Introduction to Copilot for Power Platform

Microsoft Copilot is a revolutionary AI-powered tool for Power Platform, designed to streamline the development process and enhance the intelligence of your applications. This learning path will take you through the fundamentals of Copilot and its integration with Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, and AI Builder.

Copilot in Microsoft Power Platform helps app makers quickly solve business problems. A copilot is an AI assistant that can help you perform tasks and obtain information. You interact with a copilot by using a chat experience. Microsoft has added copilots across the different Microsoft products to help users be more productive. Copilots can be generic, such as Microsoft Copilot, and not tied to a specific Microsoft product. Alternatively, a copilot can be context-aware and tailored to the Microsoft product or application that you’re using at the time.

Microsoft Power Platform Copilots & Specializations.

Microsoft Power Platform has several copilots that are available to makers and users.

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft Power Apps

Use this copilot to help create a canvas app directly from your ideas. Give the copilot a natural language description, such as “I need an app to track my customer feedback.” Afterward, the copilot offers a data structure for you to iterate until it’s exactly what you need, and then it creates pages of a canvas app for you to work with that data. You can edit this information along the way. Additionally, this copilot helps you edit the canvas app after you create it. Power Apps also offers copilot controls for users to interact with Power Apps data, including copilots for canvas apps and model-driven apps.

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft Power Automate

Use this copilot to create automation that communicates with connectors and improves business outcomes. This copilot can work with cloud flows and desktop flows. Copilot for Power Automate can help you build automation by explaining actions, adding actions, replacing actions, and answering questions.

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft Power Pages

Use this copilot to describe and create an external-facing website with Microsoft Power Pages. As a result, you have theming options, standard pages to include, and AI-generated stock images and relevant text descriptions for the website that you’re building. You can edit this information as you build your Power Pages website.

How Copilots Work

You can create a copilot by using a language model, which is like a computer program that can understand and generate human-like language. A language model can perform various natural language processing tasks based on a deep-learning algorithm. The massive amounts of data that the language model processes can help the copilot recognize, translate, predict, or generate text and other types of content.

Despite being trained on a massive amount of data, the language model doesn’t contain information about your specific use case, such as the steps in a Power Automate flow that you’re editing. The copilot shares this information for the system to use when it interacts with the language model to answer your questions. This context is commonly referred to as grounding data. Grounding data is use case-specific data that helps the language model perform better for a specific topic. Additionally, grounding data ensures that your data and IP are never part of training the language model.

Accelerate Solution Building with Copilot

Consider the various copilots in Microsoft Power Platform as specialized assistants that can help you become more productive. Copilot can help you accelerate solution building in the following ways:

• Prototyping
• Inspiration
• Help with completing tasks
• Learning about something

Prototyping

Prototyping is a way of taking an idea that you discussed with others or drew on a whiteboard and building it in a way that helps someone understand the concept better. You can also use prototyping to validate that an idea is possible. For some people, having access to your app or website can help them become a supporter of your vision, even if the app or website doesn’t have all the features that they want.

Inspiration

Building on the prototyping example, you might need inspiration on how to evolve the basic prototype that you initially proposed. You can ask Copilot for inspiration on how to handle the approval of which ideas to prioritize. Therefore, you might ask Copilot, “How could we handle approval?”

Help with Completing Tasks

By using a copilot to assist in your solution building in Microsoft Power Platform, you can complete more complex tasks in less time than if you do them manually. Copilot can also help you complete small, tedious tasks, such as changing the color of all buttons in an app.

Learn about Something

While building an app, flow, or website, you can open a browser and use your favorite search engine to look up something that you’re trying to figure out. With Copilot, you can learn without leaving the designer. For example, your Power Automate flow has a step to List Rows from Dataverse, and you want to find out how to check if rows are retrieved. You could ask Copilot, “How can I check if any rows were returned from the List rows step?”

Knowing the context of your flow, Copilot would respond accordingly.

