Jukka Niiranen’s Post

Is $105 per user per month too much to pay for a CRM app? As always, it depends. Organizations who pay big money for a project to customize and integrate their CRM with enterprise systems are surely spending a significant share on things other than the licensing part. This cost isn't as visible as the price tag for the software product. Still, just because something else is expensive, that doesn't mean you should pick only other expensive parts to go with it. The consulting hours at $200 don't need to be combined with software licenses priced $200. Often a better outcome is reached when there are clear constraints in place. When you can't just launch a massive project or you can't splash for the leading CRM software license. If you need to be smart about your spending, you'll do more homework on what the options are. At which point you may discover that #PowerApps can be perfectly sufficient for most of your real needs. When you realize that the smoke & mirrors of fancy CRM product demos aren't the features your users will actually care for. #Dynamics365 is huge. It's great when combined with a big initiative that goes far beyond mere CRM. It's powerful if you have experts to twist it to your needs. For everyone else, there are smarter options available when building your business system on top of Power Platform.

Some of y'all thought it was a joke. It's April 2nd now and I'm STILL S.M.E. for the mighty Forceworks Global | Leading Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Partner.😎 I mean, would you just look at that AMAZING title for the company's LI page! If that's not the baddest, ruffest crew of MC's in the MSFT low-code scene, I don't know where your head's at.🤨 Not only has Steve Mordue MVP singlehandedly written The Real Playbook for MS BizApps partners via his blog over the years. His posse is responsible for delivering the most intense #PowerApps solutions for those who hate to pay for crap they don't need.💸 RapidStart is the production team that keeps churning out hit products after another, always staying true to the Power of the Platform. I couldn't be happier about this opportunity to do some hardcore advisory business with Steve and many other industry legends in his SME lineup.🤜🤛

What I remember about my father was that he worked late. It's by no means what I think describes him, nor the relationship we've had. But it is the first thing that comes to my mind. He was very passionate about what he felt he had to do at work. To fix the things that were wrong in this world. I respected him for it, and to a large extent I've followed the same pattern. Like my father, I've had a hard time letting go of problems I've observed at work - even when the working day is technically over. Whenever I've had the free capacity to work on problems, I've done so. I've found it satisfying and meaningful. It's not wrong - and the vast majority of LinkedIn career advise or VC mentality enforces this. Being able to follow your passion at work is a blessing - when it's not blocking something more meaningful. I have zero regrets of not watching streaming TV shows in the past decade and instead spending my time reading (and writing) blog posts. It was the right thing to do then. It is no longer the right thing, though. When it was my turn to step into the shoes that my father once had, there was a constant struggle at play. I knew the equation wouldn't "just work out". I'm not stupid enough to believe that. Instead, I'm fully aware of the trade-offs that are facing me. I tried to be a father and a founder. To some extent, that worked out pretty well. The only problem was: I had no room left to be me. There was no place where I was doing something not just for others - but for myself. I began to feel that I don't exist in this world anymore. I cherish all the various interactions that my extensive professional network has allowed me to experience throughout the years. They mean a lot. But they don't mean everything. I realized that to make space for myself, I had to start from YOU. Yes, you, my LinkedIn connection/follower. I had to worry less about all of this. After I click "post" here I will step away from my professional role for tonight and start living the life that is exclusively for me. I will go to a local techno event, dance the night away, and be just myself - for myself. Then tomorrow I'll go back home and listen to what my son wants to tell me. Because he's got a lot more important things on his mind than any of you are posting here on LinkedIn. Just because I'm not available for a chat, doesn't mean I wouldn't care. I do - but I care more about something that's exclusive to me. We all should.

This is my new Window of Opportunity.🔭 Today I signed the lease agreement for Niiranen Advisory office space. Nothing big & fancy, just an intimate and covenient working space nearby my home in Herttoniemi, Helsinki.🌇 But why does a one-man company need an office in this day & age? Everyone's working from home, right? Why spend money on office space?💸 That's exactly the thing. For the previous company, I worked mostly from home for 4 years straight. Yeah, we did lease an office, but 2 weeks after setting up shop, COVID hit us. The office did exist (still does) and I did work there occasionally, one or two days a week. Yet it never felt like it was actually a physical representation of our company. It was just a desk, monitors and a coffee machine (my trusty ol' Moccamaster from home, actually).☕ I've learned that I need my space. Like, I REALLY need a space where I can calm down and focus. While I've had a perfectly fine room at our apartment as a home office, it's still much more a home than an office. During the past years my kid also grew from 0 to 4 and I've been pretty close to all of it. At least physically, if not always mentally.😅 If you work 2 meters away from your kitchen, it's not just about the sounds of everyday life. It is extremely difficult to know when you are "at work". Without a sufficient physical separation of space, the mental transition does not happen. Sure, it's great to be able to juggle between family time and company time on a whim. But this optimization of productivity may eventually get to you. I know it got to me.🙇♂️ My new office is 15 minute walk away from home. Half an hour wasted each working day, compared to the home office. Still, it will be always available for me when I need it. I won't have to book a meeting room for calls, or wear noise cancelling headphones when I need to concentrate on deep work.🎧 Once I get the basics like electricity, internet and furniture set up, I hope I can also invite some of you over for a coffee & chat. Not to be "at work in the office" but rather enjoying a space that is suitable for letting new ideas come to life. But before that, I'm gonna need to do a few trips to Ikea.🚚😁

It's funny 'cause it's true. #PowerApps #lowcode #enterprisesoftware

R.I.P. Collaboration controls in #PowerApps, 2022-2024. The preview feature launched in August 2022 promised to bring together the #Microsoft365 data and features formanaging tasks, files, notes, meetings and approvals inside model-driven Power Apps. Today when checking what's going on with these controls, I saw from MS Learn that a deprecation message had been added last month: "The Collaboration controls for model-driven applications are set to retire by May 2024. Retirement will be carried out in two phases to ensure a smooth transition. February 2024: controls installation package removed from AppSource. May 2024: internal service shutdown, no M365 data visible in apps, instead users will see errors." Judging by the timeline, the current usage that these controls have must be really low. Which is a bit surprising, given how many customers and partners leverage both M365 and #PowerPlatform. Wouldn't this kind of a "better together" story be just what everyone needs? Like many times before, the preview version that MS launched wasn't very feature complete yet. In my past review (see link in comments), I pointed out that the controls only supported creation of new #Planner plans etc. and not connecting existing M365 data with records in Dataverse. August 2022 was still an innocent time in many ways, because the masses had not yet see what ChatGPT can do. Satya had (presumably) not yet made his "bet the farm" decision on prioritizing Copilot across all MS product development teams. There's only so many features that the product teams can realistically plan for. If AI comes along and takes over half of your budget with an ASAP deadline, something has to be removed. Even if it would be related to data and tools that the customers are broadly already using today. That might be the exact issue here. Just like with Dynamics 365 and SharePoint back in the days, there's no need for MS to really make the integration between the products extensive and configurable. It's enough to have a "tick the box" level basic features available, because customers will likely think that the 2 software suites from the same company work great together. Whatever plans MS may have had for more tightly integrating Teams and Power Platform, those seem to be a thing of the past. "Teams as a platform" is the old strategy, now they just need to make it the UI through which the many copilots will talk to the users. Did anyone else ever try the preview of these collaboration controls? Were you looking to take them into production use, or did you run into some limitations that stopped you from going beyond the initial demo?

"It looks like Microsoft is using [the new solution checker] as an opportunity to further limit Power Apps subscription rights and increase cost for customers who deployed #PowerApps solutions in good faith."