In this foundational lesson, students will discover how Microsoft Power Platform revolutionizes business processes by enabling rapid, low-code application development that transforms everyday business challenges into automated solutions. They'll explore the core business value drivers of the Power Platform ecosystem, learning how organizations achieve significant performance improvements, cost savings, and risk mitigation through citizen development. Students will master the concept of Power Platform environments, understanding how to strategically use different environment types—from sandbox testing spaces to production systems—as organized workspaces for application lifecycle management. The lesson provides deep insight into Microsoft Dataverse as the intelligent data foundation, where students will learn to design effective data models using tables, columns, and relationships that mirror real-world business scenarios. Through practical examples like event management and equipment checkout systems, students will develop the critical thinking skills needed to translate business requirements into well-structured data models, while understanding enterprise-grade security and governance controls that ensure their solutions meet organizational standards.

In this comprehensive lesson, students will master Microsoft Power Pages as the external-facing gateway to their organization's digital ecosystem, learning how to create secure, professional business websites that seamlessly connect external users to internal data systems. They'll explore the five specialized Design Studio workspaces—Pages, Styling, Data, Set up, and Security—understanding how each contributes to building responsive, mobile-friendly websites that automatically adapt to different devices and user needs. Students will dive deep into authentication and authorization concepts, learning to implement multi-layered security through external identity providers, web roles, and granular permissions that protect sensitive business data while providing appropriate access to customers, partners, and public users. The lesson emphasizes practical application through real-world scenarios like customer self-service portals and partner relationship management sites, where students learn to leverage pre-built templates while customizing branding, data integration, and user experiences. By the end, students will understand how Power Pages serves as the secure digital bridge between their organization and the external world, enabling them to create data-driven websites that integrate seamlessly with the broader Power Platform ecosystem to deliver complete, end-to-end business solutions.

In this hands-on lesson, students will master the art of choosing between two powerful but distinct approaches to application development within the Power Platform ecosystem. They'll explore the fundamental philosophical differences between canvas apps (screen-first design with complete creative control) and model-driven apps (data-first development with auto-generated enterprise interfaces), learning when each approach delivers optimal results for specific business scenarios. Students will navigate the Power Apps Studio interface while discovering how AI-powered tools like Copilot and Plan Designer can transform natural language descriptions into complete, functional applications in minutes rather than months. Through practical development experiences, they'll understand how canvas apps excel at custom mobile experiences, multi-source data integration, and unique workflows, while model-driven apps shine in standard business processes, rapid enterprise deployment, and consistent user experiences across devices. The lesson emphasizes real-world decision-making skills, teaching students to evaluate requirements like offline functionality, design control needs, data complexity, and user types to select the most appropriate development approach. By building both an employee hub canvas application and an event management model-driven application, students will gain practical experience with Power FX formulas, responsive design principles, data binding, and the seamless integration possibilities within the broader Power Platform ecosystem.

In this transformative lesson, students will master Microsoft Power Automate as the intelligent automation engine that connects and orchestrates all business processes across the Power Platform ecosystem. They'll explore the three distinct pillars of automation—cloud flows for digital process automation, desktop flows for robotic process automation of legacy systems, and process mining for discovering optimization opportunities in existing workflows. Students will learn to think systematically about automation building blocks, understanding how triggers detect business events, actions perform the actual work, and connectors bridge over 1,000 different systems and services into unified workflows. The lesson emphasizes AI-powered development through Copilot's natural language flow creation, generative actions that make intelligent decisions about unstructured content, and advanced features like human-in-the-loop experiences for complex scenarios requiring human judgment. Through hands-on experience building registration notification workflows, students will discover how Power Automate transforms time-consuming manual processes into intelligent, real-time automations that improve customer experience while providing measurable ROI through reduced processing time, eliminated errors, and enhanced compliance. By the end, students will understand how automation serves as the nervous system connecting Power Apps interfaces, Dataverse data, and Power Pages portals into cohesive business solutions that can adapt, learn, and optimize themselves over time.