Power Platform Boost Podcast
The Power Platform Boost Podcast is your timely update of what's new and what is happening in the community of Microsoft business applications. Join hosts Ulrikke Akerbæk and Nick Doelman for a lively discussion of all things Power Platform!Like what you hear? Buy us a beer: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Powerplatboost
Power Platform Boost Podcast
Not a musical (#83)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
- Power Apps in 2026: Which App Type Should You Actually Use? by Charles Sexton and Josh Giles
- "Navigating the New Map of the Power Platform" Workshop at Color Cloud by Scott Durow
- "Build your first AI Agents with Microsoft’s Agent Academy" Workshop at Color Cloud by Nick and Ulrikke
- Gen Pages available in all clouds, GA and with Agent Dev tools
- ToluVictor/canvas-apps-tools: AI skills for Power Apps Canvas Apps by Tolu Victor
- nickmeron/Dataverse-MCP-Server by Nir Meron
- Public Preview: Your business apps, now part of every conversation by Claudio Romano
- Cowork vs. Cowork by Jukka Niiranen
- Dataverse Skills: Your Coding Agent Now Speaks Dataverse by Suyash Kshirsagar
- 'Copilot in the flow of work' - When to use each type by Simon Owen
- Eight Claude Code commands by Nicola Valenti
- Wired Differently, Leading Boldly: A Journey of Neurodivergent Strength by Keegan Chambers
Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode of Power Platform BOOST!
Thank you for buying us a coffee: buymeacoffee.com
Podcast home page: https://powerplatformboost.com
Email: hello@powerplatformboost.com
Follow us!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/powerplatboost
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powerplatformboost/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/powerplatboost/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090444536122
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@powerplatboost
Back From A Lost Voice
NickSo no power platform boost the musical today then.
UlrikkeOh, but that's such a good idea though. And also we're approaching like a hundred episodes. We should do something special, just putting it out there.
NickJust like I'm afraid I've I've I'm afraid I'm afraid I've planted a seed now, but we'll we'll continue on.
UlrikkeHey Nick.
NickHello. Hey, Lika, how's it going?
UlrikkeIt's going great. Guess who's back? Back again. I can finally talk. I cannot sing to my kids. Yeah, I know. For talking, it's fairly okay. And I'm yeah, I can now stop doing all the cold medicine stuff, but the thing I still cannot do is sing to the kids at night because they all go. When I think it's like, that's how I sing. So my older kid, she's like, Well, you know, I'm used to it. I'm like, You're you're what? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What? You are not. I sing like an opera singer usually. You're not used to it. But then she's like, Oh, okay, no.
NickSo we're so no power platform boost the musical today then.
UlrikkeOh, but that's such a good idea though. And also we're approaching like a hundred episodes. We should do something special, just putting it out there.
NickJust like I'm afraid I've I've I've appre I'm afraid I've planted a seed now, but we'll we'll continue on.
UlrikkeAnd I have s without spoiling anything, I have seen you both sing and dance, and I think it is worthy of an audience, I must say. I mean, I feel very honored because I'm one of few people that have seen it. But it is a spectacle, and it should, you know, I think the world is old. That it would make the world a better place. So enough about me and my voice. Um, where are you and how
Halifax Trip And MVP Summit Hints
Ulrikkeare you?
NickSo I'm in a basement somewhere in a hotel in Halifax.
UlrikkeDoesn't sound good. I don't know.
NickAre you okay?
UlrikkeBlink you twice if you want me to rescue you.
NickNo, I'm all good. Yeah, visiting Halifax. My my my kid is going to be going to university here next uh this coming fall. So we're doing a tour, checking it all out. So yeah, so this is I eventually we'll get back to the the home studio where we'll record uh an episode. Um might be a f it might be a month or two yet before we get there, based on our travels. So but uh this is where we are this weekend and checking all that out. Interesting times. Uh no Nova Scotia is a great province, Halifax is a great city. But yeah, so this is where we're we're broadcasting the PowerPoint from Boost from today. And of course, we got back from Redmond from last week. Really good week. Obviously, we can't talk about a lot of things, but definitely something to do with AI. And as we're beginning to go through the news items, uh, we're gonna see um, I would say that the news items align with a lot of what we saw and heard last week as well, put it that way.
