Author: Devendra Velegandla

Reading Time: 3 minutes

With the introduction done, we can talk about the concepts of Power Platform.

Let us get started with foundations first.

Today’s blog post will show why basic foundations are essential.

One of the foundational aspects of any new implementation is understanding the current state.

'Mind the gap between current state and future state'. #LeanStartup #leanstartupweek #kaizen #HPO #designthinking pic.twitter.com/IhkDO9ajqU

— Marius Gil (@MGMMarius) November 14, 2017

Establish Power Platform Strategy

This happened a couple of years back.

We are working on one of the engagements to define and establish the Power Platform strategy.

We prepared the deck with all the details needed and shared it with the customer team.

One section in the deck covers the prerequisites of the engagement and the risks associated with not meeting them.

We confirmed with the customer team, and they have all the prerequisites to get started.

This is a four-week engagement, and we wanted to make sure all in place before we get started.

It is the first day with the customer, and we are trying to install the starter kit.

Imported the core components solution and the other starter kit components are needed.

At this time, we do not have a starter kit wizard.

We need to follow manual steps after importing the solutions.

We got an error once we tried to start the flows in the core components.

The account has no Power Automate premium (Aka Power Automate Per-flow) license.

This was on the list of requirements.

We got stuck.

We informed the team and they were like oh no, we verified but it seems like it is missing.

Without licenses, we will not get platform inventory.

Without data, we do not know all the solutions developed within the Power Platform.

That week, the project status changed to Yellow. Licensing is added to the risk tracker.

The customer immediately contacted other teams to get licenses.

Your strategy workshops outcome will not be successful unless you understand the current state of the Power Platform.

What did we do?

We started with other core strategies and continued with engagement.

It all went well during the workshops. We asked better questions and got answers. People are quite open to sharing all the challenges they face.

Thanks to my Lead and everyone at that time. We made it successful.

We can understand the current state to an extent.

We haven’t documented all the recommendations yet as we are waiting for the starter kit.

Hurray, we got the licenses

We got the Power Automate license by the end of Week 3.

We were quickly able to start the flows and run the full inventory.

The Power BI dashboard was up and running in a few hours.

It is great to see what the customer team got.

Project status changed from Yellow to GREEN by the end of the third week.

We scheduled one more session to revisit what we discussed during all the strategies and help them understand where they are at.

I am happy to write a blog post on what are the key things to focus on Starter kit dashboard.

We recommended what was best for them, and they were pleased with the outcome.

The advantages of understanding the current state

If you do not know the current state and are trying to recommend a solution, you are always guessing.

The CoE starter kit provides complete info on your Power Platform applications.

Of course, you need to configure it properly.

The starter kit dashboard gives you a complete inventory.

• Understanding of who is developing solutions
• How many people are developing solutions
• What data sources are being used within the company
• Are the data sources in line with company policies
• What is the growth of the Power Platform

And much more.

Final Thoughts

People always recommend strategies and solutions with a partial understanding of the current state.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t give a better outcome for everyone.

They come, recommend, and even build solutions without understanding what’s in the platform.

People should take time to learn what’s in the ecosystem.

Next time you try to recommend a strategy or deliver a solution, give yourself time to understand the current state.

These could be systems, processes, or, in this case, the inventory of a power platform.

You will do a much better job, and people involved in the process will have better outcomes.

What are your thoughts?

Have you encountered any scenarios like this? If yes, what was your experience? Please let me know in the comments below.

Next, I will talk about the prerequisites of the starter kit and what you need to do after installing the kit.

Also, I will share common mistakes made while installing the kit and the lessons learned.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

I joined the Zero to Hero program, mentored by Victor and many others in the community.

Why Power Pages?

I do not know much about Power Pages.

In 2024, I would like to learn and hopefully get an opportunity to implement a project on power pages.

This is one area in which I didn’t work much or get exposure.

I wanted to be ready if the opportunity came my way.

The single most powerful "skill" you can develop:

Learning quickly.

But the way schools teach us to learn is a horrible way to learn in the real world.

Textbooks, worksheets, flash cards—all of it a waste.

Instead, use this simple 3-part framework to rapidly learn anything:

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) October 15, 2022

Plan

Whatever, I wanted to get started.

I created a plan that is simple and actionable.

Below is the high-level plan.

Attend all the sessions released as part of the Zero to Hero program in 2024.

Well, most of these sessions are at 2 AM in Perth time, so I will end up watching the recordings.

Thanks to Victor and the Team for making these available on YouTube.

I will add the links to the blog post once they are up and running.

ID	Speaker	Topic Name	URL
1	Victor Dantas	Power Pages & Copilots Zero To Hero introduction	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BySj968rDI
2	Victor Dantas	5 Essential Keys to Power Up Your Power Pages Project	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i7UY4TSAwk

Make sure you subscribe to Victor’s YouTube channel.

I also want to watch previous recordings of zero-to-hero sessions on Power Pages.

Below are the links to previous ones if you are interested in watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv3Pglc9qL8

While I am learning, I need to practice.

