Introduction
Microsoft Power Pages has recently emerged as a powerful tool to help businesses create, design, and manage their web content. This blog will guide you through everything you need to know about Power Pages, how it works, the main features, and the security measures.
What is Microsoft Power Pages?
Microsoft Power Pages is a modern, user-friendly website builder designed for businesses and organisations of all sizes. It’s part of the Microsoft Power Platform, a suite of tools that empower businesses to develop applications, automate workflows, and analyse data with ease. Power Pages allow users to create visually appealing, professional websites with minimal coding or technical knowledge.
How Do Microsoft Power Pages Work?
Power Pages leverage a drag-and-drop interface, making it simple for users to design and customise their websites. By utilising pre-built templates and components, users can quickly create responsive web pages that adapt to various screen sizes and devices. It also integrates with other Microsoft tools, such as Power BI, Power Automate, and Power Apps, providing a seamless experience for users who wish to incorporate these applications into their web content.
Main Features of Microsoft Power Pages
Power Pages offers an array of features designed to help users create stunning, functional websites with ease. Here are some of the key features:
Drag-and-Drop Interface
The intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes it easy for users to design and customise their websites. No coding or technical expertise is required, enabling anyone to create a professional website in no time.
Responsive Design
Power Pages comes with pre-built templates and components that are responsive and adapt to various screen sizes and devices. This ensures your website looks great and functions well, regardless of the viewer’s device.
Integration with Microsoft Tools
Power Pages seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft tools, such as Power BI, Power Automate, and Power Apps. This allows users to incorporate powerful features like data visualisation, automation, and custom applications into their web content.
SEO Optimisation
Power Pages includes built-in SEO tools that help users optimise their websites for search engines. This ensures that your website ranks well in search results, driving more traffic and increasing visibility.
Multi-Language Support
Microsoft Power Pages supports multiple languages, allowing users to create and manage content in various languages. This helps businesses reach a global audience and cater to diverse markets.
Accessibility Features
Power Pages is designed with accessibility in mind, ensuring that websites created with the tool are compliant with accessibility standards. This allows all users, regardless of their abilities, to navigate and interact with your website.
Is Microsoft Power Pages Secure?
Microsoft Power Pages employs robust security measures to protect your data and ensure the privacy of your users. Microsoft uses industry-standard encryption to secure data in transit and at rest. Additionally, it’s GDPR compliant, adhering to strict data protection standards.
How Emerge Digital Can Help
We’re a Microsoft Partner and have strong experience within the Microsoft Power Platform. Whether you’re looking to use Power Pages as a standalone product to build a website, or you want to add it into your existing Power Platform stack, we can help you decide whether it’s the right solution for you, and assist with the implementation.
Get in touch with a member of the team for more information.
Introduction
The Internet of Things is the idea of integrating any gadget to the Internet as well as other network devices (provided the device has an on/off toggle). The Internet of Things (IoT) is a vast network of interconnected devices and individuals all of which gather and exchange information about their environments and how they are operated.
That encompasses an extraordinary variety of items of all types and shapes, such as self-driving vehicles with sophisticated sensors that can recognise items in their route as well as smart microwaves that cook a meal for you automatically.
It also encompasses wearable fitness gadgets that monitor heart rate and the amount of steps you take each day in order to provide you with personalised exercise recommendations. Even interconnected footballs are available which can monitor how far and quickly they are launched and store those facts using an application for future practice.
Using Emerge Digital’s sophisticated IoT solutions, your business can open the door to technology automation, such as sensor-powered preventative maintenance. You can give your clients first-rate service by incorporating preventative maintenance within your technology.
What Is Preventative Maintenance?
Preventative maintenance is routine maintenance carried out on hardware assets to lower the likelihood of hardware failures and unscheduled machine downtime, which can be extremely expensive for business managers and service technicians.
Preventive maintenance that is effective is designed and scheduled utilising real information analytics, frequently with the aid of systems like a CMMS. To avoid unplanned breakdowns, a preventative maintenance procedure is carried out while the hardware is still functional.
A technique that sits between reactive maintenance (also known as run-to-failure) and predictive maintenance is called preventative maintenance.
How Do Internet Of Things Devices And Sensors Help With Maintenance?
