Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 21 Jul 2021

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Power Apps Demo Extravaganza 2021 - Pandemic Response Solution

Description

In this 16-minute citizen developer-focused demo, Venkat Rao and his team share their cost-effective strategy for brick and mortar small businesses to engage customers differently using social networking and customer facing Power Apps Portal and mobile app, standard connectors – Twitter and Dataverse, custom connectors – Google Maps and Plant ID and a Delivery Planning app. Technology is leveraged to help identify needs, connect customers to knowledge, provide convenient options to buy and efficient delivery. This PnP Community demo is taken from the Microsoft Power Apps community call – July 2021, recorded on July 21, 2021.

Demo Presenters:
• Venkat Rao (Avanade)
• Nghiem Doan (Power Objects)
• Aakash Jain (Bright HealthCare)

Supporting documents:
• Demo Extravaganza 2021entry | https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Demo-Extravaganza-2021/Enable-small-businesses-to-renew-and-respond-to-effects-of-the/cns-p/927184
• Detect Plant API - https://web.plant.id/plant-identification-api/
• Direction API - https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/directions/overview
• Maps Embed API - https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/embed/get-started
• Documentation - Enable external access with Power Apps portals | https://powerapps.microsoft.com/portals/
• Site - Greenthumb Power Apps Portal | https://greenthumb.powerappsportals.com/

Stay connected:
• Twitter https://twitter.com/microsoft365dev
• YouTube https://aka.ms/m365pnp/videos
• Blogs https://aka.ms/m365pnp/community/blog
• Call attention to your great work by using #PowerAppsCC and #PnPWeekly on Twitter.

A

We'll jump right in and uh we know we have only eight minutes, so we will kind of we. We have a story for you, okay, so uh we'll try to tell you uh how we plan to solve these like uh effects of a pandemic through power platform. So uh so the reality here is that you know we are all reeling from the effects of covet still right.

A

So if you look at the last 15 months, or so I mean civilization, practically collapsed and and and one of the things so the most essential element of the fabric of our society, which is small businesses, they suffered a lot from covet right.

A

So so what we are proposing here is how you can use something like power platform to to kind of strengthen that fabric and make sure that if something like this happens again, uh these small businesses have the ability to kind of you know, uh stay afloat, not only stay afloat, but also be uh even more successful, so uh really quickly. Here's our team, so neem doan, uh she's, a uh solution architect and also a fast track, recognized solution, architect.

A

So double solution, architect, right there and, as I said, she's the muscle of our our whole plan here. uh Akash is also a software engineer, he's in the power platform space for quite a while uh he's our power portals champion. And uh yours truly, I work for a gsi as well like take care of like the power platform business for north america.

A

uh My only claim to fame here is that I designed the logo that you will see it's uh it's whatever so anyway, so so, let's jump in now again just to put things in perspective uh when the pandemic was announced last march, within a few weeks within like six weeks as you can see, by may 12 2020 more than 100 000 small businesses in us shuttered permanently, and that's like a substantial damage. Now only imagine the kind of damage that has happened since then till now right so so.

A

This is our big problem statement right here and you know just to digress a bit if you're interested in reading about this there's a bunch of good research done by mckinsey. I've added some uh urls in the notes so feel free to like research and and read more about it. um So for for a lot of these businesses, I mean think about some of these are like real institutions. You know think about like restaurants and bookstores. Those are places that have been around for decades.

A

uh You know, like our families, our parents, our grandparents they've, visited these businesses very religiously and now they're gone so for any business. That's out there that's trying to come out of this like pandemic situation now for them. The problem statement is: how might I get my business up and running again and think about the future of my business? So not only do I have to survive now, but if this happens again, what do I do to stay afloat and still be successful?

A

So we are. We are proposing the solution through a story, you know, so we came up with this like fake uh uh plant shop uh established in 1961, it's our friendly neighborhood plant shop, that's been around for quite a while traditionally depended only on foot traffic, as you can imagine, the idea is that you must walk into my store to buy plants, there's no other way uh to buy plants from us and because of that, when cove would hit our business suffered quite a bit and was on the brink of closing permanently so now.

A

The idea here is that we are coming back to business. We are resurfacing. So what do we do? So we got to like pivot a little bit. We must take our business online right, so there is that second, we must embrace technology, so we will use technology to reach out to potential customers proactively.

