Forward-Deployed (#72)

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
AI will make devs irrelevant.
Stop studying computer science.
Now there's an 800% increase indemand for this forward-deployed
engineered role across allsectors.
Artificial intelligence groupsare on hiring SPRE for a rare
kind of software developer whocan code and talk to customers.

(00:22):
Everyone's gonna be hiring FDEs.
Keep coding and keep working onyour list your listening skills
kids.

(00:56):
With your hosts, Nick Dolman andUlrike Ackerbeck.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01):
Yep, so we're waiting at good morning.
We're waiting for morning forme, afternoon for you.
I'm in the, as you can tell, I'min the portable, the portable
studio again.
And uh you're in the charredremains of your office.

SPEAKER_02 (01:14):
I'm freezing cold.
Just came from being outside fora few hours because there was a
fire in the building.
And you know what it's like whenthe fire alarm goes off and you
just go, Yeah, let me justfinish this post and let me just
and then you grab your thingsand you go, and then you get
outside.
And then some people actuallyforgot their jacket inside, and
it's like because you sentwinter here, it's actually minus
degrees here, so it's prettycold.

(01:36):
They're they forgot, theyremember the laptop, but they
forgot their jacket.
So they've been outside in theminus degrees without a jacket
for a few hours.
But there was actually a fire,so you went through it.
Actually, it has a little bit ofa fiery the smoke scent here
smell, but it was actual kind ofsmoke coming out of the building
on the second floor, and we'reon the third floor, so yeah,
exciting.
And also we have a hackathongoing on.

(01:58):
So I've kind of gotten mycolleagues from all over the
country to come here today tospend eight, you know, a full
12, 13 hours here in the officetoday.
We were in the middle of ahackathon because we have a
customer day in a few days.
We wanted to have something tokind of showcase.
And so they're in the middle ofthat, and then suddenly two
hours out of our day to just goand stand outside.
So they got a bit of fresh airand now they're really cold and

(02:20):
uh drinking hot chocolates andteas and coffees just to warm up
again.
And uh yeah.
So just made sure they wereokay.
And then in your recordingpodcast with you, it's all fun,
all part of the adventure.
Absolutely.
You are traveling and in yourremote office because you're in.

SPEAKER_00 (02:36):
I'm in San Francisco for Microsoft Ignite, which
kicks off tomorrow.
Um, doing a bit of touristystuff after we record today.
Um but already we met up withsome friends here.
It's I'm thinking they'reprobably gonna be talking maybe
about AI and co-pilots thisweek.

SPEAKER_02 (02:54):
What?
No, I don't.
Yeah.
Yeah, I wouldn't put money on itor anything.
Yeah.
Well we know that there are somebig announcements coming, and
definitely so by the time thisis released, I think uh the
major stuff is already gonna bepublic.
Uh, and also we've had a bit of,I don't know, interesting posts
from some community leaders umon LinkedIn and socials lately.

(03:17):
We're not gonna go into indetail, but it's been an
interesting few weeks.
Uh, and now it's all gonna kindof uh come to fulfillment as we
enter into Ignite week.
So it's gonna be exciting forsure.
And again, again, game-changingstuff.

SPEAKER_00 (03:34):
Yeah, and on top of Ignite, there's a shit ton of
community content that came outas well since our last episode
at the platform conference.

SPEAKER_02 (03:44):
The list of things, I don't think we've had a list
this long in so long.
And I know they have a hardstop, so we're just gonna dive
in and get ready for this umthis two weeks of of content.
Right.
So, first off, let's start withYucca, because we don't know how
a Yucca corner, as we're gonnahighlight some of the things he

(04:04):
talked about in the last twoweeks.
Um, and this week the rant isabout app builder, ready for
production, oh co-pilot, appagent, app builder agent, my
sweet summer child, his poststarts with, and he is ranting
about how it's not ready forproduction, and it's overly
confident about what it's doing.

SPEAKER_00 (04:26):
So, yeah.
And we've talked about this asas well, about the fact that it
is a very lightweight, it'sbased on SharePoint lists as the
data source.
And of course, he tried it andnothing worked.
It's funny because we talkedabout, you know, we're talking a
little bit about generativepages, and I actually did some
stuff with generative pages, andit wasn't quite working this
week either.
So a lot of these things, eventhough they become GA and get

(04:46):
really like app builder is stillpreview.
So if it's preview, expect abumpy ride.
But even with a lot of thisstuff, everything's coming so
fast and furious going throughthese engineering cycles.
There's there's there's twosides of me.
First off, it's like I'm not abig believer in this app builder
contact concept, and that's justmy own personal opinion.
Nothing against the technologyor the team behind it.

(05:07):
It's really just I don't get whywe need to have yet another app
builder experience.
Yet power apps was that thing acouple years ago and before
that, before that.
And we have power apps and wehave these tools that are able
to generate power apps, and thenwe had this power apps for teams
that didn't really take off.
Anyways, all that being said, onthe on the other side too, we

(05:31):
have to realize that some ofthese things coming out of the
gate, they're not going to beperfect.
If you look at something likePlan Design or six months ago,
it really wasn't that great of aproduct.
Now it's actually pretty solidin what it does and it's
evolving.
So we have to, I think we haveto be patient with some of these
tools as well, regardless aboutthe maybe the the concepts

(05:52):
behind them.
But it's good that people likeyou are calling this out because
it keeps Microsoft, you know, ontheir toes to make sure that
these things do get fixed andaddressed and move forward and
actually make it to be somethingthat people will find useful and
confident in.
And this is the interesting partbecause I'm working with some of
my coaching clients and they'lltry something, and if it doesn't
work, they kind of like, oh,this doesn't work.

(06:14):
Like this is our this has beenour default with software for so
long.
We try something, it doesn'twork.
Well, it and then throw ourhands in the air, it doesn't
work.
Well, yeah, but depending onnow, it's really depending on
how you're prompting, how you'reusing these tools.
But understand that in thecloud, things are constantly
getting fixed.
It's a case of, well, it doesn'twork today.