Design and Plan with Copilot

Copilot can be a powerful way to accelerate your solution-building. However, it’s the maker’s responsibility to know how to interact with it. That interaction includes writing prompts to get the desired results and evaluating the results that Copilot provides.

Consider the Design First

While asking Copilot to “Help me automate my company to run more efficiently” seems ideal, that prompt is unlikely to produce useful results from Microsoft Power Platform Copilots.

Consider the following example, where you want to automate the approval of intake requests. Without significant design thinking, you might use the following prompt with Copilot for Power Automate.

Copilot in cloud flow

“Create an approval flow for intake requests and notify the requestor of the result.”

This prompt produces the following suggested cloud flow.

While the prompt is an acceptable start, you should consider more details that can help you create a prompt that might get you closer to the desired flow.

A good way to improve your success is to spend a few minutes on a whiteboard or other visual design tool, drawing out the business process.

Include the Correct Ingredients in the Prompt

A prompt should include as much relevant information as possible. Each prompt should include your intended goal, context, source, and outcome.

When you’re starting to build something with Microsoft Power Platform copilots, the first prompt that you use sets up the initial resource. For Power Apps, this first prompt is to build a table and an app. For Power Automate, this first prompt is to set up the trigger and the initial steps. For Power Pages, this first prompt sets up the website.

Consider the previous example and the sequence of steps in the sample drawing. You might modify your initial prompt to be similar to the following example.

“When I receive a response to my Intake Request form, start and wait for a new approval. If approved, notify the requestor saying so and also notify them if the approval is denied.”

Continue the Conversation

You can iterate with your copilot. After you establish the context, Copilot remembers it.

The key to starting to build an idea with Copilot is to consider how much to include with the first prompt and how much to refine and add after you set up the resource. Knowing this key consideration is helpful because you don’t need to get a perfect first prompt, only one that builds the idea. Then, you can refine the idea interactively with Copilot.

6 Unique Copilot Features in Power Platform

1. Natural Language Power FX Formulas in Power Apps

Copilot enables developers to write Power FX formulas using natural language. For instance, typing /subtract datepicker1 from datepicker2 in a label control prompts Copilot to generate the corresponding formula, such as DateDiff(DatePicker1. SelectedDate, DatePicker2. SelectedDate, Days). This feature simplifies formula creation, especially for those less familiar with coding.

2. AI-Powered Document Analysis with AI Builder

By integrating Copilot with AI Builder, users can automate the extraction of data from documents, such as invoices or approval forms. For example, Copilot can extract approval justifications and auto-generate emails for swift approvals within Outlook. This process streamlines workflows and reduces manual data entry.

3. Automated Flow Creation in Power Automate

Copilot assists users in creating automated workflows by interpreting natural language prompts. For example, a user can instruct Copilot to “Create a flow that sends an email when a new item is added to SharePoint,” and Copilot will generate the corresponding flow. This feature accelerates the automation process without requiring extensive coding knowledge.

4. Conversational App Development in Power Apps Studio

In Power Apps Studio, Copilot allows developers to build and edit apps using natural language commands. For instance, typing “Add a button to my header” or “Change my container to align center” enables Copilot to execute these changes, simplifying the development process and making it more accessible.

5. Generative Topic Creation in Power Virtual Agents

Copilot facilitates the creation of conversation topics in Power Virtual Agents by generating them from natural language descriptions. For example, describing a topic like “Customer Support” prompts Copilot to create a topic with relevant trigger phrases and nodes, streamlining the bot development process.

6. AI-Driven Website Creation in Power Pages

Copilot assists in building websites by interpreting natural language descriptions. For example, stating “Create a homepage with a contact form and a product gallery” prompts Copilot to generate the corresponding layout and components, expediting the website development process.

Limitations of Copilot

Build Good Prompts

Knowing how to best interact with the copilot can help get your desired results quickly. When you’re communicating with the copilot, make sure that you’re as clear as you can be with your goals. Review the following dos and don’ts to help guide you to a more successful copilot-building experience.

Do’s of Prompt-Building

To have a more successful copilot building experience, do the following:

• Be clear and specific.
• Keep it conversational.
• Give examples.
• Check for accuracy.
• Provide contextual details.
• Be polite.