UlrikkeAnd and also a lot of the things that were kind of that they discussed with us is now it was not it's not so much a discussion, but some of them, the things that they showed us last week, they said, well, this is gonna be announced next week or the week after, or some of it's rebuild, or something like that. So we could then prepare stuff. We can. We can't share it with anyone. We could prepare content that we can then at a timely schedule kind of release to the world when it's public preview. And I see a lot of content like that coming out this week. So we have a list, a very long list to go through. And I wanted to start off with our favorite. Well, we can't really say that because we have a lot of these, but one of our favorite bands, which is Josh and Charles, out with another
Picking The Right App Type
Ulrikkevideo. I just these guys are knocking out of the park. This is so much fun. Did you see this one?
NickI I haven't watched uh through through full of it, all of all of it yet. I did see it. Uh, of course, anytime I see that, okay, I definitely I flag it, I need to watch this stuff. But it's uh it's definitely from what I have seen a great discussion about, and this is a discussion we've been having for years now. It's always about which power app type should you use or which app type should you use. And the answer is always it depends, but there's a lot of factors about you know what the users are gonna be, what their workload's gonna be, and the licensing factors into this. Now, of course, they they're going through what they said there's five different types of apps. I would also argue there's more than just that. Um, they do, from what I've seen, they they do a good kind of breakdown. Did you uh do what you watch it? Maybe you can comment better than I can.
UlrikkeWell, yeah, I didn't uh fully watch the whole thing. I wish to start just to kind of see what they're going through. And and just like you said, they go through the five types of apps and also the recognize that you also have the ability to connect to power pages as an external source, and now you have kind of different variants of that as well, in addition to co-pilots, you can also add to the other um apps and pages and other channels. So it's coming back to what we always talked about, which is the right tool for the right job. And even in co-pilot world or even in PowerPages world, it's hard. And I had this discussion with a colleague of mine just the other week because he's like, he got his hands on the new AI agent, uh coding for uh plugin for PowerPages, and he's now vibe coding his way with a coding agent and with server-side logic and um uh client side API. He's like, why wouldn't we just use PowerPages for everything? Licensing-wise, it makes sense. We can make a business app, we can look make it look like a business app, it can talk to data the same way. He's like, why would we not? And I'm finding it hard to come up with good kind of arguments for why not, but it has to do with because Canvas app is a web app. Code app is a web app, all of this is web app. So what the first power pages from a code app then, or a canvas app for that matter, at the end of the day. And when we have people vibe coding or code apping model-driven apps, I'm I get the people that don't know this stuff as deep as we do get a bit cross-eyed and go, you what no? So this is a great video for anyone who's kind of a bit confused and needs someone to just lay it out really strategically and very kind of in an organized fashion. And and so they do a very good job of just going through, all right, this is the map, this is the chaos, let us go through it bit by bit to show you what to use for a mud and the use cases that they're good for. And
ColorCloud Workshops And How To Join
Ulrikkealso I just wanted to kind of uh uh transition this and segue a little bit over to if you want to sit in a room and have someone take you through this and allow you to work, because it's one thing to see it on a video, it's another thing to actually play with it and work with it because that's how high I'm a very tactile learner, so I'm not a very visual learner. So if I get to play with something, I'll learn it way quicker. Then come to ColorCloud and join Scott Dureau's session because he's doing an eight-hour workshop on this exact thing from a code pro code perspective, and also through the different apps and the different app types that you have in PowerPlatform now, what to use for what, and and you actually get to play with it hands-on. And so that's a something that I would check out if I were you. And also if you want to go through the recruit part, the first course in the Agent Academy for co-pilot studio, then or sorry, co-pilot, then join us for our workshop at Color Cloud, which will be the recruit part of that curriculum. So you and me will go through that. So that's gonna be awesome.
NickYeah, and I'm just scrolling through some of the, you know, speaking, just give a little shout-outs to some of our other friends. There is um, there's like Scott's workshop, there's our workshop, there's a whole shit ton of other workshops I'm going through here that I'm like, I'm like, shoot, I'm running a workshop or else I'd attend some of these ones. Um I know, right? Like there's the there's the co-pilot studio, there's a hackathon going on, if that's more your learning style. Uh, we talked about hackathons before.
UlrikkeYeah, that's the circus with Hanna and Chris and uh.