Without practice, it will make me feel like I am making progress but going nowhere.

I need to build a project.

What is the best way? I do not know. Below are a few ways I am planning to handle this.

If you have some other ideas, leave them in the comment section below or DM me on LinkedIn.

Practice or Project or Forums?:

I think I will go with forums for now.

I can learn about the challenges many people face working on real-world projects.

Again, I wanted to break it down.

This will be done in a few stages, but I am happy to get your ideas.

Stage 1:

Practice labs on the Microsoft Learn portal.

Spend 15 minutes daily in the Power Pages Forum.

This will give me an idea of real-world challenges.

It might prepare me better while attending the live sessions or watching the recordings.

To make this happen, I will block my calendar for 15 minutes.

If I block it in my calendar, I will do this.

I will do it for 2 to 3 weeks.

Once I am comfortable with the concepts, I want to move to the next stage.

Stage 2:

This is where magic happens.

Continue to spend 15 minutes on Forums daily.

This time, start answering 1 forum question per day.

Implement what I learned.

I might not answer even 1 question in the first few days or weeks, and it’s okay.

I even might struggle to understand the questions.

Again, I plan to block 15 minutes in my calendar to do this.

What’s next?

Sharing the learnings

I will share what I have learned once a week with everyone on this blog or Linkedin.

Make sure you sign up to get future posts.

This will keep me going and learning Power Pages.

Additional resources

I will also be referring to the additional resources.

Title	URL
Read Nick’s Blog	https://readyxrm.blog/tag/portals/
Power Pages in a Day	https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPyQwNBCJB-azmvF3r8NytdfE8M9dVJMF
30-day challenge	https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJXMFihzhj53rwha4h7smb7nW-oSFWzfL&si=aggfLzUVjM4obaVI
Nicholas Tips	https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5dtzuEgjWgm0Xlk5IfDr4D3-4D9KWYc1&si=opBcB6Dc7Al6p3i0
Girish Uppal’s Youtube	https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5xdZrvu1OhWupnNtwbBD3v6GsELg83c5

Final Thoughts

Why do a blog post?

Social accountability >>> Goals that are listed on my desk ~ Dickie Bush (He said something along those lines)

I wanted to continue to learn and practice power pages.

One option is to do it myself.

Or I think a better one is to tell everyone what I want to do.

If I do not do it on what I planned, one of you might ask me :).

Did I miss something?

Are you part of the Zero to Hero program this year? Leave a comment and let me know if the plan makes sense or if I need to include something else.

If you liked this post, consider signing up to get future posts.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

School

This happened in the 1990’s.

I studied in my village until Year 10 (1989 to 99).

We do not have computers at home or school.

Everything is done on paper, pen/pencil.

No electronic devices.

Once I finish my schooling, I want to join a diploma program.

Why?

That is the best way to get a job and help my dad.

I do not want to do Year 12, and if I do not get into Engineering, it will be challenging to get a job early.

Also, my cousins are getting diplomas, and one of them is already doing work.

It is an easy path and less risky.

I had to take an entrance test in Year 10 to get into a diploma program.

I went for a coaching then wrote an exam and got a decent rank (around 500 something)

I got into a college near my village.

A lot of drama happened during my admission, which I will cover in future posts. (This itself needs a dedicated post)

For now lets call it lucky so i got a seat in college.

Diploma and Engineering

This was the first time I moved out of the village to study and visit the local town.

All subjects are in English. Yes, that is correct.

(All my primary school years are in local Language – Telugu).

I still remember i got 38 in my English first year and i thought i would fail.

Lucky again, I passed it. Overall though, I got a distinction.

What about computers?

We had computers at college, and I only used them in year 3 when running DOS commands.

It was not complex, but I didn’t understand computers.

Anyway, I completed my diploma with distinction (All 3 years included).

Many of my classmates got even better grades, so I am not special.

I will already love machines by the end of my third year.

Preparing for engineering entrance and getting into college in government quota was the most challenging.

It was a different story altogether about how I made it.

But i made it to engineering and completed by college with distinction again.

You wonder if I am amazing. Not really.

Many of the subjects I studied in engineering were already in my Diploma, so it was an easy transition.

My love for machines increased, and I wanted to design motors and transformers.

I have my dreams about how I need to go about them.

Change in direction

All my friends are getting jobs in IT.

On the other side, I worked with other engineers, but I wanted to join IT.

I had a conversation with one of my friends.

My friend helped me get into a small company.

No salary to begin with, but that’s okay.

I was looking to work in IT where I could learn skills and potentially earn in the future.

I was playing for a long time without knowing it.

Later, one more friend helped me to move to a training role.

Based on what I learned before, I started teaching them .Net.

Then this company got a branch in Delhi and they said, do you want to relocate.

I said Yes.

Delhi

I had the opportunity to move to the capital city of India.

This move changed everything for me.

I need to learn Hindi to begin with. My English wasn’t good either.

Four friends who came with me to Delhi plan to return to their hometown for various reasons.

For the work i did, I believe my managed was impressed.

He asked if I would like to stay back.

I said YES and continued to work with the team.