Don’ts of Prompt-Building

• Be vague.
• Give conflicting instructions.
• Request inappropriate or unethical tasks or information.
• Interrupt or quickly change topics.
• Use slang or jargon.

Conclusion

Copilot in Microsoft Power Platform marks a major step forward in making low-code development truly accessible and intelligent. By enabling users to build apps, automate workflows, analyze data, and create bots using natural language, it empowers both technical and non-technical users to turn ideas into solutions faster than ever.

It transforms how people interact with technology by:

• Accelerating solution creation
• Lowering technical barriers
• Enhancing productivity and innovation

With built-in security, compliance with organizational governance, and continuous improvements from Microsoft’s AI advancements, Copilot is not just a tool—it’s a catalyst for transforming how organizations solve problems and deliver value.

As AI continues to evolve, Copilot will play a central role in democratizing software development and helping organizations move faster and smarter with data-driven, automated tools.

The Cost of Disconnected Sales and Marketing Processes

In many organizations, there’s palpable friction between marketing and sales teams. Should marketing be responsible for MQLs, meetings, pipeline—or all three? Why aren’t sales converting and closing enough deals? Too often, what happens between these teams is messy, manual, and misaligned. Leads fall through the cracks, handoffs lack crucial context, and reporting becomes a guessing game. 

This internal disarray doesn’t just hurt alignment—it damages the customer experience. When prospects encounter inconsistent communication, slow follow-ups, and disconnected touchpoints (like having to repeat themselves), trust erodes. Frustrated buyers turn elsewhere, leading to lost revenue and poor marketing ROI. 

High-Performing Organizations Take a Different Approach

Leading organizations aren’t leaving sales and marketing alignment to chance. They map every step from initial awareness to deal closure and beyond—building a lead-to-revenue engine that’s repeatable, measurable, and scalable. This transformation starts by: 

• Connecting marketing, sales, and revenue operations teams around shared goals.
• Unifying data and streamlining workflows.
• Executing clean, actionable handoffs—not just basic lead routing, but delivering rich, contextual insights throughout the customer journey. 

And it’s all powered by Salesforce. 

How Perficient Accelerates Your Lead-to-Revenue Transformation

At Perficient, we bring strategy, process, and platform into seamless alignment. Our Salesforce Lead-to-Revenue Management solution helps you:  

• Identify and eliminate friction points.
• Streamline handoffs between marketing and sales.
• Design reporting frameworks that are intuitive, actionable, and trusted across teams. 

We’ve helped clients shorten sales cycles, increase conversion rates, and unlock hidden pipeline with a connected, insight-driven approach. 

Core Components of Salesforce Lead-to-Revenue Management

• Strategy: Centralize marketing performance-management processes around unified revenue goals.
• Journey Design: Align the buyer journey and lead-to-revenue processes to deliver consistent value at every stage.
• Lead Management: Streamline lead generation, scoring, nurturing, and routing with dynamic results chains.
• Platform Foundation: Modernize marketing, sales, and data integration platforms to build a future-ready tech stack.
• Insight Model: Unlock outcome-based analytics and AI-driven insights to optimize decision-making and measure impact. 

Business Benefits You’ll Gain

When sales and marketing teams are aligned, enterprises gain: 

• Mature processes and automation that deliver a seamless, end-to-end customer experience.
• Multichannel engagement strategies that adapt to real-time customer behavior and preferences.
• Holistic value capture with clear campaign ROI, marketing attribution, and predictive insights powered by AI. 

Ready to Unify Your Path to Revenue?

If your growth engine feels disconnected—or if marketing and sales are speaking different languages—Perficient can help you align, streamline, and accelerate with our Salesforce Lead-to-Revenue Management solution.

In this episode of “What If? So What?” Jim sits down with Columbia Business School professor and c-suite innovation expert, Rita McGrath, to unpack what it really takes to lead through uncertainty. 

