Microsoft is making generally available as of today, November 16, Power Apps, Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents apps for Teams. Microsoft also is making generally available today the rechristened “Project Oakdale” data-management platform for Teams, which is now officially known as “Microsoft Dataverse.”
By making these low-code/no-code products available inside Teams, Microsoft is continuing to expand Teams’ role as a hub for all kinds of work, not just for collaboration.
Power Apps for Teams lets users build and manage low-code apps inside of Teams. Power Automate for Teams lets users build workflows for automating routine tasks inside of Teams. Power Virtual Agents for Teams enables users to build and deploy bots inside Teams to handle scenarios ranging from IT helpdesk, to HR issue resolution.
Dataverse is the Microsoft’s latest name for the Microsoft Common Data Service (CDS) used inside Teams. In late July, Microsoft announced the Dataflex and Dataflex Pro brands, with Dataflex christened as the new name for CDS in Teams and Dataflex Pro, the rebrand of CDS itself. But there was a problem. Another company, Data Access Worldwide, already owned the Dataflex trademark and sued Microsoft for trademark violation. Microsoft switched to using the original “Project Oakdale” codename until it announced the new name today.
I asked Microsoft if it will be using Dataverse and Dataverse Pro both as its new branding. No word back.
Customers can continue to use the Microsoft Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code to build Teams apps. They also can continue to use the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) for building Teams apps, as well, officials reiterated today.
Speaking of apps that can be used in Teams, Microsoft also announced the general availability today of Teams apps for meetings, along with nearly 20 new Teams apps for meetings that can be obtained via the Teams app store. Available apps include Asana, HireVue, Monday.com, Slido and Teamflect, as well as Microsoft’s own Forms app for building surveys and polls.
Users can add these Teams meeting apps into Teams meeting invitations to help users more quickly and easily create new action items, and so they can work directly inside Teams without having to toggle back and forth between apps and their Teams meetings.