(06:34):
It might work tomorrow, it mightwork better next week.
But that's not to say we stillshould call it out.
So now I'm I realize I'mrambling, but it's good that you
can do post and yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_02 (06:45):
And also, but I do also recognize that as consumers
and as customers of thisplatform, we should also expect
that things that are releasedand our GA, for instance, should
work.
Right.
So I mean, it's it's one thingto understand that this is a
platform and it's already it'salways moving.
And the price we pay for gettingaccess to functionality early is

(07:06):
that it's not always working.
But I also see the other side ofthat, that these customers are
professionals and companies,they need this software to work.
And so to say that something iskind of released and and then
not fully working is not reallya good thing either.
And sometimes you can be a bit alittle bit, I don't know,
impatient maybe uh of some ofthe unfinished stuff that we

(07:29):
have to to work at and and gothrough.
Then yeah, no, definitely um a agood pose and a and a critique,
um, which is what Yuca does.
He keeps everyone on their toesthese days.
So absolutely.
And then of course you have onthe flip side of that, Microsoft
also provides very gooddocumentation and guidance on

(07:51):
how to implement and how to workwith the products that they
release as well.
So I find I'm not worked with aton of other kind of providers,
but I know from other peoplethat documentation in terms of
power platform for Microsoft isactually very good.
And also we've had an addition,which is the Managed Power
Platform Assets and the AgeAgents on new workshop content,

(08:11):
the lifecycle mastery.
And do you want to talk a littlebit about that?
It came out on PPCC, right?

SPEAKER_00 (08:17):
Yeah, this is uh Marcel Ferreira, who's uh he's
on the pro the proje uh theengineering team, a super smart
guy, super friendly guy.
And he put us on his GitHub,it's actually on GitHub, it's
the um the assets for the thelabs that they've done for ALM
in terms of co-pilot studio andeverything like that.
So not only is it good on theco-pilot studio side, but also

(08:37):
about distant power platform ALMusing managed environments and
that type of thing.
So yeah, it's a it's a greatlink.
It's great resources.
It has all the labs, so you cankind of sit, it even has coffee
breaks in the lab breakdown.
So you could What?
I think that's I think it'sbecause it's part of the
presentation.
But I love that the fact thatthese resources are available
for you to try at home on yourown time.

SPEAKER_02 (08:58):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (08:59):
And and go through that.
So yeah, thanks, Marcel, for forposting that and making it
another great resource for thecommunity.

SPEAKER_02 (09:06):
Yeah, and stop spoiling the attendees of
workshops, Marcel.
It's not fair.
But I was at uh Marcel andCasey's session at PPCC about
PowerPlatform pipelines and ALM,and it was one of my top
sessions overall for PPCC.
I learned so much.
And also there was a customerthere that took the last 10
minutes to talk about theirexperience with an environment.

(09:28):
I'm sorry, a tenant with over200 managed environments and how
pipelines have saved kind of andhow they're working with
pipelines across all of theseenvironments and these kind of
data layers.
And you can imagine howcomplicated that is.
We used to work on a projecttogether when we had kind of 10%
of that or half of that.
And it's that was challengingenough.

(09:50):
But just to hear that firstparty experience with the
platform and also how they theyhad trust in pipelines and also
the platform to do this kind ofwork and they didn't do ADO.
They stuck with pipelinesthroughout their the kind of the
challenges and and the growth ofthe of those of that capability.
So that was really interestingto hear.

(10:10):
So yeah.
And also wanted to shout outsomething else while we're on
PPCC before we move on, becauseI saw something that I can't
believe that this didn't crossmy path before, trying to find
the link.
So Master Series, first of all,the website for Master Series is
on the PowerPages site, which isfunny to me.
They did a recap of PPCC that Ireally liked.

(10:33):
It's with Jeff and April andScott.
Um, they kind of brought so ifyou want a highlight and a
summary of the most importantnew features and updates from
PPCC, that's a really good recapvideo.
And also, the the library isfull of power platform content.
This used to be Power PlatformMaster Series, now it's just

(10:54):
Microsoft Power Um MasterSeries, but it comes from
PowerPlatform.
So the the list of videos is Ijust that was a black hole, it
was a rabbit hole.
I just dove into and I was like,ah, this, I need to see this and
this and this.
So yeah, absolutely worthchecking out.
And also, uh actually a fewupdates that I missed um for
Copeless Studio in there as wellon the recap uh video that is

(11:16):
worth checking out.

SPEAKER_00 (11:18):
So um definitely it's good because it you know at
these conferences you just can'tkeep on top of everything.
I mean, we try and we try toprovide that for our viewers,
but even us, there's things thatkind of come up.
There's like, holy crap, likethe like the the amount of
information.
So, I mean, between us, like thenews of the PowerPlatform Weekly
and PowerPlatform Dev Weekly,hopefully we can keep people

(11:40):
somewhat on top.
But of course, I I'll look atthese newsletters and look at
like that.
I wasn't aware of the siteeither.
So thanks for putting that inthe link.
I I love doing this podcastbecause we we have to keep our
eye out for things.
If I was just, I would miss outon so much by not putting this
stuff together.
Even then I feel like, okay, wewhere's this stuff coming from?

SPEAKER_01 (12:00):
Anyways, it's all good.

SPEAKER_02 (12:02):
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
Right.
So I, of course, time that I'musually taking before we record
to sit down and go through thelist and make my notes.
I I was out cold.
So there's a link in here byMatthew Devaney on Cold Putter
Studio test automation.
Stop testing manually.
The link is to a video.
I know I've seen the video, butI can't for the life of me

(12:24):
remember exactly what it isabout.
But I know that it has to dowith Copilder Studio and testing
and automated testing, which I'mall for.
And I know that Matthew isbrilliant, so check that out.
And on to the next slide.

SPEAKER_00 (12:36):
Yes.
Yes, it's pretty safe.
A safe bet by a video fromMatthew is good to go.
And then it probably, I'mguessing it touches on a little
bit about what Lydia showed atuh Power Platform conference as
well about the embedded testing.
So yeah, another great resource.
But let's talk about uh what doyou want to talk about
generative pages?
Oh, sorry, do you have one morething?