McGrath, known for her work on discovery-driven planning and intelligent failure, challenges the notion that strategy is a linear, long-term plan. “The time to reinvent your competitive advantage,” she says, “is when things are going well.” But that’s also when leaders are least motivated to change. This paradox is at the heart of her book “Seeing Around Corners.” 

One of the most compelling ideas Jim and Rita discuss is the concept of intelligent failure, a term coined by Sim Sitkin. In unpredictable environments, failure isn’t just inevitable – it’s essential. McGrath urges leaders to treat new initiatives as experiments, not predictions. “What’s the smallest test you can run to validate your assumptions?” she asks. This mindset shift helps organizations move faster and learn more, without betting the farm. 

The conversation also touches on discovery-driven planning, a framework that flips traditional business planning on its head. Instead of building a plan to prove you’re right, McGrath suggests building one to learn. Define what success looks like, work backward, and identify key assumptions. Then, test those assumptions through structured checkpoints. Her RACE (Redirect, Accelerate, Continue, Exit) model offers a practical way to evaluate progress. 

One particularly memorable takeaway from the conversation is Rita’s metaphor of “snow melting from the edges.” It’s a reminder that the earliest signs of disruption often appear at the fringes of an organization. Leaders must make time to observe, listen, and absorb uncertainty— especially when their teams are looking for clarity. 

In a world where AI, digital transformation, and shifting customer expectations are rewriting the rules, McGrath’s insights are a timely call to action. Strategy isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about asking the right questions and being brave enough to experiment. 

Subscribe Where You Listen

Apple | Spotify | Amazon | Overcast

Meet our Guest

Professor Rifa McGrath

Rita McGrath, a recognized strategy and innovation expert, is consistently ranked among the top 10 management thinkers in the world by the prestigious Thinkers50 and is a past winner of its coveted Strategy Award. The best-selling author of five books on leadership, business, and organizational management, she runs the Rita McGrath Group and is the founder of consultancy and innovation platform Valize. She is a trusted partner and strategic advisor in the C-suites of many of the country’s biggest and most well-known companies as they work to grow, evolve, reinvent themselves and see around corners.  

Rita is known for her energy, positivity, storytelling, and ability to connect with audiences. She is a sought-after corporate speaker, a longtime educator at Columbia Business School, author and host of the popular podcast and newsletter “Thought Sparks,” available on YouTube. Connect with her on LinkedIn and learn more at RitaMcGrath.com. 

Connect with Rita

Meet the Host

Jim Hertzfeld is Area Vice President, Strategy for Perficient.

For over two decades, he has worked with clients to convert market insights into real-world digital products and customer experiences that actually grow their business. More than just a strategist, Jim is a pragmatic rebel known for challenging the conventional and turning grand visions into actionable steps. His candid demeanor, sprinkled with a dose of cynical optimism, shapes a narrative that challenges and inspires listeners.

Connect with Jim:

LinkedIn | Perficient

Digital transformation in insurance isn’t slowing down. But here’s the good news: agents aren’t being replaced by technology. They’re being empowered by it. Agents are more essential than ever in delivering value. For insurance leaders making strategic digital investments, the opportunity lies in enabling agents to deliver personalized, efficient, and human-centered experiences at scale.

Drawing from recent industry discussions and real-world case studies, we’ve gathered insights to highlight four key themes where digital solutions are transforming agent effectiveness and unlocking measurable business value.

Personalization at Scale: Turning Data into Differentiated Experiences

Customers want to feel seen, and they expect tailored advice with seamless service. When you deliver personalized experiences, you build stronger loyalty, increase engagement, and drive better results.

Key insights:

• Personalization sits at the intersection of human empathy and machine accuracy.
• Leveraging operational data through platforms like Salesforce Marketing Cloud enables 1:1 personalization across millions of customers and prospects.
• One insurer saw a 5x increase in key site action conversions and converted 1.3 million unknown users to known through integrated digital personalization.

Strategic takeaway:

Look for platforms that bring all your customer data together and enable real-time personalization. This isn’t just about marketing. It’s a growth strategy.