Internet of Things sensors can help to gather and store vital data that can help flag an asset’s condition to a system, letting it know when maintenance needs to be carried out.
For instance, if the speed of an always-on extractor fan should be 2450rpm, but that gradually drops by 250rpm over 2 days, a maintenance task will be logged to investigate the issue and ensure the speed does not drop further.
Preventative maintenance is a proactive way of increasing the longevity of a product, asset or service, ensuring it has little operational downtime. This is key in any automation process.
Why IoT And Preventative Maintenance Can Provide Better Customer Experience
It is crucial to make sure that the services are provided predictably and as quickly as possible. IoT can be modified at several points to keep up with good customer experience.
The way businesses operate is supported by the Internet of Things. Today’s customers have high expectations, therefore businesses must have the appropriate procedures and infrastructure in place so that they can to live up to them.
Process automation ensures that the customer’s needs are addressed while also allowing for cost savings and greater dependability. By anticipating issues and perhaps even preventing them, IoT improves the customer experience.
Why not find out more about how Emerge Digital can help your business better understand the Internet of Things?
Company Description
Emerge Digital is a technology and digital innovation business and Managed Services Provider (MSP) which provides solutions to SMEs that drive efficiency, competitiveness, and profit.
Using our comprehensive solutions – including outsourced IT support, cyber security, cloud infrastructure, and innovative technologies like process automation and data visualisation – we enable businesses to invest in technology that supports them in achieving their goals.
Introduction
How dedicated leased lines and a migration to Microsoft 365 provided RCI with a foundation on which to innovate and grow.
The Client
Established in 1971, Ralph Coleman International (RCI) is a leading retail support business, delivering the provision, washing, storage, haulage, and repair of plastic crates in the food sector. Plastic crates are a critical element of the retail food supply chain, enabling food producers to deliver produce in an environmentally friendly manner for retailers to package and sell.
The business’s main customer is the world’s leading supplier of reusable plastic crates, and are trusted by the world’s top retailers (including Morrisons and Waitrose) to deliver on their reusable plastic crate washing requirements.
RCI’s business model is based on a high volume of work, with a low margin. The business went through a buyout in late 2018, and new directors wanted to increase the efficiency of their operations, and therefore increase the profitability of the business.
The Challenge
The new directors of RCI were looking for a technology partner who could provide reliable infrastructure, as well as implement solutions to improve the operational efficiency of the business. Across their UK sites, most of their operations were running using spreadsheets, and the data was self-contained within each site. This caused problems with data accuracy, visibility, and integrity, and made reporting a very complex task.
They wanted to improve, simplify and centralise their foundational infrastructure, which encouraged better collaboration and more visibility within the business. That same infrastructure needed to also act as a platform to build automations, digitise processes and visualise their data. The model needed to be easily scalable if they expanded their operations to further sites.
The Solution
We proposed a cloud-first approach powered by Microsoft 365 to provide a stable, secure foundation for their operations. The first step we took with RCI was deploying dedicated leased line connections to all of the sites that didn’t already have one. This provided them with resilient internet connectivity so they could connect to their cloud services reliably, and at ultrafast speeds.
Next, we moved all of their critical infrastructure services to Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory. We migrated their files away from on-premise storage and into SharePoint, which we rolled out in conjunction with Microsoft Teams. Once all of the data was accessible across all of their sites, the individual site’s servers were decommissioned.
Once the foundational infrastructure was up and running, we used business analysts to understand exactly what was causing the efficiency problems in the business, and identify processes which needed automating and digitizing. We went on to build several Power Apps to modernize these processes and eliminate the spreadsheets, along with some Power BI dashboards for enhanced multi-site reporting.
"Emerge Digital understood our business goals and designed a set of best-in-class solutions in support of them. We’ve seen significant business improvements thanks to our new infrastructure – our employees are more productive, our systems are more reliable, and our Power BI dashboards have directly influenced our profitability. Emerge Digital have always put our goals at the heart of what they do."
Jon Graves, Managing Director - Ralph Coleman International
The Outcome
Running on infrastructure powered by the Microsoft cloud, RCI now have a strong foundation on which they can innovate and grow. Using ultrafast, dedicated internet connectivity, they can access Microsoft 365 – including SharePoint and Teams – which acts as a central hub for their digital operations.
