Coherent Spark & Power Platform

Many companies’ first introduction to the world of no/low code will be through Microsoft’s Power Platform. A version of Power Platform is included with your Microsoft enterprise license so it’s easy to pick it up and try it out. It comes with a diverse set of tools though. Where do you start? What can you build? And why am I talking about it...??

Where do you start??

There are three key strands to your first steps into Power Platform:?

1. Data – Dataverse?
2. Applications – Power Apps/Pages?
3. Process automation – Power Automate?

There are many more tools available, like Chatbots and AI, but we’re going to stick with the basics for this brief introduction. The first thing you’ll need is somewhere to store some data and that’s where you enter the...?

Dataverse?

Cool name isn’t it? What is it though? It’s an easy-to-manage database in the cloud. You can create tables in a relational database structure that are easily accessible from all the other tools within the Power Platform, such as Power Apps and Power Pages.?

It comes with built in security, links to other Microsoft products (like Dynamics 365) and tools for validation and business rules. If you need to build a form to capture some data or cache some information for processing, then this is the tool to use.?

To discover more about the Dataverse check out this introduction by Microsoft.?

Power Apps/Pages?

There’s a good chance you’ve already heard of Power Apps, Microsoft’s first step into the modern world of Low Code (although you could argue their first steps were back in the MS Access days). It allows you to build form-based applications for capturing and processing data.?

Predominantly it’s a drag-and-drop builder to create the front end and then buttons and processing are done in a more traditional coding style. With it you can create applications like an On-Boarding tool or Site Inspections.?

To find out more about Power Apps check out the overview here.?

Power Pages is a lot like Power Apps in functionality but is intended to build websites rather than applications. I found it to be a bit trickier to get a handle on than Power Apps as it’s still in it’s infancy and not as mature as far as features go. Still, it’s worth checking out if you want to build a webpage-based application.?

To find out more about Power Pages check out this overview page.?

Power Automate?

The final piece to the puzzle is process automation through Power Automate. This allows you to add extra processing to your data based on certain triggers. Triggers can be anything as simple as a button click in a Power App, to the creation of a record in the Dataverse, or an update to a Sharepoint list.?

Once triggered, flows in Power Automate can be used to do a variety of different tasks such as updating data, sending e-mails or calling out to external systems through connectors. This is where the Coherent Spark magic comes in.?

If you want to find out more about Power Automate check out the welcome guide here.?

What does this have to do with Coherent Spark??

So why am I talking about Power Platform? Coherent Spark leverages existing business logic built in Microsoft Excel; a format over 750 million people world-wide are familiar with. It takes this logic, turns it into super-fast, optimized code, and then exposes the functionality as an API.?

“That’s great, but what’s an API?”, I hear you ask. An API is function that can be connected to remotely and securely by another application. This means all the great business logic you’ve written in Excel can still be maintained, enhanced and updated in Excel and then consumed by your other applications. No more having to hand over business logic to development teams to get it integrated into your systems.?

When you use Power Platform, this means you can take the Coherent Spark API and connect it to your application, using a connector in Power Automate, to add your business logic to your apps quickly, securely and in an easy to maintain way.?

For a quick step-by-step guide on how to build the connector check out my guide here.?

Outside of applications, you could also use Power Automate and Coherent Spark to apply your logic to large sets of data pulled in from Azure, SAP, Salesforce, or almost any other data source. This would allow you to manipulate the data much faster than importing it into Excel due to the natural processing power increase of using Coherent Spark.?

Other options include integrating your existing systems like SharePoint sites or Dynamics CRM with Spark to add some much-needed additional logic; written in a format understood by your business experts. This could lead to automation of unexpected things, such as new customer pricing models on signup or auto-calculating travel expenses based on a bespoke model.?

Putting it all together?

The first step is to identify the model you want to use as the center of your application. You'll then need to add some tags to the file; details of how to do this can be found in the Spark documentation. These tags will tell Spark which fields need to be inputted by the user and which fields will then be outputted at the end. Inputs and output can be single fields, or they can be ranges to represent a list or table of data.?

Once it’s tagged up, you can upload it to Spark and see what the resultant API looks like using the built-in API tester. Here you’ll also find all the information you need to create a custom connector in Power Automate.?

Now’s the time to head over to Power Automate and use the guide to create your connector (in the side menu click Data > Custom Connector) for your new Spark Service. By the end of the process, you should be able to run a call to the service with test data.?

What’s next? That’s up to you! You can create a static flow in Power Automate to call from Power Apps or you can create a dynamic flow that’s triggered by another process. There are loads of built-in triggers to choose from, including changes to data in the Dataverse, modifications to a Sharepoint list, and receiving an email. You can even choose from the existing templates and modify it to add a step to call out to Spark to add some extra logic to your process.?

Sparklite.io?

Check out sparklite.io for a sandbox where you can try out Spark for yourself. It’s packed full of showcases, sample files, and resources.?