SPEAKER_02 (12:55):
Yes, I do.
No, no, no, it's to get excitedabout the generative pages
because so first of all, it wasGA in the in US, right?
So last week they announced sogenerative pages is now GA in
US, which is a bit crazybecause, well, not crazy, but so
generative pages.
It's you have a model drivenapp, and you can create a new
page in your model-driven app,which you can vibe code, you can

(13:18):
tell it in natural language whatyou want, and then you get the
code view and the preview view,and you can uh talk to it and
and vibe code it, right?
With uh with prompting andstuff, which creates code, which
creates an app, and then thatcode and that app is now DA in
the US.
Why just in the US?
I don't get it.
It's like if it was a feature,if it was a security thing, I

(13:40):
would get it.
But the code that it creates isonly to be used in production
environments in the US.
And the reason why I'm a bitfrantic about it is because I
want to use it for a customer,because we showed it last week
and I want to use it.

SPEAKER_00 (13:53):
So here's it here's why I think it is, um, because I
actually used it in my own.
I people be people know this.
I build my own apps for my ownstuff, my own management.
So I built, I built a travelmanagement because I travel
quite a bit, but I built an appto help manage all of this
stuff.
Part of it is I created, um, Iused the generative page as part

(14:15):
of that.
In my developer environment,which is in the US, it all
worked perfectly.
I deployed it to my Canadianenvironment, my production
environment, and it failedbecause it was missing some of
the components.
So I think the reason why it'sGA in the US is there's
components that have been rolledout that aren't in the various

(14:36):
geographies.
I'm hoping in the fullness oftime, being a very, very short
time frame, that these thingswill be there so we can actually
use it in production.
I was just amazed, like probablyI was able to generate something
that if I built using like webresources and HTML, which I
would have had to in the past,and we will talk about that
because there's a good articleon that, it would have taken me

(14:57):
days, if not weeks.
And it literally took me hours,and I went tweaking back and
forth.
And it just it just is openingup a lot of possibilities.
The thing is we're not out ofwe're not out of work.
We still need a solutionarchitect and work with our
requirements.
So, but that's why I think it'sGA just in the US, because of
more technical reasons in termsof the underlying
infrastructure.

(15:18):
And I don't know the reasons whythat's being that takes longer,
but I get you.
That's I want it everywhere aswell.

SPEAKER_02 (15:25):
Yeah, and I know, so we just had Power Pages was
enabled in the Norwegianregions, what, a year ago,
right?
And that's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 (15:32):
Not even yet.

SPEAKER_02 (15:33):
So it's of course, yeah.
So that's that's why, and I dorecognize that.
But um, we we're also kind ofsquished between a rock and a
hard place because no one'sgonna want to deliver a Canvas
app to a customer today when weknow what donative pages and
code apps can do.
And so this week we're pitchingto a customer, we're like, well,

(15:53):
this is what the model-drivenapp looks like, and this is what
that UI is, and it's exactlywhat you need, but we recognize
that it's not the prettiestthing in the world, and yes,
there are too many buttons, andyes, it's a bit too busy, and
we're gonna make it better.
Just give us a few months,maybe.
I'm not really sure.
And then this is what you canget, and we can show them what
it looks like in a generativepage in a US environment, a

(16:16):
sandbox environment next to it,and then they go, Oh, wow, oh, I
want that.
It's like, yeah, I know, and Iknow you turned off your old
system and you need this to belive by December, but trust me,
by March we'll have this up andrunning in your environment as
well.
So it's, but do you want us tomake a canvas app in the
meantime?
You know, so it's it's kind ofcreating this little wedge, I

(16:37):
find, uh, when we're so close,but yeah, just not there.
Um, but bringing it back to thecontent that we're actually
going to talk about.
So, Ricardo Gregori, he made abroad blog post that I
absolutely love the title of.
It's Genitive Pages, the righthype for the wrong reason.
And it is so cleverly done.
He says, and this is me beingguilty.

(17:00):
I'm not an Amex developer.
I came into Dynamics from PowerPages.
I had no idea that you could dowhat you now can do with custom
pages all along with what youjust kind of alluded to, custom
web resources.
You can have React TypeScriptand Fluid UI.
You can have HTML, CSS,JavaScript, you can do

(17:21):
practically whatever you wantwith the page in the mold-driven
app.
And you've been able to do thatfor a long time.
You just had to know how.
So this is again the story ofvibe coding, making coding
accessible to people like me whoare not professional developers.
Suddenly the threshold togetting into it is much lower

(17:42):
because I have a button to clickand an input prompt window to
type, and suddenly I have accessto this thing that we've always
really been able to do.
It's just I did not know aboutit.
So I think he speaks to a veryimportant point.
And also it kind of yeah, I I II honestly did not know that it

(18:03):
was possible to make these kindsof adjustments to a model-driven
app.

SPEAKER_00 (18:07):
Yeah, like even like I it's funny because I see when
I saw that poster brought meback 10, 12 years ago for a
client.
They needed a very specificinterface, and we were
struggling.
That was like the CRM 2011 dayswhere that was even before
Canvas apps or any of this, butthey needed a specific user
interface.
And I remember being likethinking about it and waking up

(18:29):
at two in the morning, goingdown to my computer and hack and
basically hacking out an HTMLJavaScript page that we embedded
as a web resource.
And I remember I spent like Iremember getting to a point, it
was like you know, four or fivein the morning.
And I said, if I can't get thisto work, I need to stop, go back
to sleep.
But then I just I actually, youknow, that happy code dance

(18:49):
where you actually get to whereyou want to be.
So I got the proof of conceptgoing, but looking, thinking
back, reading that article, butlooking back now, if I had
generative pages at that time, Icould have whipped that up like
during the customer meetingalmost of what they wanted.
So again, it's like everythingold is new again.
It's just the tooling haschanged a little bit.