I learned and managed to speak Hindi in the next 6 months.

After all these years I can still manage to speak in Hindi.

No more challenges if I find someone now, we can have a conversation in Hindi.

This later helped in my career.

SharePoint (was MOSS 2007)

Soon after, my journey started as the company got a new project on MOSS 2007.

I had no clue, and so was everyone on the team.

My boss got someone from another company to help us.

It’s the turning point of my career.

I stayed there for another 1 year before moving to Hyderabad.

I worked in another company helping with support tasks.

I got good at what i do which lead to great opportunity.

In between all, I got married.

Joined Global consulting company

I moved to Bangalore and started working on SharePoint and MOSS 2007 projects.

I am still doing the support projects, but I have always been on the development side, not Infra.

After few months, I got an opportunity to move to Infra team and i said yes.

I started working on both the development and administration of SharePoint.

While i was on support project, I got time to learn new things and share with community.

I learned from the coaching call on how to become an MVP.

MCC and MVP

I started following and implementing what was said in the coaching call.

I started contributing to community forums.

Within 3 months, I got an MCC (Microsoft community contributor) award.

I started a blog and wrote blog posts.

Then, I started a YouTube channel and made some excellent progress.

Someone in the community nominated me, and I got the MVP award.

Manila, Philippines

In early 2014, I got an opportunity to work in the Philippines.

It was one of the longer assignments through my previous company’s Global Career Program (GCP).

GCP changed my career.

It is an excellent opportunity to learn and embrace the culture of the Philippines.

It’s different from what it is like in India.

It took me some time, but I enjoyed my three years in the Philippines before returning to India.

This is when I met one of my Avanade colleagues during one of the projects, and I have been in touch with him since then.

Later, I returned to India and worked there for another year.

Fast Track Program at Microsoft

I got an opportunity to work on a large project for Microsoft.

This is the time when a lot of Migration projects are happening from on-premises to the cloud.

I worked as a fast-track velocity manager for over 6 months before moving to Perth.

Perth, Australia – Power Platform

Thanks to the people I worked with, I traveled to Perth at the beginning of 2018.

Everything is new to me.

People helped me to find a place.

Elder one started school.

Younger one born.

I also started my first Power Platform project in Perth.

This was for 3 months to validate the features of Power Platform and show if it works as expected.

This includes running PS scripts to get the inventory of Power Apps and cloud flows.

The initial setup of configuring and testing DLP policies.

Connect to data sources such as SQL and test if it works well with the on-premises gateway.

Then, I moved back to Avanade and worked on a few internal projects.

Later, my colleague and now friend helped me join another project with a client, where I spent close to 3 years.

Over 3 years. I worked on multiple projects using Power Platform and its related technologies.

I moved to a different client to work on the Dynamics CRM project.

After working for over 10 years at one of the largest consulting companies, I decided to do something else.

Full-time employment to Independent

In late 2022, I took a step and decided to work at the customer end.

One of the best options is to work as an Independent contractor.

For years, I have been working as a consultant and providing solutions.

The last 14 months or so have been an excellent experience for me, professionally and personally.

In my role, I am doing the following things.

• Platform governance strategy and implementation.
• Platform administration.
• Adoption, training, and other related activities.
• Working with other members who do QA and Solution development.
• Presenting at Digital Influencers sessions on Power Platform.

AND much more.

Final Thoughts

Though there are a lot of ups and downs.

Many people helped me to grow as a person.

A lot of luck was involved in my journey.

Can you imagine how much your life has changed over the years?

If you think this is the only thing you work on in the future, think again.

You constantly change and your interests will change.

Also, if you do not have a computer background, do not worry.

You will start slowly but catch up as you learn the skills.

I hope you get the idea based on my journey 🙂

Next, learn one of the foundational aspects of enabling users to develop Power Platform solutions.

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Today, I am sharing my credentials, qualifications and why you might want to listen to me.

Here is the list of reasons that could help you why you should listen to me.

I studied electrical and electronics diploma and engineering for six years.

I didn’t know much about computers when I was a kid. 

Forget about being a school kid, even in my engineering days. 

I was dreaming about machines. 

And Then, 

I started working as a .Net developer and wrote c# code in the early days of my career.

I worked with MOSS in 2007. Now, we call it SharePoint.

I started working at delivery centers most of the time.

I only started my consulting career once I moved to Perth.

I worked with large teams.

Okay, a few more to the list before I finish.

I became an MVP in 2015 and until 2019 for 5 consecutive years.

I have worked with 100’s of business users developing solutions using Power Platform and its related technologies. 

Worked with the largest consulting company for over 10 years.

I am working as a power platform architect helping business users and other pro developers.

Did that help you to listen to me?

You can also read about Me and my journey to IT, specifically to Power Platform.

Why Now?

I have been reflecting a lot these days. 

I made heaps of mistakes throughout my journey.

I made some progress and wanted to share the lessons, mistakes, and failures.

Hopefully, you can learn from these and may not repeat them.

Next, I shared my story of how I started in IT and transitioned to Power Platform.