NickThere's uh stuff on customer insights, uh, which is if that's your thing. Of course, um Joe and Catherine are doing their beautiful apps for functional makers that they did in uh Canada as well. Vancouver, Keith and Neil about thinking like a power platform architect. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to go through these all because there's so many. The other one I really that really caught my eye was from Magnus Sorensen about agentic engineering masterclass, building production ready, dataverse solutions with AI. Like I feel for this guy because there's been a lot of news stuff in the last week or two that I'm not sure Magnus gonna, if you're gonna incorporate this stuff, you gotta like your content must be rapidly changing. And then it's made a minute before.
UlrikkeYeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, there's us definitely, anyways.
NickCheck out check out the workshops and we'll put the link in the show notes because you still have a week. Use Color Boost for a discount or Easter 20. I think there's other like there's ways, plenty of ways to get into Color Cloud. It's a great opportunity for a day of learning, so check that out.
UlrikkeYeah, 100%. And also, I see that we have uh a lot of subscribers to already, so you when you sign up, you can kind of favorite the workshop you want to go to. And we see that ours is filling up, so make sure to um to to favorite the ones you're thinking about attending, um, so that we get a little bit of a feel of how the big of the rooms and how to and swag maybe, how much swag to get, and you know, it's uh it's all coming together. But of course, it's you know, we we do plan this um very tightly at the moment to to make room because there's so much so Yeah, it's it's crazy.
NickThat's a great segue, but guess what also is coming to Europe
Gen Pages Becomes Global GA
Nickbeyond me and other things?
UlrikkeIs it has it with powerlifting?
NickNo, no, no, no. I mean, sorry, like that was a really good thing. Oh yeah, yeah.
UlrikkeThe segue segue to the thing. All right, yeah. The the Gen Pages one.
NickYes. So remember you how you were ranting a few months ago about how Gen Pages were great? We could only use them in uh US-based environments. So your voice is going now? No, no, my voice is going now. What's happening?
UlrikkeWhat's going on? This is gonna be a rica show. Yes, yeah. Gen Pages is gonna be available in all clouds, GA, and uh also be available through Agent DevTools. Um, so that's great news.
NickYes, yeah. Looking forward to that.
UlrikkeWe have a few customers who are actually waiting.
NickI have some apps that I'm actually running on separate environments and US-based environments that I want to consolidate into my main environment. So I'll be able to start doing that now on some gen pages I created earlier for some of the other apps. So yeah.
Community Skills And Canvas App Tools
NickVery cool. So one thing uh also very cool is of course, we're seeing a lot of community. Of course, now we're talking with with without going into a full deep dive to a tutorial. We have things like MCP servers. Of course, skills is the new hottest thing in the last few weeks, building skill files both for Claude and for GitHub Copilot, plus the concept of skills is coming into the power platform as well with Dataverse skills and those types of things that we will talk a little bit about later. But we're seeing now community content. People out there, community people are used to used to create code, used to create, you know, um content around things. People are creating skills and distributing them through GitHub. And I caught on something here which is really cool. It is Canvas Apps Tools by uh someone called Tolo Victor. And I'm just gonna kind of bring it up here. But basically, he's created these Canvas app tools. And now, of course, we hear Canvas apps are dead and you should be, you know, you could do code apps or replace Canvas apps, but I mean, there's still a lot of Canvas apps out there, and people are still very comfortable with Canvas apps. So seeing this plus some of the other stuff Microsoft is doing, Canvas apps are, I think, just in the grand scheme of things, another option for people to build apps. And what he did is he created a plugin that gives Cloud Code a skill that will generate the UI based on a wireframe or a mock-up and generate the Canvas app YAML and put that together when you're building Canvas apps. And I thought that was pretty brilliant. And the way he put it all together, it's on GitHub, we'll have the links. I haven't tried it out myself, so I can't really give you the is it work or not work. I'm assuming it does work because there's a lot of people that have favored it and have looked at it. So if you're building Canvas apps, but you feel that you want to kind of get into a little bit of the, you know, begin to use agents to help you design your UI a little bit, this could be something for you to check out.
UlrikkeAbsolutely. And also I edited the post. I love this. Due to overwhelming demand, I've made the plugin free and open source for everyone. Take out my latest post for all the details and download links, which is amazing. I mean, and it tells you kind of the demand for for something like this, which is so cool. Uh so yeah, so we have the um the Canvas app tool here, and then we have a Dataverse MCP server.
NickYeah.
UlrikkeAlso on the we're gonna share the link too.
