I've been diving into Power Platform lately, kind of flirting with it, and I absolutely adore Power Pages. In this post, I'll share how to deploy a Power Page, and customize it as a self-service portal for employees making it look pretty and functional.
Please know that you can use the Dynamics 365 templates if you have any of these instances:
Dynamics 365 Sales
Dynamics 365 Customer Service
Dynamics 365 Field Service
Dynamics 365 Marketing
Dynamics 365 Project Operations
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
In this case, even when we already have a template, I'm going to use another template for self-service purposes. The reason why I'm doing this is that I want to build custom pages instead of using the default ones for ESS Dynamics 365 templates.
Customers' wishlist and proposition
Scenario
Our customer is looking for a simple self-service platform for employees from across the globe to use. The solution must provide:
Employee profile: personal data and ability to edit or add new information.
Company values: mission and vision as well as company values.
Learning: link to LMS.
Job openings: a job board for internal openings.
Proposed functional solution
A web that provides basic functionality that will allow people to access basic company information bringing together a remote worldwide culture.
Proposed technical solution
We will deploy a Power Page template and customize it based on the customers' needs. We suggest the customer use this platform because it is scalable and they could potentially manage the backend by themselves in the future.
Guide
In this guide, we will follow the steps to accomplish our customers' scenario and deliver what they asked for.
Log into make.powerpages and select Create a site.
Select a template.
Add a name and a web address and select Done.
Once you've selected Done, the template will take a while this is a good time for brainstorming what you are going to include. This is what you should see while the template is loading:
Like the cooking shows, I already have my Power Page prepared. This is the template I choose:
Time to work!
And now is the time to work! As you remember we had 4 requirements from our customer, the first thing that we will do is to add/edit the pages in our left pane:
As you can see in the picture next to this text, we have covered all of the customers' requirements. What is left is to customize the content for every page and create a solution that fulfills what was requested.
After creating our Main navigation, I will select a theme that reflects our customers' branding colors, formats, and fonts.
Now I'll show you the different sections I added to my Power Page and at the end a video recording navigation through the page.
Menu
In the menu, I included all the requirements listed by the customer. You can see that we are covering the wishlist.
Home
I used this landing page to introduce the basics of the purpose and content that people will find on the platform.
You can also identify some calls to action.
Company values
Mission
Vision
Learning
I think this section is one of my favorites. I added some links so users can access multiple Learning Platforms. Let's see how it looks.
Job openings
Speak with HR
I decided to recycle my PVA for HR sentiment analysis, it doesn't look great but it has potential.
Diving into the Power Page
Let's try it on mobile!