Apps, integrations and operational systems
This is advanced material for teams building operational tools rather than simply using Copilot. It covers applications, integrations, dashboards and automation that become part of a business process.
Typical products and features
- Power Apps
- Dataverse
- Power Automate Premium
- Power BI
- Premium connectors
- Custom connectors
Best-fit users
- Process owners, makers, IT and data teams
Extra cost risk: Higher; production use often creates paid licensing and support commitments
Watch-outs
- Treat production tools as services with owners, support and lifecycle management.
- Understand licensing before scaling beyond a pilot.
- Design access, audit and recovery around the business impact of the tool.
Example use cases (8)
Build an internal case-management app
Create an internal app to manage records, status, evidence, actions and ownership in one place.
Where: Advanced business tools
Monitor a web page for changes automatically
Check a specified web page on a schedule, compare it with the previous version and alert people when something changes.
Where: Advanced business tools
Connect to a line-of-business system
Use premium or custom connectors to move data between Microsoft 365 and another business system.
Where: Advanced business tools
Automate repetitive work in a legacy system
Use attended desktop automation or another supported approach to reduce repetitive data entry where no suitable API exists.
Where: Advanced business tools
Build an operational dashboard
Bring together business data into a dashboard for monitoring volumes, status, performance or trends.
Where: Advanced business tools
Ask AI to explain dashboard trends
Use AI to help interpret changes, patterns or anomalies shown in a dashboard.
Where: Advanced business tools
Build a document-checking app
Create an internal tool where users submit documents and receive structured checks or feedback before the next process step.
Where: Advanced business tools
Measure AI value and ROI
Track time saved, quality, throughput, adoption, review effort and cost for selected AI use cases before scaling.
Where: Advanced business tools