NickYeah, because this is another, I know there is the official Microsoft uh MCP server, and I think I've seen other ones, but this is another example. This is one I actually used on a project myself. I wanted to create a whole bunch of tables and things, and the one out of the box couldn't do something, or I say out of the box, the one from Microsoft. So I ended up using this one, and it was actually work really slicked that actually went in and created those tables and things for me. This is before we saw the Dataverse skills that we're gonna talk about in a bit. Like I said, things are changing. And I mean, as great as it is, these these folks in the community are creating these tools. Sometimes Microsoft will kind of come out with the exact same thing or something very similar. So it just again, we're getting overwhelmed with information, but we're also it's also enabling a lot of people to create skills and tools and put things together. Um and it's just it's an exciting time where all of us, and it's like this, I don't know, this golden age of apps and agents and things, and we have like a whole buffet of tools to do things, but it also reflects of how we're changing like how things are changing. Like, I don't know if I'll ever go back into the Dataverse table maker and begin to create tables from scratch using that. I'm gonna be doing it from via probably Visual Studio Code from here on in using one of these tools. And it just, if we had this conversation even three or four months ago, you need to create tables, what you would you use? Well, there's the built-in co-pilot, there's plan designer. Now we're I'm living in Visual Studio Code. And a year ago, I never thought it'd be that would be my main thing that's open every day on my on my machine. It's amazing. It's it's cool, scary, everything all at the same time.
UlrikkeYeah, and I and I know because I'm not so fluent in Visual Studio Code and get I don't get that's uh I keep saying that. So for me, it's still a bit aliens. Co-pilot co-work comes in or cloud co-work um up until we have the the co-pilot one and kind of saves the day for me because it's uh I know that on the back it's the same and it's I feel kind of non-cody for using the natural language kind of agent experience. But for me, that feels more natural because I I'm not so comfortable with all the file structure and all that. I get lost in Visual Studio code all the time with settings and accounts and what to use where. And yeah, so it doesn't feel natural for me, but but Claude co-work is really something I feel at home with. Um and and yeah, like you said, the the notion of skills is so important and to have a file structure and I've gone through the interview with a hundred questions to get my writing style and to understand more about me, to have that in one skill file. And then as I'm creating project, it creates its own Claude files to store memory in. And of course, then you can also move these around, right? And then so I've created an expense project, and I when we were done with all my expenses, I said, all right, let's create the skills needed for me to just simply start adding receipts and you understand what to do autonomously by yourself. Which is a really cool way of just me having a continuous project to work with this because tech is gonna evolve. And also I know that we don't get access to it, I can't use it on my organization, so I can't connect this to my company. So what I have to do is I have to have this clean cut somewhere where I have an expulsion spreadsheet or the files, wherever it is, to then manually move over to my company. But one day maybe I'll be able to seamlessly kind of just make it create these these expense reports and roles for me. But that's a an IT security perspective that is now blocking me. But it doesn't prohibit me from experimenting with this technology, right? But also I think it's very important to for me at least, I learned a lot by looking at these skills files. So the one that you talk about directly, you have 18, it says on the on the top, so 68 tools and 18 skills is covered in this repo. So actually going in and opening up some of these files to look at them, to see what they how they're structured, what they um include, it's also very smart because you then understand a little bit more about how to think when you're interacting with these eight coding agents and how to kind of evolve them yourself. So I'm like you. I'm I'm loving interacting with this though through a different lens, but it's the same thing and it's a lot of fun.
NickYeah, and you say like Visual Studio Code, like don't I I am not a Visual Studio Code master. I actually at at the MVP summit, I took in a few Visual Studio Code sessions because I feel I'm only tapping in maybe 50, 60% of all the capabilities. I know I feel like I'm missing a few things. I'm watching videos and everything like that. Like I'm getting more and more capable with it, but it is it is a it is a dev tool at the end of the day. Um and I do come from a developer background, but I do get you when you say like there's just a lot going on, and and it's supposed to be it was it was supposed to be just started out just as a code editor and now it does a thousand things, yeah, and the plugins and the whole bit. So this is this has been part of my ongoing learning as well, just within Visual Studio Code. So I I get you when you say you're intimidated because there's all these things, and then of course, then you see a session and someone clicks something in Visual Studio Code. I'm like, hold on, hold on, what did you just click there? Like, what is that? You know?