A

Earlier we were saying come to us now. We are saying we will come to you. Similarly, on that same note, provide the uh the customers abilities to educate themselves as well, it's not about just selling and buying it's about enabling you to be more comfortable with the plants and just like form, a strong community.

A

We will also start delivering plants locally, so this is also uh in contradiction right. So the way we operated earlier was, you must come to us to buy plants from us, but now we are saying: actually we will deliver it to you just buy things from us online once we pilot this program. After that, we will expand. We will do lots of more other things. So that's the theme of this solution now keep in mind that we are a small business. We have very little money.

A

Actually, we don't have any money, so we got to keep our operating costs low, but at the same time we have to be efficient and yet increase our profit margins. So so that's a whole theme here. um What you'll see today is basically like three personas one is how, through this solution, how we will interact with our customers online, through social media monitoring, etc uh when it comes to delivering plans, you know so again, we have to be very careful. We don't have money for gas right, so we cannot be inefficient.

A

How do we do like proper route route planning so that we minimize our driving and hence save costs? And the final thing is, you know some like abilities that we want to provide to our customers. So you know someone who's like an absolute plant or lover and they find a plant out there. We can help them identify through our app like what the plant is etc.

A

So, on that note, let me just get into the solution right there, so uh as a store owner. So one of the things like I mentioned we are, we are embracing technology so before we open our doors, what we do is we just kind of go on social media and we see what kind of things people are saying about plants.

A

So this is one of the solutions that I use and you can see on the top that there are certain like hashtags, that we are monitoring uh very much related to plants, and you will see that people are saying all sorts of things. uh You know plans in office, people share their sentiments and photographs, etc. So we are carefully, let's just looking at what's out there and who we can interact with, and lo and behold we see this guy who says I saw this at a friend's house this plant. I.

B

A

It and want it, anyone know what that is what what this plant is. Now I as a store employ, even though I work at a plant store, I'm still fairly new to this plant world. I don't exactly know what that is, but I know how to identify it because using power platform or power apps, we have this app now that will help me identify what that what that plant is so all I'm gonna do.

A

Is I'm gonna save that photo download it upload it right here in this app and press this identify button and within a few seconds what it's going to do is it will tell me what that plant is so obviously I know that it's a goldfish plant now it gives me all these photos. uh It gives me some description as well and guess what it also gives me a link to this plan on our own website.

A

So if I click this share button right here, it leads me to this goldfish plan, url that I can just share with the customer. So what I can do now is I go to this person's twitter and I say: hey guess what we actually have this plan. So uh here's a little blurb that I'll write. I give them the url, and I say you know, buy this plan from us and let us know if you have any questions.

A

So I hit reply, and this is how I'm interacting with this person now right now, when this person goes to our website, they just look at all the details and they see that okay, this is 20, I will reserve it and when they reserve they get a notice um doesn't want to open, but they get a notice that says hey. We will deliver this plan for you. Thank you for your business. It also tells them that, by the way we have a membership for 15 a month.

A

You can get access to all sorts of amazing videos and education, newsletters and so many other cool things, something to keep in mind right. So this is how now we are doing business in a very proactive manner. This is completely opposite of what we used to do and this works very well for us now. The second thing is so now that this business has happened. It's now time to deliver right, so it's not only to this person, but in a day we may have like 10 15 20 deliveries.

A

So we got to be like pretty efficient about that. So, for that, what we will do is we will uh so you know. Imagine me wanting to you know like load up my car and I I need to start driving. I'm already stressed out, uh so what I'll do is, I will just say: hey, siri, start drop off.

A

So what you will see is that it opens an app for me, and it tells me that all the deliveries that I have to do, the first thing you will notice is there are all these like quick actions as well. I can very easily call my customers sms stem driving directions, etc, but what I'll do here is I will select some of the deliveries that I have to do so for for this session.

A

I will just choose some of the addresses in illinois all right uh and when I click plan root, what you will see on the next screen is: it gives me the most optimal route that I can take, which minimizes my driving right on the top. You will see that it tells me hey it's going to take you three hours and 59 minutes and it's total of 196 miles of driving, and then it also tells me that here's, the order that you should follow go to jennifer first in wheeling, then casting rolling meadows, etc, etc.

A

What's interesting is that if, if I didn't have this, I might just assume that hey this is actually very close to me. I should go here first, but guess what that's not the most efficient track and also just to show you if I change this order right here, you will see on the top that the duration changes the distance changes right so uh you're already like by not following the optimal path, you're already maximizing your driving you're spending, more money on gas, money, etc, which is a big no-no for for someone like us.