(19:10):
So this is a great article.
But while we're on the topic ofgenerative pages, when I was
working on my generative page, Ithought, oh, it'd be great if I
could, like, it's a standalonepage.
I can do a lot of stuff, I canaccess my Dataverse tables,
which is important, the slashpick your tables.
That was a lesson.
I was like, why is it why is itmaking up stuff?
Like, oh yeah, I need to specifymy tables.
And then once I figured thatout, and I was like, oh, okay,

(19:32):
this is cool.
But then I'm like, okay, but Iwant to show this in context
within a form or pass some otherparameters to it.
And I'm like, how is that done?
And then I saw this postyesterday, actually.
Um, and I'm not sure if you'veseen this yet, but it's
brilliant.
It basically describes uh fromMedi E, and basically it's about

(19:53):
Power Apps, generative pages,passing the context is the real
superpower.
And basically, he showed how topass the context of the record
you're in.
So let's just say you're in um,well, for the for the example,
I'm going, I have a TRIPSrecord, and I can pass that now
to the context of my generativepages to see my flight
information, my hotelinformation within that

(20:14):
generative page within thecontext of a model-driven app.
And I can embed that just usingthe HTML rendering control
within the model-driven app.
So I haven't tried this out, butthis to me is this is next gen
in terms of the generative pagesof what you can do and enhance
model-driven apps.
So this is where we're goingwith this stuff, right?

(20:38):
Where we're and this could be,this could actually, scarily
enough, could replace a PCFcontrol.
Basically throwing the uhconcept of embedded canvas apps
out the window.
If anybody's worked with that,that's cool, but it's also a
little clunky.
And just again, makingmodel-driven apps to that next
level, again, in terms of userinter specialized user

(21:00):
interfaces.
So uh great, great post.

SPEAKER_02 (21:03):
100%.
And actually, this is I'm gonnapass that on because I didn't
see that, and I'm gonna passthat on to the guy that's
working on the um the customerapp that we're gonna show
because this is exactly theissue that he has.
We have a a list and we have aside panel coming in, and we
have one entity and then we havechild entities underneath, but
it can't get it to understandthat it needs to tie the child

(21:23):
entities to the parent becauseit's lacking that context.
So this is yeah, this is it'show to pass that parameter is um
is very good.
Yeah.
And then did you have somethingelse tied to this?

SPEAKER_00 (21:35):
Because you No, I think I think we've covered
generative pages, which ofcourse big fan and can't wait to
keep doing more.

SPEAKER_02 (21:43):
Yeah.
Um, and also in terms ofco-pilot studio, I saw uh post
from Diane Taylor um the otherthis week.
Sorry, Dion, I keep doing it.
I spent the week with Dion and Istill get it wrong.
How's that possible?
Sorry, Dion.
I know you're gonna call me out,you're gonna send me a message
and you're gonna go, it's notthat's not my name.

(22:04):
It's Dion.
I know it, I know it.
Sorry.
She's gonna give me so muchokay, one of these days.
And also Eliza, same thing.
What?
Okay, moving on.
Um, she has a blog post thatshows you how to group your uh
documents.
So you have a couple of thestudio agent and you give it
documents, upload documents asknowledge.

(22:26):
And then if you don't have thatin a SharePoint site and you
still want to group them so thatyou can so the example she so
shows is that you have arestaurant that has a menu, and
then you have maybe you haveseasonal menus and you want one
for Halloween, one forChristmas, one for summer, and
then you wanted to give it, youkind of want to group those
things together and then give itspecific instructions and and

(22:48):
descriptions for it tounderstand the context.
And it's all about the context.
I can't say this enough, and Italked about it today.
It's in the post from umRicardo.
It's all about context, right?
So this is what it is about.
So if you are working withknowledge sources being
documents with Copeland Studio,check this out because it is um

(23:09):
is a very good resource.

SPEAKER_00 (23:12):
Yes, I will see her probably later today.
But just so you know, we have achat group.

SPEAKER_02 (23:16):
Give her a little bit of a heads up.

SPEAKER_00 (23:18):
Yeah, we have a chat group going.
We're already making fun of herAmerican uh uh pronunciation of
her name, and so she was yeah,so I'm expecting a big punch in
the arm already, so I'll take adouble one for you.

SPEAKER_02 (23:30):
Thank you, and then you can pass it on to me.
Okay, that's good.
Right.
So we have uh a blog post,sorry, a post from our your uh
you survivals, or have you kindof buried the hatchet?
You and Nathan Rose.
We saw Nathan in Las Vegas.

SPEAKER_01 (23:44):
We we're never we're never rivals.
We're we're always good friends.

SPEAKER_02 (23:48):
For fun.
Oh, it's Nathan's come round.
You won, Nathan lost, and thennow he's on my side.
Yeah, okay.
So another punch in the arm thenlater.
Okay.
He's strong.
I mean, I know you're strong,but you gotta flex for that
punch.

SPEAKER_00 (24:08):
Yeah, yeah.
He's a big guy.
He's uh he's a uh he's cool.
I love uh Nathan, he's uh one ofmy favorite people.
I mean a lot of I have a lot offavorite people, but he is
definitely in the list.

SPEAKER_02 (24:18):
Yes, 100%.
Um, so maybe this is mine, Idon't know about you, but this
is actually where he talks aboutcoming round.
So the post starts about a photothat was taken at MVP Summit,
and he was in and he says he wasin a bit of a crisis.
He's been the power fixed guy,and he's kind of seen the
low-code thing being deprecatedor killed so many times, and it

(24:43):
kind of I can relate to this.
The they're taking my thing awaynow.
What do I do?
And do I still have value?
Do I still have a place?
And then he calls out the ScottJuro and Marcel Ferreira's
session at Build, where theytalked about it's always been
about less code, uh smartercode, which is kind of the the,

(25:04):
I don't know, the solace thatit's always been about the code.
It's always been aboutsmartness, and it's low-code was
sort of the previous solution tothis.
Now it's vibe coding.
And then, of course, PPCC,Charles Alamana on the stage
declare that nope low code isnow dead.
And I think we all can relate tothat, that little, that that
journey that Nathan's had withthis.