UlrikkeSo Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's the experience I have as well. And then also I feel a bit stupid for not getting it, but also I got kind of um so I oh sorry, sorry. Um I so I could because I have one account for Visual Studio, right? Because I have my subscription, then I have one for my environment, then I have one for Cloud or the agent that I'm using, and then I have one for and then it's the and then so many different layers of stuff, and then I have one for Git and one for that, and then suddenly I was like, I was all dizzy. So if I can get eight hours and someone can sit me down and teach me GitHub co-pilot. So no, sorry, Visual Studio Code, I would be so happy. Maybe that's what I should do next. But yeah, it's uh stopping and starting videos. I know, I know that.
Copilot Brings Apps Into Conversations
UlrikkeYeah. All right, so item on the list is the public preview of your business apps now part of every conversation, which is a really uh cool announcement. So you put this in here, you want to talk about it?
NickDid I put that one in?
UlrikkeMaybe not, maybe I did. But at least you did. Okay. Well, it's yeah.
NickIt's still if it's continuing on the stuff that we talked about earlier from uh from uh from the the team that we taught the the session that I saw that at Ignite about now incorporating the agent feed into Power Apps and with the the ability to where you're actually having the the agents within the model driven app and able to interact with those power apps through the Power Apps MCP server from the M365 um interface. So I think a lot of that now has gotten I think believe that's just the fact that it's now public preview, where it was in demo form before for private previews. This now gives everybody the ability to go try it out and kind of build into their own workloads and see how that goes. That's my I think that's what the link was all about.
UlrikkeYeah, yeah. And also the so when you um if you're in co-pilot, Microsoft 365 co-pilot, right? Then you can interact with data versus data through an adaptive card experience and not have to leave your app. The same thing goes for Word documents, where before you would have the co-pilot panel on the right side, you could ask it questions. It could read your document, but it couldn't go in and edit anything. Now it's going to be so integrained in your uh document or your PowerPoint or your data that it's actually gonna do work on your behalf. And that now goes across all the different business, business applications, and has become immensely more powerful. And especially with kind of PowerPoint, I've tried it out where I've made a layout change with one of the layouts in my PowerPoint, and I'm like, dude, can you go in and just change this for all of it? And it it goes through and it can actually now do it for me. At least of course it argues with me because I I put some things off off the screen and it was like, um, I I think this is offset a little bit. I I I'll put it here instead. I'm like, no, it was offset for so it still kind of argues with me. But um, I'm sure I can beat it into submission at some point.
NickAbsolutely. Um this is part of it.
Claude Code Vs Copilot Cowork
UlrikkeUh this is part of it.
NickUm I was about to say, you've uh you've been working with Cloud Cowork. I've been using Cloud Cowork a little bit myself. Of course, Microsoft also now has come out with co-work that was released in the last week or so. Um so our friend Yuka actually went through and basically broke apart what each one is. It's not the same. Um, a lot of people think it's just, oh, it's just Microsoft licensing cloud co-work. Well, there's much more to it than that and how they both work. Oh, yeah. Uh definitely there's I mean, yes, there is a code share going on there, but just how Microsoft implements it. And uh, Yuka's done a really I mean, this is what Yuka does, right? Yeah, there's obviously licensing involved in this.
UlrikkeIt's not Yucca, it's Yucca AI. This is a bot. UCA hasn't created a post since late early November. It's all Yuka AI. Now. But that aside. So UK AI has created a nice side-by-side comparison. No, but also I'm I'm with you. I thought actually what Microsoft did was just grabbing some of the code because they work with Entropic now and just kind of creating their own desktop app for this, but they're not. Actually, what they're doing, and this is really I'm positively surprised by Microsoft at this point. I'm like, yes, because what they're doing is they're grabbing the same idea and then they're doing what Cloud Co-Work is not doing. So Cloud Co-Work is all about it's files local on your machine. It's hard to share across a team. It's all kind of your co-worker on your computer. It's very localized. Cope by the cowork will be is it will be in the cloud. It'll be in the tenant, it will be cloud native, it will work out of uh OneDrive, it will only with cloud files, it will be native with a graph API. Um, yeah. And so I I love it. It's and then you so you look you look at the side-by-side comparison, you'll see that it has a it's the every other thing that Yuka's kind of going through, either cloud co-work can do it or co-pilot co-work can do it. And it's very little overlap, which I absolutely love seeing because then it actually fills a gap in the market.
