has used Azure DevOps and other pro-dev capabilities for application lifecycle management and integration with on-premise systems.

Speakers: Jeffery Kozera (Senior Developer/Integrator, Automation Solutions Unit, City of Ottawa), Abhi Rathinavelu (Microsoft (host))

Products: Power Virtual Agents, Power Automate, Power Apps, Power BI, Azure DevOps

Themes: Pro-dev adoption of low code, integration with on-premise systems

Watch: link

 

City of Kobe

Faced with critical challenges posed by COVID-19, the City of Kobe, Japan, needed to find a way to respond to citizen calls about crisis-related assistance programs and volunteer opportunities. With citizen well-being at stake and a staff overwhelmed by 40,000 daily calls, fast action was critical. With a Power Apps solution that responds to all but the most complex issues, the City of Kobe reduced call volumes by 90 percent and reassured citizens that their needs are being met. In this session, Tsuyoshi Ito from the City of Kobe’s IT department walks through how he used Power Apps Portals, Power Virtual Agents, Power BI and Power Automate to build these digital solutions that allowed the city to quickly respond during the COVID-19 crisis.

Speakers: Tsuyoshi Itoh (Assistant Manager, City of Kobe), Taiki Yoshida (Microsoft (host))

Products: Power Apps portals / model-driven apps, Power Virtual Agents, Power Automate, Power BI, Dataverse

Watch: link

Learn more: customer story | blog post

 

OD310: H&M enables citizen development at scale and Toyota drives rapid approvals with Microsoft Power Platform

Session link: https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD310

H&M

H&M is one of the world’s largest fashion companies with more than 171,000 employees and 4,900 stores across more than 73 markets worldwide. In this session, Claes Söderström (Cross Delivery Coordinator) and Helena Forsberg (M365 Solution Architect) will share how they have adopted the Center of Excellence Starter Kit to create H&M’s Power Platform Center for Enablement (CfE). The CfE is enabling thousands of citizen developers to build their own awesome solutions. The session will include a walkthrough of some of the key pillars involved in establishing a center of excellence, namely – getting organized, setting up a robust governance and administration strategy, and nurturing a community of makers and users.

Speakers: Claes Söderström (Cross Delivery Coordinator, H&M), Helena Forsberg (M365 Solution Architect, H&M), Sally Shi (Microsoft (host))

Products: Power Apps, Power Automate, SharePoint

Themes: Center of Excellence, community of makers, storytelling, governance

Watch: link

 

Toyota Motor North America

Inspired by watching a real-world story session at MBAS 2019, a team at Toyota Motor North America (TMNA) set out to build their own Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI solutions. In this session hosted by Phil Topness from the Power CAT team, members from Toyota’s Field Technical Operations Team describe how a group of non-IT professionals embraced the Power Platform and built multiple solutions to help streamline the processes used for team member and business partners’ safety.

Speakers: Christopher Hitt (Manager – Field Quality Engineering, TMNA), Josh Smith (Product Engineer, TMNA); Stephen Hall (Field Product Engineer, TMNA), Craig Shibuya (Field Technical Operations Assistant Manager, TMNA), Phil Topness (Microsoft (host))

Products: Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Microsoft Forms

Themes: Citizen development

Watch: link

Learn more: blog post | Power Platform CoE at Toyota

 

 

OD311: Professional developers at EY build complex enterprise solutions with Microsoft Power Platform

Session link: https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD311

Two professional development teams at EY share how they have embraced the best of low code and code-first solutions to digitize and automate some very complex business requirements. The solutions utilize a wide breadth of Microsoft Power Platform capabilities – centralized storage of all data in Dataverse, modular components built using Power Apps, Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents, dashboards built with Power BI, integration with internal EY systems, Azure services and several 3rd party services, connectivity from a custom React portal to Dataverse via the SDK, robust ALM processes using Azure DevOps, and more.

Speakers: Anbu Anbarasu (Low Code Services Lead, EY Client Technologies Division), Doug Fighter (Senior Manager, Technology Consulting, EY), Michael Maloney (Technical Architect, Technology Consulting, EY), Sameer Bhangar (Microsoft (host))

Products: Power Apps portals & model-driven apps, Power Automate cloud and desktop flows, Power BI, Dataverse, Azure Data Lake, Azure DevOps, App Insights, React Portal integrated with Dataverse via SDK.

Themes: Complex enterprise grade solution, Pro-dev adoption of low code, integration with 3rd party services

Watch: link

EY – Payment Protection Plan (PPP) – Loan Forgiveness App

Anbu Anbarasu leads the Low Code Services Team for Power Platform, Dynamics 365, and Office 365 in EY’s Client Technologies (CT) Division. This story is a great example of a professional development team using the full power of the platform. As background on the use case – when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, the government passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which included financial support for small businesses. This support was provided under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and it included loans as well as forgiveness on qualified expenses. The challenge was that, as the loan forgiveness program evolved, the eligibility criteria kept changing, making it difficult to calculate forgiveness levels and process claims. This solution was built to enable banks to manage the program across a wide range of personas.

Learn more: customer story

EY – Mobility Pathway

Moving employees from one part of the globe to another is a complex process involving immigration, compensation, case management, and more. The EY Mobility Pathway (EYMP/IML) integrated solution brings together mobility technologies and services into a single, end-to-end solution, utilizing the Power Platform and a custom-built portal, that delivers value to clients through reducing cost associated with employee mobility, while driving automation and consistent process execution for users across the mobile talent lifecycle. In this session, Doug Fighter and Michael Maloney from EY’s Technology Consulting Division walk through why they chose Power Platform and the solution architecture behind the solution.

