微软power bi_Microsoft Power Platform快速概述

微软power bi

In this article, I am going to explain the various products offered by the Microsoft Power Platform. Microsoft Power Platform is a group of products offered by Microsoft to develop and build complex business solutions, analyze, and draw data visualizations, automate a business process, or build virtual agents for communication. All these products offer a platform in which no code is required to build the applications. These products are in the form of simple GUI which can be used by any business users or developers, thus helping to reduce the need for IT in the organization.

在本文中，我将解释Microsoft Power Platform提供的各种产品。 Microsoft Power Platform是Microsoft提供的一组产品，用于开发和构建复杂的业务解决方案，分析和绘制数据可视化，自动化业务流程或构建用于通信的虚拟代理。所有这些产品都提供了一个平台，无需任何代码即可构建应用程序。这些产品采用简单GUI的形式，任何业务用户或开发人员均可使用，从而有助于减少组织中对IT的需求。

There are four products under the Microsoft Power Platform:

Microsoft Power Platform下有四种产品：

Power BI – Used to analyze data from different data sources
Power BI –用于分析来自不同数据源的数据
Power Apps – Used to build powerful mobile apps for internal use by the organization
Power Apps –用于构建功能强大的移动应用程序，供组织内部使用
Power Automate – Used to design automated workflows to reduce manual tasks
Power Automate –用于设计自动化工作流程以减少手动任务
Power Virtual Agents – Used to develop flexible chatbots that can communicate with external customers
Power Virtual Agents –用于开发可以与外部客户通信的灵活聊天机器人

Power BI (Power BI)

Power BI is the self-service business analytics tool provided by Microsoft. This is considered a part of the Microsoft Power Platform together with the other tools in the bundle. Power BI has a few offerings starting from the Desktop version to the Power BI Service which is hosted on the cloud. It is usually used to connect to a wide range of data, by designing interactive reports, dashboards, or stories which are supported by compelling visualizations.

Power BI是Microsoft提供的自助服务业务分析工具。该软件与捆绑软件中的其他工具一起被视为Microsoft Power Platform的一部分。 Power BI提供了从台式机版到托管在云上的Power BI服务的一些产品。通过设计交互式报告，仪表板或具有引人注目的可视化效果支持的故事，它通常用于连接各种数据。

Figure 1 – Power BI Desktop (Source)

图1 – Power BI桌面（源）

Power BI Desktop is available for free download from the Microsoft Store and you can download the application on any Windows machine. At present, Power BI is not available for any other operating systems other than Windows. There is also a mobile application for Power BI, which can be installed on Android and iOS devices. This mobile app is used to visualize reports in a native mobile format rather than the specified desktop view.

可从Microsoft Store免费下载Power BI Desktop ，并且可以在任何Windows计算机上下载该应用程序。当前，Power BI仅可用于Windows以外的任何其他操作系统。 Power BI还有一个移动应用程序，可以安装在Android和iOS设备上。该移动应用程序用于以本机移动格式而不是指定的桌面视图可视化报告。

Power BI enables the user to connect to several heterogeneous data sources and fetch the relevant data into the Power BI data model. Once the data is within Power BI, the users can modify, shape and transform this data according to the reporting needs. This transformed data can be then visualized in the form of graphs and charts to get insights upon. These visualizations can be used to support various scenarios like storytelling, what-if analyses, forecasts, and other predictions, etc.

Power BI使用户可以连接到多个异构数据源，并将相关数据提取到Power BI数据模型中。一旦数据在Power BI中，用户就可以根据报告需要修改，调整和转换这些数据。然后可以将这些转换后的数据以图形和图表的形式可视化，从而获得洞察力。这些可视化可用于支持各种情况，例如讲故事，假设分析，预测和其他预测等。

Power BI also has many REST APIs available using which, the developers can automate few administrative tasks, such as refreshing a dataset or adding a new user to a report, etc. This takes the Power BI service to another level which also supports embedding the Power BI Dashboards within another web application. This web application will behave like that of the Power BI service, except the fact that it can now have the user control and other features native to the web application.