NickYeah, like as a as a as a single company freelancer like myself, I use cloud co-work can work for me in a lot of situations, but but also but but looking at the the M36 Co-Work, which to be honest, I've only just activated it like two days ago. So because my my license expired a week ago, and then I just hadn't got around to renewing it because I've been using Cloud Cowork for a lot of my other stuff. So I've actually got that reactive. I had the I had to reactivate it again based for all the other things that Microsoft 365 does give me and what I do need to look at for content and everything else. So it's gonna be interesting for me and my journey is yeah, what to use for what and what makes sense. Like, yes, I have to leave my machine running for Claude co-work. Sometimes that's okay. Sometimes it's like, uh, yeah, I kind of want to do other stuff, but Claude's now using my machine. And does it work in the background? Am I gonna, am I gonna interrupt anything? Like just little things, maybe it won't be little things like that. I need to kind of work through. So, but definitely is a good article to kind of go through to help the conf like not really the confusion, but give clarity for everybody that's using either one or the other. And it is something that I think regardless of who you are, you need to investigate co-work because if you don't, your colleagues will or everybody else will to just make your and it should make your life easier. That's the whole idea. But it might take you a while to get there, if that makes sense.
UlrikkeBut yeah, absolutely. And I think that's something that IT security and governance and and admins needs to take seriously, that when we have these tools available, we will find a way. And if they don't allow it, then we're gonna do it on the side. Because falling behind is not an option. So, and and every company needs to address this, right? And that goes for me working at a thousand people company, and it goes for you, who is so one person company. So I think that the main difference is that COD, this is a discussion that I saw in the MVP group as well. Someone asked, My company doesn't allow uh co-pilot co-work because it's outside, it sends data to the US. That goes, that's this is my company, right? So we don't allow anthropic models, but they allow anthropic models in GitHub co-pilot. So the question was, does that send data to the US? And isn't it a bit kind of non-cohesive if you allow GitHub Copilot to use anthropic models, but you don't allow your employees to use cloud co-work? So if you have a strict policy that forbids anthropic models because they do send data to the US and you forbid cloud co-work for the same reasons, co-pilot co-work will be a very good news, is very good news for you because that is in your tenant. So it's encapsulated in your tenant and will adhere to the same rules as everything else. So for me, it's uh for the admins, they don't have to think because they know that they have their policies in place and they know that the Microsoft needs to adhere to this because there are huge fines out there if you break those, if you violate those rules, right? Because there's this is legislated in in a lot of cases. Um as long as you know that you're not using anthropic models and you're using Microsoft co-pilot co-work in your tenant, you should be safe for now. So I think this is a very needed new feature. Also, you need to be in the frontier program to have access to co-work. And it's part of a Microsoft 365 co-pilot license at this point. I think it's still hard to see what it where you go in terms of credits and because that's always the thing with cloud co-work. I now have the max um subscription and I max out on the credits all the time. So I don't know what this is gonna be like with the new one. But I think it's it's it's important to ask these questions. And I'm so glad for the discussion in the MEP chat because I've thought about this for a while myself and I found it very hard to ask these questions. I was really unsure because I felt a little bit stupid asking these questions, even to my admins, right? So yeah, this is a valid question, guys, and it's okay to go to your admins and ask.
NickYeah. And if they don't know, they're gonna have to look it up.
UlrikkeRight.
Dataverse Skills And The MCP Analogy
UlrikkeSo moving on with the news and updates. Um, your agent now speaks Dataverse.