OD 312: Eskom boosts productivity and Western States Caterpillar enables field employees with Power Apps

Session link: https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD312

Eskom

Eskom Holdings is a state-owned electricity utility company in South Africa that supplies over 90% of the country’s electricity. In this session, Nashwin Kiewitz, an Electrical Engineering Technician, walks through multiple solutions that he and a team of citizen developers built using the Power Platform. This includes – managing access of employees and visitors across locations, employee self check-in and check-out from buildings, fleet management and inspection, managing legal cases, and more. He has also started exploring the usage of Dataverse for Teams, Mixed Reality in Power Apps, and setting up a Center of Excellence using the CoE Starter Kit.

Speakers: Nashwin Kiewitz (Electrical Engineering Technician, Eskom), Sally Shi (Microsoft (host)).

Products: Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, SharePoint

Themes: Citizen development, mobile solutions, QR code and barcode scanning, exploration of Dataverse for Teams and Mixed Reality in Power Apps.

Watch: link

 

Western States Caterpillar

Western States Caterpillar Equipment Company is an authorized Caterpillar dealer for five mountain states in the United States, with 17 branches located in Idaho, western Wyoming and Montana, and eastern Oregon and Washington. They employe over 900 people to provide machine parts, service, rentals, new and used equipment sales and power generation for many industries, including construction, forestry, dairy, railroad, mining, and healthcare. In this session, Justin Bailey, Director of Strategy & BI Solutions, talks about how his organization came to adopt Microsoft Power Platform and used it to rapidly build solutions in strong partnership between IT and business teams in the field. We will also hear from Chris Jaques on how he, as a pro-developer, built Power Apps solutions that connect to their on-premise Dynamics AX ERP system and other external systems using REST APIs and custom connectors. Justin and Chris will demo two mobile solutions – a Return to Ready App that used by field staff daily to manage all aspects of the rental return process, and a Client Connect App that is used to manage a myriad of processes – managing prospects, opportunities, scanning business cards, viewing contracts, scheduled services, and more.

Speakers: Justin Bailey (Directory of Strategy & BI Solutions, Western States Equipment), Chris Jaques (Senior Application Developer, Western States Equipment), Sameer Bhangar (Microsoft (host))

Products: Power Apps, Custom connectors

Themes: Pro-dev adoption of Power Platform, IT + business partnership, mobile apps

Watch: link

 

OD313: The rise of citizen development and empowering communities of makers with Microsoft Power Platform

Session link: https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD313

In this panel discussion session, citizen developers from a mix of industries will share their experiences building Power Platform solutions and cultivating communities of makers within their organizations.

Robin Rosengrün is EnBW’s first Low Code Enabler. He is building Power Apps solutions, and actively teaching and enable others across the organization.

Azure McFarlane is a Bioprocess Engineer turned Data Scientist. She created several Power Automate flows for processes such as managing adverse safety events. Azure also led creation and delivery of the Power Automate curriculum as part of the Power Platform Bootcamp at GSK.

Jonathan Henkel is a Director of Academic Planning and Assessment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He built Power Apps solutions for the School of Human Ecology and has nurtured a growing “Builder’s Group” consisting of individuals from IT, HR, Advising Services and Academic Planning.

Kristi McKenzie is an Office 365 Admin at Publix Supermarkets. With a background in SharePoint, InfoPath, and custom workflows, she has been building Power Platform solutions since 2018. Kristi created an “Innovators Group” to drive wider adoption of Power Platform and Microsoft 365.

Watch: link

 

OD314: CBRE and Sonae MC embrace rapid automation with Microsoft Power Automate

Session link: https://aka.ms/MBAS/OD314

CBRE

CBRE is a global real-estate and outsourcing company spanning over 100 countries. Having granted access to Power Automate across the organization, business analysts within their business units could directly contribute to solutions. They no longer needed to rely on a centralized analytics team because solutions were scoped and relevant to the individual teams.

Two such client teams describe the flows they created to replace complex manual processes. Emil Trungu and Chris Surujbally share the benefits of a flow for intaking form details and automatically sending a document with those details embedded. Steven Jacobs describes how he scaled a flow for extracting data tables from different file types and saving them to a database. With every successful flow he has created, he gets challenged on what’s possible with Power Automate and continues to learn more.

As Emil puts it, the flows in this session are only a snippet of what CBRE has done with the Power Platform and the broader Microsoft stack, he’s looking forward to coming back in a future session and sharing more.

Speakers: Emil Trungu (Project Management Director, CBRE), Christopher Surujbally (Senior Business Analyst, CBRE), Steven Jacobs (Business Intelligence Director, CBRE), Brian Dang (Microsoft (host))

Products: Power Automate, Power Apps, SQL Azure, SharePoint, Microsoft Graph API

Watch: link

 

 

Sonae MC

Headquartered in Portugal, Sonae is a multinational company managing a diversified portfolio of businesses in retail, financial services, technology, shopping centers and telecommunications. They are in 62 countries, with 42,000 employees.

In this session, Helder Teixeira, an IT Specialist and Power Automate champion takes us on an exciting tour of the various ways in which he has used Power Automate cloud flows to streamline multiple business processes.

Speakers: Helder Teixeira (IT Specialist – Workplace Design, Sonae MC)

Products: Power Automate, AI Builder, SharePoint

Watch: link

 

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