Power BI还具有许多REST API，开发人员可以使用这些API自动化一些管理任务，例如刷新数据集或向报表中添加新用户等。这将Power BI服务带到了另一个级别，该级别还支持嵌入Power另一个Web应用程序中的BI仪表板。该Web应用程序的行为与Power BI服务的行为类似，但它现在可以具有该Web应用程序的用户控件和其他功能。

There are three different versions of Power BI. Although the Power BI Desktop is free, to use the Power BI Pro Service, the users need to pay a monthly fee of 9.99 USD. And the Power BI Premium cost depends on the number of users and the deployment capacity.

Power BI有三种不同的版本。尽管Power BI Desktop是免费的，但要使用Power BI Pro服务，用户需要每月支付9.99美元的费用。 Power BI Premium的成本取决于用户数量和部署容量。

电源应用 (Power Apps)

Power Apps is a nice and intuitive platform that provides users with a drag and drop feature to build a user interface for a mobile application. The users can add various controls to the user interface like textboxes, choice fields, etc. It can also allow users to use media devices like the camera, videos, etc. and other features necessary to build a modern mobile application. There is a feature to connect to various data sources using Power Apps and after the development is completed, the users just need to publish the app to be consumed in the organization.

Power Apps是一个很好的直观平台，可为用户提供拖放功能，以为移动应用程序构建用户界面。用户可以向用户界面添加各种控件，例如文本框，选择字段等。它还可以允许用户使用媒体设备（例如摄像机，视频等）以及构建现代移动应用程序所需的其他功能。它具有使用Power Apps连接到各种数据源的功能，开发完成后，用户只需要发布要在组织中使用的应用程序即可。

Power Apps is offered more like a platform-as-a-service from the Microsoft Power Platform. This service enables the users to quickly build apps that can be run on any modern web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, etc. and on the native mobile apps using Android, iOS, or Windows. One important thing to note here is that using Power Apps, we can build mobile applications for internal users and not for customers around the world. As this platform is no code, developers won’t be able to control the UI elements or modify the underlying HTML codes to do any tweaking.

Microsoft Apps提供的Power Apps更像是平台即服务。该服务使用户能够快速构建可在任何现代Web浏览器（例如Chrome，Firefox等）以及使用Android，iOS或Windows的本机移动应用程序上运行的应用程序。这里要注意的一件事是，使用Power Apps，我们可以为内部用户而不是全球客户构建移动应用程序。由于该平台不是代码，因此开发人员将无法控制UI元素或修改基础HTML代码以进行任何调整。

Figure 2 – Microsoft Power App (Source)

图2 – Microsoft Power App（源）

Power Apps come with a subscription if you are already using Office 365 Enterprise or anything higher than that. The Power Apps also come with a community plan which can be used as a free development environment and to upskill new talents. For more information about the licensing, please follow the official documentation from Microsoft.

如果您已经在使用Office 365企业版或更高版本，Power Apps附带有一个订阅。 Power Apps还附带了一个社区计划，该计划可以用作免费开发环境并提高新人才的技能。有关许可的更多信息，请遵循Microsoft的官方文档。

电源自动化 (Power Automate)

Power Automate, formerly known as Microsoft Flow is a component of the Microsoft Power Platform that allows the business users to automate workflows within the organizations without writing any code for the same. Modern businesses always gearing up for a faster and automated environment to tackle most of the previously handled manual tasks. These tasks can be as simple as automating leave policies within an organization or sending an email once a task is completed in Jira.

Power Automate （以前称为Microsoft Flow）是Microsoft Power Platform的一个组件，该组件使业务用户可以在组织内自动执行工作流，而无需为其编写任何代码。现代企业始终在为更快，自动化的环境做好准备，以解决大多数以前处理的手动任务。这些任务可以像在组织中自动执行休假政策或在Jira中完成任务后发送电子邮件一样简单。

Figure 3 – Microsoft Power Automate (Source)

图3 – Microsoft Power Automate（源）

Power Automate already comes in with several pre-defined templates to choose a workflow and start working with. Users can pick up any of these workflows from the templates or can also start building their own workflow from scratch. All these workflows can be further divided into three main types which are based on the trigger of any workflow as follows:

Power Automate已经提供了几个预定义的模板来选择工作流程并开始使用。用户可以从模板中选择任何这些工作流程，也可以从头开始构建自己的工作流程。所有这些工作流都可以根据任何工作流的触发因素进一步分为三种主要类型，如下所示：