Success In Action: Proving Rapid Value and Creating Better Member Experiences

Intelligent Automation: Freeing Agents to Focus on What Matters Most

Agents spend too much time on repetitive, low-value tasks. Automation can streamline these processes, allowing agents to focus on complex, high-value interactions that need a human touch.

Key insights:

• Automating beneficiary change requests reduced manual work and improved data accuracy for one major insurer.
• Another organization automated loan processing, which reduced processing time by 92% and unlocked $2M in annual savings.

Strategic takeaway:

Start with automation in the back-office to build confidence and demonstrate ROI. Then expand to customer-facing processes to enhance speed and service without sacrificing the personal feel.

Explore More: Transform Your Business With Cutting-Edge AI and Automation Solutions

Digitization: Building the Foundation for AI and Insight-Driven Decisions

Insurance is a document-heavy industry. Unlocking the value trapped in unstructured data is critical to enabling AI and smarter decision-making.

Key insights:

• Digitizing legacy documents using tools like Microsoft Syntex and AI Builder enabled one insurer to create a consolidated, accurate claims and policy database.
• This foundational step is essential for applying machine learning and delivering personalized experiences at scale.

Strategic takeaway:

Prioritize digitization as a foundational investment. Without clean, accessible data, personalization and automation efforts will stall.

Related: Data-Driven Companies Move Faster and Smarter

Agentic Frameworks: Guiding Agents with Real-Time Intelligence

The future of insurance distribution lies in human-AI collaboration. Agentic frameworks empower agents with intelligent prompts, decision support, and operational insights.

Key insights:

• AI can help guide agents through complex underwriting and risk assessment scenarios which helps improve both speed and accuracy.
• Carriers are increasingly testing these frameworks in the back office, where the risk is lower and the savings are real.

Strategic takeaway:

Start building toward a connected digital ecosystem where AI supports—not replaces—your teams. That’s how you can deliver empathetic, efficient, and accurate service.

You May Also Enjoy: Top 5 Digital Trends for Insurance in 2025

Final Thought: Technology as an Enabler, Not a Replacement

The most successful carriers seeing the biggest wins are those that blend the precision of machines with human empathy. They’re transforming how agents engage, advise, and deliver value.

“If you don’t have data fabric, platform modernization, and process optimization, you can’t deliver personalization at scale. It’s a crawl, walk, run journey—but the results are real.”

Next Steps for Leaders:

• Assess your data readiness. Is your data accessible, accurate, and actionable?
• Identify automation quick wins. Where can you reduce manual effort without disrupting the customer experience?
• Invest in personalization platforms. Are your agents equipped to deliver tailored advice at scale?
• Explore agentic frameworks. How can AI support—not replace—your frontline teams?

Carriers and brokers count on us to help modernize, innovate, and win in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Our solutions power personalized omnichannel experiences and optimize performance across the enterprise.

• Business Transformation: Activate strategy and innovation ​within the insurance ecosystem.​
• Modernization: Optimize technology to boost agility and ​efficiency across the value chain.​
• Data + Analytics: Power insights and accelerate ​underwriting and claims decision-making.​
• Customer Experience: Ease and personalize experiences ​for policyholders and producers.​

We are trusted by leading technology partners and consistently mentioned by analysts. Discover why we have been trusted by 13 of the 20 largest P&C firms and 11 of the 20 largest annuity carriers. Explore our insurance expertise and contact us to learn more.

In the age of technological advancements happening almost every minute, upgrading a business is essential to survive competition, offering a customer experience beyond expectations while deploying fewer resources to derive value from any process or business.

Platform upgrades, software upgrades, security upgrades, architectural enhancements, and so on are required to ensure stability, agility, and efficiency.

Customers prefer to move from Legacy systems to the Cloud due to the offerings it brings. From cost, monitoring, maintenance, operations, ease of use, and landscape, Cloud has transformed D&A businesses significantly over the last decade.

Movement from Informatica Powercenter to IDMC has been perceived as the need of the hour due to the humongous advantages it offers. Developers must understand both flavors to perform this code transition effectively.