NickYeah, that's that's really cool. And that was uh that was just something that kind of popped up, I think just late last week or April 1st. Yeah, so last last Wednesday, right before Easter kicked in. And I haven't tried this yet, and I am excited. This is probably one of the first things I'm gonna do when I get home is turn this on. It's from Cyash Kishreng Sigar. Again, apologies for the for the for the name pronunciation, but he is a principal software engineering manager. Basically, it is an open source and it's dataverse skills, but basically, so this is what I'm interested in. So people hear skills, they hear APIs, they hear MCPs. I heard a good analogy was MCP is it's like your kitchen. It has the tools there, it has your stove, your oven, your mixers. Those are your MCPs, and your skills are your recipe book. So the skills are going to use the MCP servers to build your things. And I thought that was a really good analogy. Here we talk about Dataverse skills. Basically, it's using the Dataverse CLI or you know, through the Power Platform CLI, which is the command line tool. But there, it's not only creating like tables, but it's creating the solutions, the relationships. And basically, you can begin to build very much like plan designer, you kind of describe what it is you're building and it builds that whole data structure for you following these skills and things like that. So again, kind of amazing. And it's one of these skills that can work across agents. You can use GitHub Copilot or Cloud Code, depending on what you're using. Um, it is open source, it's extensible, so you can add your own flavors to it as well. A lot of good links in here. It uses the Dataverse Python SDK, which we've talked a little bit about before. Uh, it often uses the Dataverse MCP server as well. So, like I said, it's using these bits and pieces, but kind of allowing you your agents to kind of go, and it's again, this is just sort of you know, a year ago we're talking about the different tools to create things. Now we're talking, we're talking skills and MCP servers and agents, is creating software, whether we're creating agents or apps or even data structures, is just so radically changed, I think in a good way, because it's allowing us to get to that creative end in mind faster and we're not bogged out of the tedious creating a field click, creating another field click, setting the thing to 100 characters, doing all this stuff. If we describe it well, it you know, we still have to review the work, but it's taking a lot of, we're basically delegating stuff to these agents now, allowing us to get to our end result faster, which I think is pretty fascinating.
UlrikkeYeah, 100%. I I agree with that. And I think as you said, the world is is moving so fast that yeah, it's um to keep up with this tools as well is difficult. And I also see MCP expanding. So also I've seen again and again people treating MCP servers like API endpoints. There there's so much more you can do with MCP. Um, and I think as the understanding of MCP servers kind of evolve, I see more and more smart use of it. So let me just um all
Choosing The Right Copilot Style
Ulrikkeright. Um, next item on the list is very much on the topic of co-pilots and MCP servers, because this is so let me just get this name right, Simon Owen. We've had uh his stuff on the show before, and he's the guy that does what I do, he writes with his pen on his surface or whatever it is that he has. So his illustrations will be handwritten, which I absolutely love. And that's an excuse in of its own just to showcase someone's work when they do this. But what he's used his pen for this time is to show us the difference between the different co-pilots. So when we started in the beginning to talk about the different app types, we also have a resource today about how to choose from the different types of agents or co-pilots. Um, so he's talking, he's going from different types of work, if you have this structured, if it's targeted, if it's delegated or directive, and then goes through use cases and different co-pilots and then diff and where the data sits. And so it's a very good way to go. And it also gives another illustration with examples, with kind of screenshots and a little bit of a visual to what kind of work the different copilots will be useful for. So if you need this kind of resource, I think this is a great one to look at. And also, you know, maybe it's AI written. I don't know, maybe it's hand drawn by AI, or maybe it's actually Simon Owen who did it. We'll never know.
NickSimon AI. I did I did bump into Simon last week in uh Redmond at MVP. It was just sort of we kind of like, hey, you know, just sort of you see people that you read their stuff online, whatever. I I believe we had met in person one time before, but very briefly. So we kind of so uh big shout out to Simon. Um it was good to see you last week. And great article. I went through it today, and it's like I love the I love the whiteboarding technique.
UlrikkeYep.
NickI I think it this probably was a legit whiteboard uh type of uh exercise here. If not, it's still it's pretty slick.
UlrikkeYeah, yeah. Let's just choose to believe that it is actually handwritten. And I feel I've had a few years between my so I had surface for like 10 years, and then I had a few years with Adele, and I missed it. I mean, the ability to just draw something quickly on a screen for a customer because they will be in a meeting, right? And then they'll talk about something, and I'll just draw up an architecture map with my because I have a uh my own style of writing architecture where people understand because they see things through apps and interfaces, not from technical side, right? So what I'll show them is a someone with a a mobile and an app and a letter and a da-da-d-d-d-j just to show them what it's gonna look like on the back end, and then I can show it to them in the meeting and they go, wow, yes, perfect. But not like that, like this. And suddenly we have a conversation about something concrete, not something abstract, right? So it really helps the mental mapping of your mind.
NickPicture pictures worth a thousand words all the time. I'm I'm a diagram guy too. I need to show me a picture or show show me boxes or drawings or arrows, and then I can I'll get it. I'll get there.
UlrikkeYou're uh you're a PowerPoint and the list guy for sure. Yes, I know. It's uh if there's a major life decisions needs happening, and I guess it's all in PowerPoint blaning it out, going, Can you review this for me? Yes, I can. Just send it over. It's fine. We're making life decisions in PowerPoint. That's fine. We all have our tools.