(25:25):
But he's come round and he seesthat there are so many amazing
solutions now that we can nowbring to life with AI and
disassisted coding or whateveryou want to call it these days,
advive engineering.
And um, yeah, and he says, loveto the power fixed rangers.
Uh, we'll find something new andAI enabled to assemble us.
Uh, and then he calls out the AIRangers.

(25:46):
So yeah, it's a very good post.
I must give it to Nathan.
He's so brave and so open andhonest, and he brings a lot of
himself to the to the table.
We really appreciate you,Nathan, for for coming out and
talking about the difficultthings that I think a lot of us
are feeling at the moment.
Take someone like you to lead.

SPEAKER_00 (26:06):
Oh, yeah, a genuine guy.
And of course, I mean, in termsof finding, I mean, I find like
I know he was very big inPowerFacts, Power Effects.
Not that like, let's not PowerFXis not dead, but in terms of
generating code, there'sprobably shorter cuts and other
ways.
We don't have to go we don'thave to talk about PowerFX and I
have I have opinions on it aswell.
But I know Nathan has done a lotof we don't really have uh in

(26:30):
this episode so much, but he hasa lot of good content on MCP
servers, and I've seen him dopresentations on presentations
on that.
So if I needed to, and I do needto actually get my head wrapped
around some MCP stuff, Nathan ismy one of my go-to guys for that
already.
So I mean, this is this is weevolve, we adapt.
Um the fact that he sort ofshares his journey and he just
shows how what of a genuine guyhe is.

(26:52):
So keep it up.

SPEAKER_02 (26:54):
Yeah, keep it up for sure.
All right, moving on.
One of my other friends did athing.
Thomas Sonso did a thing.
I talked to Thomas earliertoday, and it's so funny because
Thomas used to be this then I'mseeing Ramkeeper, uh you know,
young and then now he's a is adad of two small kids, and he's
now feeling the pressure thatall of us are feeling.

(27:15):
But then, even though he's justdrenched in all the baby stuff,
he just managed to still do athing.
Yeah, just kidding Thomas forstill delivering content.

SPEAKER_00 (27:29):
Yeah, so so basically he's he's re rebuilt
what I think portals fromscratch um using using coding.
He showed me this in Gothberg.

SPEAKER_01 (27:41):
He's like, I'll show you what I built.
Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 (27:43):
But I'm like, wow, this looks exactly what ADX
built years ago.
But it's still cool though,because he just it's part of he
this is what I I I always talkabout.
People that want to learnsomething, get a project.
And he got up, he took a projectto build a community portal.
And for a guy that didn't code,like I mean, he's done this

(28:03):
before, right?
He didn't know anything aboutplugins a few years ago and then
did a wrote plugins and did awhole series, and he built this
thing uh or vibe engineered thisparticular portal together.
And it's really impressive.
And I was like, I was kind ofblown away.
It inspired me to kind of getokay, I need to up my like
coding game.
Like I used to be, I used tocode all the time, and I don't

(28:24):
do it as much anymore.
And it like, I know this is somuch fun, and I need to get back
into it.
So, anyways, check out Thomas'spost and his journey.
Um, and hopefully that inspiresyou, like it inspired me.
And thanks, Thomas.
And yeah, I've been yeah,looking forward to seeing you
next uh probably at ACDC, if notsooner.

SPEAKER_02 (28:42):
So yeah.
So in in his post as well, he isvery honest.
He spent months doing this, andwe've talked about it for months
and months.
And he says, was it fast?
No.
Was it easy?
Also, nope.
But it was one of the mostrewarding uh learning adventures
I've had in years.
Yes.
And this is, I think, somethingthat we all should, uh, like you
said, have a have a pet project.

(29:04):
It's uh so important to keepdoing that.
And also, I think this is yours'new version of the Copeland
Studio implementation guide,meaning there was one before.

SPEAKER_00 (29:14):
You posted it as well, actually.
So I saw it a little bit later,so we've doubled up on that one.
But yeah, this was uh by theformerly known as PowerCat team,
just a cat team.
I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 (29:24):
They had a team doesn't really have that same
sound.
They don't understand.
It's all about the cat team,power cat.
It's so I love it.
Powercat.
Keep it, come on.
Yeah, not everything has to havenew names, please.

SPEAKER_00 (29:37):
So so yeah, they put they put together these
resources, the implementationguide.
It's actually a PowerPoint.
It's a 162 slide PowerPoint, butit is just brimming with
information and guidance on uhimplementing Copilot Studio.
It's got like best practices,it's got you know monitoring
things, how to build and deployand manage the lifecycle

(29:59):
management.
Integration.
It incorporates the newfeatures.
Like it talks about generativepages, uh, agent organization.
So again, this is if you'reimplementing Copilot Studio or
beginning to get into it, thisis yet another resource to add
to your library of informationand um and have as a resource to
make sure as you kind of goforward with your journey.

(30:19):
So the PowerCat team or PowerCatteam has always been great at
providing community resources.
Like that's their job, likecommunity advisory team.
But again, again, this is onething I love about Microsoft,
the fact that they're sharing itwith the community.
So it's not like you have to goand engage with them and pay for
this stuff.
Like this stuff, in terms ofmonetary value, is worth

(30:41):
thousands upon thousands ofdollars.
And we can now get it for free.
I mean, we still have to digestand work with it.
But this is what's going to makethese products successful in
long term by having this supportand this information available
to us.
So thanks uh to our friends andthe cat team, we have a bunch
there.
Too many to list.
When I saw the 162 PowerPoint, Iactually had to think of Nikita

(31:03):
because Nikita's notorious formaking big PowerPoints.
Sorry, Nikita, but all good.
Great, great, uh, great content,guys.