Their new SharePoint file structure was designed to bring all of their data into one centralised location, which can be securely accessed from anywhere. Employees can spend less time searching for files and sharing them over emails, and more time on optimising the operations of the business.
RCI have been using Microsoft Teams – which is closely connected with their SharePoint structure – to collaborate across sites in a more productive manner. They’re able to chat to and call colleagues, find and edit files, view dashboards, and use bespoke apps all within Teams.
RCI are also benefitting with the advanced, enterprise-level cyber security features that Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses bring. Microsoft Defender for 365 is helping to guard RCI against viruses, spam, unsafe attachments, suspicious links and phishing attacks – reducing the risk of downtime and financial loss.
Having a fully cloud-based infrastructure on Microsoft 365 means that RCI have access to the Microsoft Power Platform. With Power Apps and Power BI, we created apps and dashboards that gave the management a better view at the utilisation of resources. Using this data, they were able to make important decisions which ultimately increased ulilisation, and therefore profitability.
Introduction
With the rise of hybrid working, Microsoft has continued to find new ways to improve the user experience by offering a new and highly integrated virtual workplace. Loop is one of the tools that Microsoft is rolling out, aimed at reimagining how people collaborate.
Microsoft Loop, as Microsoft describes, “combines a powerful and flexible canvas with portable components that move freely and sync across apps”. This means your workforce can organise all it needs for a project into a central workplace and complete the work within chat, meetings, or documents using Loop, collaborating beyond the confines of the office.
Microsoft Loop is made up of three main features:
Loop Components
Components is an incredibly useful tool that allows users to collaborate in real-time. Employees can work on documents together at the same time, the work will be live updated, and synced across multiple Microsoft Apps including Teams, Outlook, Word, Pages, and more.
With Components, a workforce can work together on lists, tables, notes, or even a customer sales opportunity from Dynamics 365 in a Teams Chat, Email, Meeting, or documents.
Loop Pages
Pages are described by Microsoft as ‘flexible canvases’ where users can share and collaborate on Loop Components, pulling in helpful elements like files, links, or data.
Users can type and edit each other’s text, react to work, and more. The interface essentially acts as a whiteboard where you can insert your Components and work on them in one place, wherever you are.
Loop Workspaces
Workspaces gives Pages and Components a home. It offers an area where people can check progress on their shared work in a singular project hub. Workspaces makes it easy for you to check-in and see what everyone is working on, react to people’s ideas and work, and track your team’s progress.
Three ways it can improve productivity and workflow.
- It minimises the number of apps the workers will need to use to collaborate – they will only need this one central application.?
- Since it’s an app, workers can work anywhere and whenever, collaborating freely and with ease.
- It ensures that everyone has access to the information they need and is kept up to date.
Emerge Digital is a certified Microsoft Partner – our team can help you get the most out of Microsoft Loop. To discover more about how Loop can help your business, get in touch today
Introduction
The ever-changing workplace has led businesses to adapt and evolve; Emerge Digital is helping businesses to continue functioning efficiently and to manage the effects of a rapid digital transformation. We deliver technology solutions including Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Teams, and now Microsoft has developed a new cloud-based platform known as Viva.
Viva is a new employee experience platform specifically designed to bring people and teams together. It brings communications, knowledge, learning, wellbeing resources, and insights all into one platform, empowering your employees from wherever they are.
The Main Features of Viva Learning
One of these tools is Microsoft Viva Learning, a central hub in Microsoft Teams for personal and professional development through learning. It collates content from your internal training materials, as well as your third-party training content such as LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, Pluralsight, EdX, and more. Employees can access this without having to leave the Microsoft Teams app.
How Viva Learning Can Help Your Business Thrive
With remote working, more people are spending time on Microsoft Teams as it has become a central hub for work. The integration between the two apps means that workers don’t need to spend time outside Teams searching for training, which can be timely. What’s more, by using Viva Learning, you can assign the relevant training to your employees and monitor their progress, all within a secure and familiar learning environment.
Teams and individuals will be able to learn from anywhere with the Viva Learning App. Employees will have access to content libraries and courses designed to make learning an integral part of their day driving personal growth. Viva encourages employees to learn and grow their careers, which will only help contribute to the success and growth of the business.
If you want to learn more, or need help setting up Viva Learning for your employees, get in touch.