Automated Workflow – These types of workflows are triggered based on some other action. For example, send a mail when a task is completed
自动化的工作流程 –这些类型的工作流程是根据其他操作触发的。例如，任务完成后发送邮件
Scheduled Workflow – These workflows are scheduled to execute at specific times of the day, week, or month
计划的工作流 –这些工作流计划在一天，一周或一个月的特定时间执行
Button Workflow – These workflows are triggered by the click of the button
按钮工作流程 –这些工作流程是通过单击按钮触发的

强大的虚拟代理 (Power Virtual Agents)

This is a new addition to the Microsoft Power Platform. Virtual Agents are the bot building services provided by Microsoft for business users. Using this, the users can build a virtual chat agent from scratch without having to write a single line of code. All the integration and logics can be implemented in the graphical user interface of the Power Virtual Agents portal.

这是Microsoft Power Platform的新增功能。 虚拟代理是Microsoft为业务用户提供的自动程序构建服务。使用此功能，用户可以从头开始构建虚拟聊天代理，而无需编写任何代码。可以在Power Virtual Agents门户的图形用户界面中实现所有集成和逻辑。

Figure 4 – Microsoft Power Virtual Agent (Source)

图4 – Microsoft Power虚拟代理（源）

Power Virtual Agents can handle the entire chatbot development life cycle, starting from the dialog creation to the deployment of the virtual agent to a channel like Slack, Skype, Teams, etc. This service is also integrated with the other tools within the Microsoft Power Platform such as Power Automate. Based on the user’s replies, the virtual agents are capable to trigger any workflow from the Power Automate and get the job done as intended.

Power Virtual Agents可以处理整个聊天机器人开发生命周期，从创建对话框到将虚拟代理程序部署到Slack，Skype，Teams等通道等。此服务还与Microsoft Power Platform中的其他工具集成在一起例如Power Automate。根据用户的答复，虚拟代理能够从Power Automate触发任何工作流程，并按预期完成工作。

In addition to the above, the Power Virtual Agents are also able to leverage the Microsoft LUIS service to enhance the user experience by introducing natural language understand features into the virtual agents. You can also build a FAQ bot by using the QnA Maker and deploy your bots to any channels that you need. Finally, we can also use adaptive cards in the bot to make the user interface more intuiting and easier to understand. The license cost of Power Virtual Agents is 1000 USD per month for every 2000 sessions. For more information on licensing, please visit https://powervirtualagents.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/.

除上述内容外，Power虚拟代理还能够通过将自然语言理解功能引入虚拟代理来利用Microsoft LUIS服务来增强用户体验。您还可以使用QnA Maker来构建FAQ机器人并将其部署到所需的任何渠道。最后，我们还可以在漫游器中使用自适应卡，以使用户界面更直观，更易于理解。 Power Virtual Agent的许可费用为每2000个会话每月1000 USD。有关许可的更多信息，请访问https://powervirtualagents.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/ 。

结论 (Conclusion)

In this article, we have seen the overview of the Microsoft Power Platform and the essential tools that are provided in this bundle. In a nutshell, the Power Platform provides four different tools under the umbrella. To build business solutions, users can leverage the Microsoft PowerApps whereas to automate specific business processes we can use the Microsoft Power Automate. Using the Microsoft Power BI, we can analyze data and build visualizations from a vast number of data sources. Finally, to set up a virtual agent for communication, you can use the Microsoft Power Virtual Agents to build a chatbot without much coding.

在本文中，我们已经看到了Microsoft Power Platform的概述以及此捆绑包中提供的基本工具。简而言之，Power Platform提供了四种不同的工具。要构建业务解决方案，用户可以利用Microsoft PowerApps，而要使特定的业务流程自动化，我们可以使用Microsoft Power Automate。使用Microsoft Power BI，我们可以分析数据并从大量数据源构建可视化视图。最后，要设置用于通信的虚拟代理，您可以使用Microsoft Power虚拟代理来构建聊天机器人，而无需编写太多代码。

翻译自: https://www.sqlshack.com/a-quick-overview-of-the-microsoft-power-platform/