SPEAKER_02 (31:10):
Yeah.
No, it's uh and I love to see souh because I've uh done a
presentation of Copa de Studiotoday, and so I had to kind of
dive in to see what kind ofresources there are around Copa
de Studio implementation,especially, and also skilling.
And I think I could work for amonth non-stop and not even get
through half of it.
It's the adoption guide, theproject management guide, the

(31:30):
how to think about architectureand security and strategy and
governance, and it just keepscoming.
There's so much good content outthere that if you think you're
starting from scratch, thinkagain.
And I think this is also one ofthe most important but under uh
valued value propositions forCopa Studio is that it sits
within a platform whereeverything's taken care of for

(31:52):
you.
And this is kind of the thingtoday.
It's like when do you use CopaStudio?
When do you not use it?
And if you have to go in andcreate something custom from
scratch in Azure, then you haveto know about all of these
different things that developersusually don't know a lot about.
It is very important to keepthat in mind.
And so um just kind of on the weI have a link in here also

(32:14):
called the AI Skills Navigator,which is a site Did you put this
in here?
AIskillsnavigator.microsoft.com.
It's good question.

SPEAKER_01 (32:25):
I did look I looked at it before I think I did
because I saw that on a LinkedInpost.
Yeah.
I think it is mine.

SPEAKER_02 (32:35):
Yeah, sorry.
Do tell about it.

SPEAKER_00 (32:37):
No, no, it has like the learning the learning paths
and everything.
And again, like this goes backto Microsoft has a ton of
learning resources.
It can be overwhelming sometimeswith the amount of info, but I
think it's better thanscrambling to find, okay, where
where can I go to learn this?
It's almost like you're at abuffet of information.
But the skills navigator is goodbecause that way you can kind of

(33:00):
chart your path of where you'reat and what you need for your
customers in terms of I thinksetting up learning paths and
things like that.
Like so they they start offexecutive, developer, IT
professional, securityprofessional, sales marketing,
customer service, like facultyevening.
And then it builds like aplaylist on the different videos
and resources to help you out,kind of chart your path with the

(33:22):
AI skills, which we're all onthis path.
So again, if you think, okay,it's overwhelming, it's a lot,
believe me.
I consume so much content everyweek on terms of just trying to
keep up in terms of reading,watching blogs, and I'm still
kind of bewildered of sometimeswhere to start.
But it's good.
It's getting there.
And then not so much part ofthis particular link, but I know
you probably noticed that thereare new certifications now

(33:44):
coming out, some in beta, somerolling out around AI and
becoming an AI um solutionarchitect and that kind of
thing.
So that also what I like aboutthe certification exams, not so
much you're writing the exam,but it's also it helps you,
helps understand what skillsthat you need.
So if you can get the skills topass the exam, those are the
skills that reflect the the kindof the marketplace or what

(34:08):
you'll need out there with yourprojects.
Because having worked on doingjob task analysis and skills
assessment for exams for otherareas of the power platform, I
know the work that gets involvedto help map these things out.
So yeah.
Join the AI learning trainthat's speeding at 200 miles per
hour, but it's there.

SPEAKER_02 (34:29):
Definitely.
Yeah.
So you have a Microsoftcertified AI transformation
leader, for instance.
So there are credentials.
I don't I couldn't really find afull certification yet that is
purely on Copeless Studio.
It seems like it's kind ofembedded in the other ones.
I'd say it should be, uh, fromwhat I could find.
Uh so if you have links to someother ones, then that's uh um

(34:50):
that's very good.
I saw so AI 900, Fundamentals ofArtificial Intelligence is uh
one.
So it's it's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 (35:01):
We don't have the link in here, but our friend who
den from the UK actually puttogether and as he does, he puts
some infographics together.
Um, and I think he has one on alearning journey for uh AI
skills as well.
So that's always another goodresource to follow.

SPEAKER_02 (35:16):
Yeah.
Um I'm just putting a note inhere to get some some
certification links.
And of course, there are theapplied skills.
There's one for Copeland Studiospecifically that you could also
go and uh grab for sure.
And then also you can follow ourfriend uh Anna Uruthia.
She has made an agentologo.

(35:37):
Agentologu?
Agentologo.
This is a word I don't know howto say.
This is what?
How do you say that?

SPEAKER_01 (35:44):
Agent Agentologu.

SPEAKER_02 (35:46):
Agentologoo.
It's it's probably Agentology.

SPEAKER_01 (35:49):
It's Agentology, right?

SPEAKER_02 (35:51):
Agentol Agentology.
Not that she misspelled it, justthat I don't have the English
word kind of words for this.
But anyways, she made a serieson Link of posts on LinkedIn
from A to Z on like the thecrazy people from the community
do for every now and again.
Remember Megan when she did thatand she said, if I ever have
this idea again, whack me overthe head with something so

(36:14):
heavy.
Well she made blonde posts,right?
For all of this.
But she did her version of thisLinkedIn post on agent and
words.
And this is so helpful because Ithink we all now are accustomed
to throwing AI words.
It's LLMs here and it's RAG andit's MCBs, and there's all these
words.
And then people come into thisspace and they go, ha, what?

(36:35):
Woo-woo.
So having someone to actuallyput some of these in context for
us is very good.
Again, context, people.
Context.

SPEAKER_00 (36:43):
Yes.
And it's for it's and it's just,I know we're kind of jumping
quickly ahead, but I do want toquickly mention this in terms of
your learning journey with AIand co-pilots.
For those of you who areplanning out your springs at
ColorCloud, you and I are doinga workshop on AI agents.
And so if you're okay, it's toobusy, I don't have time.
But if you go to conferences,now you can dedicate a day and

(37:06):
go through the AI agent um theAcademy.
The Academy, yes.
We're doing it live.

SPEAKER_02 (37:13):
I'm so excited.
I'm so stumped.
So they actually let us do it.
I mean, come on.
I was like, we we actuallyproposed it as a joke.
I was like, yeah, would youthink they would allow us to do
that as a curriculum?
We go, well, it's Microsoft, youknow, maybe not.
And they just went, sure.

SPEAKER_01 (37:28):
We just said we asked.

SPEAKER_02 (37:30):
That easy?
What?

SPEAKER_00 (37:31):
Yeah.
We asked the right people, and15 minutes later, it's all it's
like.

SPEAKER_02 (37:36):
If you have friends in the right places, no, no, I'm
kidding.
But actually, they're gonnarelease the the next level.
Because this the first one isthe recruit that's been out
there for a while.
They're working day and night toget the next level up and
running, and then there'sanother to the commander as and
then the operative.
So it's gonna be released reallysoon, maybe in a day or two, in

(37:56):
big announcement at big events,maybe possibly, or later.
Who knows?
Right?