NickExactly. Yes, I 100%.
Claude Code Commands Cheat Sheet
UlrikkeYeah. All right, so I just wanted to mention something else where we're on the topic of co-pilots before we move on to the last item. I saw uh Nicola Valenti shared uh Claude Code commands. So we talked about the different um skills and the different files that it creates, but also there are different commands within Claude Code that you can use and the difference in what it means. So you'll have claude MD, which it creates itself, which is kind of its own rulebook that it that it reads before every task. You'll have the skills, your dash skills, the dash MCP, the dash agent, the dash plan. Uh the forest is an architectural outline before any code is written. So there's and le dash compact, it compresses this story to a maximum maximal size available to context window so you don't have to do, and it does that itself. I know that when the conversation is long enough, like uh just give me a second. I'm just condensing our conversation so that I don't lose any context because now I'm kind of context window fatiguing a little bit. So there's a lot of things there to to pick up if you're a cloud co-use code user. Uh and I'm sure this is applicable to all the other coding agents as well.
NickYeah. No, that was a great little article. Again, just again reminder. Like, yeah, just yeah, it was really good because there's a few things in here that I I just well, yeah, I haven't thought about it that way. Or it's just good to know that some of these commands exist. And yeah, it's uh definitely it's got he's got a whole cheat sheet here that you can print out and post with your thousand other cheat sheets that people are posting on LinkedIn. But this this looks really helpful.
UlrikkeYeah.
NickAll right.
UlrikkeAll right. So do you want to close off with the the last item? The last uh last item. You were in the room, so I think you're the best one to talk about it.
Neurodivergence As A Tech Superpower
NickYeah, so Canadian Power Platform Summit, which we we did talk a little bit about last week. Keegan Chambers did, she opened up our our event talking about, and the the title of her talk was Wired Differently, Leading Boldly, A Journey of Neurodivergent Strength. Keegan recorded this and was kind enough to post this on LinkedIn or on YouTube. We're gonna put the link in the show notes. If you work in IT with people, watch this video. Just be prepared. You might uh it might kind of bring up some emotions for sure of how she presents and everything like that. But it just sort of goes through about how definitely in IT, people are um they think differently. We have neurodivergent uh capabilities, and how these capabilities can map to become a superpower because how you can interpret information, how you can relay information, how you understand different bits of information. She uh she has it's a very personal story from her. I just could say just watch the video, uh, check it out. It is very powerful. Um, and again, thanks, Keegan, for for kicking off our keynote at CPPS. We didn't want to, we didn't want to kick off with another, you know, Microsoft here, Drink the Blue Kool-Aid. Pilots are wonderful licenses. We really wanted to get people thinking and make it it's a true community conference, kind of covering the different aspects. Of course, we did cover, of course, the Microsoft uh you know tools and Kool-Aid and whatever else. Um, but we blended it in. I think we blended it in fairly well. But this was uh a great way to kick things off. And again, thanks, Keegan, for for doing this. Thank you very much for for uh recording the video. I know uh Andrew Bibby was helping you out setting up the camera and everything uh to be able to record this and be able to share with our broader community and definitely appreciate that from you know myself and the organizers of CPPS. Um, and yeah, so great way to close. Great way to open up CPPS, great way to close off this week's episode as well. Again, we'll be for those of you again, uh Color Cloud that's coming up shit next week.
UlrikkeSo yeah, and we are ready and prepared with our workshop. Yes, we are no problem.
NickYes, we are.
UlrikkeYes, and then the next episode is gonna be on April 22nd, which is gonna be the week after. So we're gonna do a little bit of a recap of uh Color Cloud, I'm sure.
NickYeah, and then maybe we could maybe we could do a five-minute little quick uh report from Color Cloud if we have time.
UlrikkeYes, absolutely. Let's uh let's try to do that.
Wrap Up And Listener Requests
UlrikkeBut until then, uh take care and uh take care of those around you, and we will see you next time. Bye bye. Bye, folks. Thanks for listening. And if you like this episode, please make sure to share it with your friends and colleagues in the community. Make sure to leave a rating and review of your favorite streaming service and makes it easier for others to find us. Follow us on the social media platforms and make sure you don't miss an episode. Thanks for listening to the Power Platform Boost Podcast with your hosts, Ulrika Ackerbeck and Nick Dolman, and see you next time for your timely boost of Par Platform News.