A

So right from here, I can just you know, get driving directions and once I start delivering, I can so once I get to jennifer's house, for example, I can just click the sms button and I can say jennifer I delivered your plant, thank you for your business and then I move on to the next person. So so that's the the delivery aspect of it, where we are using a very simple power app to to maximize our, like. You know, deliveries and minimize minimize, our driving minimize, our frustrations in the road, etc, etc.

A

Now the third element really quickly, so uh our customer is very happy with us. You know so they bought the membership. They have access to a lot of information from us. They happen to be at a party in the evening, okay, so the first thing they decide to do. Is they decide to show off this app that they have through this new business called green thumb? So what they do is they tell their friends? Hey, I'm going to show you something cool and they go hey. Siri, open, green thumb.

A

So now what they're saying what they're seeing is this app that they have through the membership where they can buy all sorts of plants? They can also watch all these like videos uh that tells them how to take care of their plants etc, and this is really helpful because this person is a complete beginner. They actually may not have a green thumb right so, while they're showing this off, someone shows them this plant right here, okay, so they're, like man, I love this plant and this is just so beautiful.

A

I wish I knew what it was um also for the person who has the app they go. Oh man, I love this plant too. I wish I knew what this uh what this is. I want to buy it too, but guess what they have access to an app now and if you remember the app that we used earlier in the store that same feature is now available to the customer. So all they do. Is they take a photo of this plant right here?

A

So they go all right. I'm gonna take a photo and identify and again within a few minutes, it tells them that it's the chinese money plan and also they can actually reserve or buy this right from here. So all they do is click the button and it opens the the powerapps portal it tells them that look. This is the plan that you need buy it right from here right. So this is how we are through powerapps power platform.

A

We are enabling small businesses to think differently and operate differently, engage with our customers differently, give them an amazing new experience and just like create this community of plant lovers right so where, uh wherever you may be, whatever your desire may be, you have access to the right information and the right knowledge.

B

A

You know, ultimately, it's good business for everyone, it's a win-win for everyone. um On that note, I will stop. uh Am I over time because we do have like a couple of more slides. You would love to show, go for it, okay, so really quickly. We just wanted to share with you some of the custom connectors that we built and neem. Do you want to talk through these real quick.

C

Yeah hi everyone, uh I'm game. So in this section we just want to highlight the custom connector that we use in these apps.

C

So first is the plain id that you see that it's input is the image uh you can take a photo or upload a fly photo and then it's going to return the data like layer, name common name, similar image, wiki, and it also can return plain health assessment, but it's under business plan id which we don't have it right now, uh but I saw that on github and it looks really cool um moving on. We use google map api. I think that's something people are really excited to see um in this app.

C

I use direction api and the map embedded api uh that you that I also use a pcf control uh that I download from pcf gallery and use it in here to display the value.

C

So in general we just accepted start point: endpoint waypoint is one of the location that we plan to uh go there and then it's return, the optimized waypoint orders and then I have to do some calculation to get the distance and duration. But finally, it's turned out pretty cool hope that people enjoy it.

B

Very cool you know, I saw a question. Come up there, a lot in the chat, but one question that came up was related to what you've done here and I'm assuming the answer is yes, the question was: does this take into traffic and like construction delays as it reroutes you and I'm guessing it does with your calls, google map api.

C

B

By default, very nice uh really neat to see that you're able to pull some components from the community to build your app as well.

C

Yeah, that's uh what we can learn from the community and really appreciate this community yeah.

B

Fantastic, I have one more question for you all, so I noticed you all don't work at the same company. uh Did you meet at the local user group? Together we used to work.

A

So uh we are new works today. Power updates, that's where I used to work. So we all used to work together and I moved on name is still there so funny enough ben could actually train both name.

C

B

Oh neat: that's really cool! Well, thank you all for building this and as you're going to see in the chat. If you haven't already, I think everybody here wants you to go, build this and start selling it tomorrow. So.

A

We have a similar plan and you know really quickly. What you saw was a very quick glimpse. You saw like three things, but this is a very elaborate solution. There's a there's, a bunch of like model driven apps for like back office, stuff, etc.

B

So so yeah there's.

A

There's a lot going on.

B

Very cool, very neat: you all- could do a whole 45 minutes on this. Maybe more that's.

B