SPEAKER_00 (38:01):
So just in the f the fullness of time is fullness of
time, exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 (38:06):
Uh, but we're gonna have a ton of fun uh delivering
that content for sure.

SPEAKER_01 (38:10):
Yes.
Sorry, back to Windows SiglesPath programming to our
randomness we have today.

SPEAKER_02 (38:17):
All the randomness.

SPEAKER_01 (38:18):
Thank you for joining the ride, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 (38:20):
Okay, so this is a uh this is uh uh a post from
Donna Sarkar that I uh didn'tfully understand.
I had to read through it acouple of times.
But then, okay, so this is whatshe says.
Last year, this time, AI willmake devs irrelevant.
Stop studying computer science.
Now there's an 800% increase indemand for this forward-deployed

(38:43):
engineered role across allsectors.
Artificial intelligence groupsare on hiring SPRE for a rare
kind of software developer whocan code and talk to customers
as they raise to increaseadoption of their cutting-inch
technology.
Microsoft is hiring FDEs, OpenAIis hiring FDEs, and everyone's

(39:04):
gonna be hiring FDEs.
Keep coding and keep working onyour list your listening skills
kits.
And this is this is an appeal todeveloper out developers out
there, us included, find that,oh shit, do I really have a it's
only the top 10% that's gonnasurvive in this space.
And she's so right.
If you can both understand thetechnical perspective and your
technologist and you'rehuman-friendly, you're gonna

(39:28):
pretty good deal going on,right?
That's the FDE that she'stalking about.
The person that can act the whounderstands the customer and is
that bridge back to thetechnical lingo, for instance.
I find that is such a huge partof my job is to talk to
customers and speak theirlanguage and then take that back
to the technologists and thedevelopers here and translate it

(39:50):
into their lingo for them tounderstand the requirements and
what it is that they actuallyneed.
And so many times we speak tocustomers, they think they know
what the problem is, and we go,and yeah, you might find a
symptom, but actually the realsickness is over here.
Uh, so let's look at thatbecause they don't really know.
So it's so important.
And she makes such a good point.
So yeah, Donna, thank you forcalling that out.

SPEAKER_00 (40:13):
Yeah, and it's a it's a link to um, I mean, she
this is uh she she called andshe's been calling this out
before, but it's a link to umthe uh Financial Times post
about the new hot job in AI.
So yeah, I I totally agree.
It's always been aboutcommunications, uh working with
with people.
And I think this is why uh interms of skill sets, if you have

(40:36):
that technical background, um,I've always said this like the
the developers that cancommunicate with customers,
especially in our business,they're the ones that really
thrive and do well.
So yeah, great post.
I like it.

SPEAKER_02 (40:48):
Yep, definitely.
Okay, so I have a link hereabout Houndry that I don't
understand myself.
So let's just skip that and moveon.
Is this one yours?
Right, so another post from RemyDion, which also was the guy who

(41:08):
had the other post that we justmentioned.
We'll make sure to put the namesin here so that we get it all
right.
But this was uh long awaitedfeature alert for Copilot Studio
Makers.
This is a way for you to forcenewest versions on people if you
publish your agent.
So approaching update willinterrupt any ongoing

(41:29):
conversations.
So this will kind of it's almostlike it's a reset, a restart of
your chat um or your agentexperience.
But this is also something thathas been long awaited, right?
So you can now force an updateon your end users for your
copelet agent, which is prettycool.

SPEAKER_00 (41:47):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I again, one of these thingsthat I would assume that already
had been there, but I guess not.
So good to know.

SPEAKER_02 (41:55):
Do you want to talk about the server logic thing or
is that mine as well?

SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
We did, and I think we did talk about this last
time, right?
About the server logic, abouthow it was released, and they
didn't really tell us about it.
But since then, there had therewas a partner call this week.
I'm not sure if you had a chanceto see it, or it was last week
or the recording, but Nagesh,who's one of the Nagesh I worked
with when I was at Microsoft, asuper um uh really cool guy,
really like really like Nagesh.

(42:21):
He's always very smart, verymethodical.
And he presented the serverlogic and power pages as part of
the power the partner communitycall, which I believe is should
be accessible to everybody.
But he walks through serverlogic, where to use it, where
not to use it, um, and thosetypes of things within
PowerPages.
And I know there's been some uhsome rumblings for people who
obviously don't get power pages,like, well, why is this

(42:42):
important?
Why is other it's another likeabstraction layer?
We don't need any more of these.
Well, obviously you don't get itbecause this removes things like
the uh the implicit grant flowwith OAuth.
It just it actually adds a verystrong level of security.
So if you're buildingintegrations into payment
gateways or any other services,this just makes it like a

(43:03):
thousand times easier, makes ithundreds of times more secure,
and it also increases the valueof building out power pages for
your customers as well.
So this is something I can'twait for it to be GA because
already my head is spinning withlots of ideas.
Now, the questions that I had aspart of this call that call was
okay, is this going to replacethe web API?

(43:23):
No, it's not.
We still need the web API.
It actually uses the web API fora lot of things.
It's really for that integrationlayer.
And also you can do things likeall the stuff that we couldn't
do before in terms of Dataversecustom actions, even a
potentially batched stuff, stuffthat we would kind of hack
together with Power Automate.
This just makes the pathway somuch smoother.

(43:44):
Good work on the team.
Um, we have the link to thePowerPlatform blog that
describes this, the link to thedocs.
Um, I'm gonna my plan is tostart building out some stuff in
the next few weeks as well totry this out.
I have a few ideas for my ownstuff that I want to build.
And this to me is just takingPowerPages again to that next
level in terms of it being aplatform for external users.
And of course, this also tiesinto what we talked about before

(44:06):
about single page applicationsor bringing code first,
PowerPages applications.
This all is compatible withthat.
So you can tell the they'relaying the groundwork to make
the the code, the future ofPowerPages kind of work in a
much more cohesive, much bettermanner.
And of course, it all ties inwith vibe engineering and all of
these other concepts we'retalking about to make to move

(44:28):
this whole platform forward.
The other thing on PowerPages,while we're talking about
PowerPages, is how many timeshave you sat down with a
customer trying to figure outlicensing for PowerPages?
How much is this going to costme?
All of this other stuff.
And you have the Excelspreadsheet out and everything
like that.

SPEAKER_02 (44:45):
It's simple.
I don't understand the hang-upabout PowerPages licensing
because to me it's so simple.
I'm like, why is this still anissue?
I mean, what do you and then yougo, oh, it's so expensive.
Did you expect it to be free?
You know, your the other webapps you have also cost you a
lot.
I mean, come on, look at thevalue, and then off we go.
Usually when so, but this isnice.

(45:05):
I know what you're gonna talkabout next.

SPEAKER_00 (45:07):
Yeah, so our friend uh Tino Rabbi from Germany, and
Tino, uh Tino has amazingcontent.
And Tino, we're big fans, youknow that.
But he put together the he puttogether this PowerPages price
calculator, and so you couldactually put in how many users,
um authenticated users or uhanonymous users, and it will
give you the pricing, it'llbreak it down whether you're
doing paper use pricing or kindof the regular pricing.

(45:31):
And in doing this, he discoveredsomething which is kind of a
known thing, but not so muchknown.
And he found that if you needfor so for if you're a customer
and maybe you're not using powerpages, but you need to buy
dataverse storage.
We know dataverse capacity isexpensive.
Did you know that what you can,if you need to get a certain

(45:53):
amount of Dataverse capacity,what you can do instead is you
could get a bunch of PowerPagesauthenticated users.
And with the pricing tier, withthe included Dataverse storage
that comes with those PowerPagesauthenticated users, you'll pay
less for the same amount ofDataverse storage, and you'll

(46:13):
get PowerPages authenticatedusers or not both a combination
of authenticated anonymoususers.
So you could deploy, you couldactually get power pages for
free if you buy the Dataversecapacity at a lower price.
And I'm very like, and he askedthat question, you go, This
can't be right.
Can anybody verify this?
So I went to Microsoft and askedthem or our insider at Microsoft

(46:36):
and came back with, yep, that'sthat's that's a thing for sure.
Like it's like, why are you nottelling everybody this?
Because this is this is a greatgateway for for power pages.
So yeah, definitely check out uhTino's price calculator, his
post along with that.
Uh and again, Yuca actually hashis comments in here too.
So uh and yeah.

(46:56):
Is it endorsed?
I'm not endorsed or it'sverified, I guess.
Like, yeah, yeah.
This is I guess you're not.
No.

SPEAKER_01 (47:04):
Wow.

SPEAKER_00 (47:05):
He talked about this thing earlier as well.
So I'm it don't and I know thatwe you and I we're we're we're
fans of PowerPages and and andthat sort of kind of our known
thing, unfortunately.
As much as we try to we do bothof us know other shit.
We all know this, but uh powerpages is one of our things.
We're big fans.
I've worked with otherplatforms, I've worked with

(47:26):
other website integrations intoDataverse.
At the end of the day, what Ican do with PowerPages and doing
the equivalent in something thata WordPress connector or some of
these other connectors can do,they're great, but they still
can't beat what you can do withPowerPages.
And I'm willing to take that todebate to anybody who wants to
fight me on that.
So yeah, check out the PowerPages Price Calculator by Tino

(47:47):
Rabbi.
It is really cool.

SPEAKER_02 (47:50):
Yeah, very good job.
And with that, I think we'regonna round it off with some
events.
That was a long list of thingsand bouncing all over the place.
Just before we round off, justwanted to mention that the call
for speakers for Dynamics Mindsis open.
So you can now submit for theparty conference of the year,
late May, which is uh I havenever been and it's on my list,

(48:12):
but it also every time it hitsme at a very unappropriate time.
So I'm uh betting on next yearagain.
But this is definitely uh anevent to go to.
It's yeah, we'll get you there.

SPEAKER_01 (48:24):
I'll be there.

SPEAKER_02 (48:24):
We'll see.
And then of course, ignite isthis week, uh ACDC in January,
Tallinn, Canadian Prime PlatformSummit, Color Cloud, Dynamics
Minds, and EPPC.
And then it's summertime.

SPEAKER_00 (48:36):
So that's kind of the team that I have my team in
for ACDC.

SPEAKER_01 (48:43):
You got it?

SPEAKER_00 (48:45):
Well, I I submitted a team, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (48:47):
Woo! I have a take today.
Good.
I'm so happy.
Oh, that's gonna be so cool.
Yeah, it's gonna be fun.
Me and my kids, we've paintedboxes.
We've now painted like 19 50 by50 centimeter cardboard boxes,
and we've turned them into theobsidian Minecraft boxes.
We're actually gonna make aportal, physical, life size

(49:10):
portal.
Wow, it's so cool.
Oh, and we painted all thelittle pixels, and yeah, it was
a lot of fun.
My small apartment's now full ofthe square boxes.

SPEAKER_01 (49:21):
All right, I do have a life sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 (49:25):
All right.
With that, I think I'm gonna letyou go off on your field trip
with your friends and uh send mepictures of the con the
buildings and all the things yousee.
No people, because I'm phone wayenough as it is, because you're
gonna hang out with all thepeople I love this week's stop
it.
And then I'm gonna see you soon.

SPEAKER_00 (49:44):
Yeah, for sure.
You have an awesome week.
We'll chat and chat everybodyelse.
Thank you for again forlistening and watching.
And this is probably one of ourmore chaotic episodes, but
that's what you're here for,right?

SPEAKER_02 (49:56):
You feel like our other episodes are so structured
and kind of easy to follow.
Like I know this is like anyother episode, like all over the
place, all all the time.
Right, okay.
Well, it was a lot of fun, asalways.
And uh yeah.
See you when we see ya.
Bye bye.

SPEAKER_00 (50:11):
Thank you for listening.
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(50:31):
with your hosts Lurika Akabekand Nick Dolman.
See you next time for yourtimely boost of Power Platform
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