This post explains the PWC vs IDMC CDI gaps from different perspectives.

• Development
• Data
• Operations

Development

• The difference in native datatypes can be observed in IDMC when importing Source, Target, or Lookup. Workaround as follows.,
  • If any consistency is observed in IDMC mappings with Native Datatype/Precision/Scale, ensure that the Metadata Is Edited to keep them in sync between DDL and CDI mappings.
• In CDI, taskflow workflow parameter values experience read and consumption issues. Workaround as follows.,
  • A Dummy Mapping task has to be created where the list of Parameters/Variables needs to be defined for further consumption by tasks within the taskflows (Ex, Command task/Email task, etc)
  • Make sure to limit the # of Dummy Mapping tasks during this process
  • Best practice is to create 1 Dummy Mapping task for a folder to capture all the Parameters/Variables required for that entire folder.
  • For Variables whose value needs to be persistent for the next taskflow run, make sure the Variable value is mapped to the Dummy Mapping task via an Assignment task. This Dummy mapping task would be used at the start and end of the task flow to ensure that the overall task flow processing is enabled for Incremental Data processing.
• All mapping tasks/sessions in IDMC are reusable. They could be used in any task flow. If some Audit sessions are expected to run concurrently within other taskflows, ensure that the property “Allow the mapping task to be executed simultaneously” is enabled.
• Sequence generator: Data overlap issues in CDI. Workaround as follows.,
  • If a sequence generator is likely to be used in multiple sessions/workflows, it’s better to make it a reusable/SHARED Sequence.
• VSAM Sources/Normalizer was not available in CDI. Workaround as follows.,
  • Use the Sequential File connector type for mappings using Mainframe VSAM Sources/Normalizer.
• Sessions are configured to have STOP ON ERRORS >0. Workaround as follows.,
  • Ensure the LINK conditions for the next task to be “PreviousTask.TaskStatus – STARTS WITH ANY OF 1, 2” within CDI taskflows.
• Partitions are not supported with Sources under Query mode. Workaround as follows.,
  • Ensure multiple sessions are created and run in parallel as a workaround.
• Currently, parameterization of Schema/Table is not possible for Mainframe DB2. Workaround as follows.,
  • Use an ODBC-type connection to access DB2 with Schema/Table parameterization.
• A mapping with a LOOKUP transformation used across two sessions cannot be overridden at the session or mapping task level to enable or disable caching. Workaround as follows.,
  • Use 2 different mappings with LOOKUP transformations if 1 mapping/session has to have cache enabled and the other mapping/session has to have cache disabled.

Data

• IDMC Output data containing additional Double quotes. Workaround as follows.,
  • Session level – use this property – __PMOV_FFW_ESCAPE_QUOTE=No
  • Administrator settings level – use this property – UseCustomSessionConfig = Yes
• IDMC Output data containing additional Scale values with Decimal datatype (ex., 11.00). Workaround as follows.,
  • Use IF-THEN-ELSE statement to remove Unwanted 0s in data (O/P : from 11.00 -> 11)

Operations

• CDI doesn’t store logs beyond 1000 mapping tasks run in 3 days on Cloud (it does store logs in Secure Agent). Workaround as follows.,
  • To retain Cloud job run stats, create Audit tables and use the Data Marketplace utility to get the Audit info (Volume processes, Start/End time, etc) loaded to the Audit tables by scheduling this job at regular intervals (Hourly or Daily).
• Generic Restartability issues occur during IDMC Operations. Workaround as follows.,
  • Ensure a Dummy assignment task is introduced whenever the code contains Custom error handling flow.
• SKIP FAILED TASK and RESUME FROM NEXT TASK operations have issues in IDMC. Workaround as follows.,
  • Ensure every LINK condition has an additional condition appended, “Mapping task. Fault.Detail.ErrorOutputDetail.TaskStatus=1”
• In PWC, any task can be run from anywhere within a workflow; however, this is not possible in IDMC. Workaround as follows.
  • Feature request worked upon by GCS to update the Software
• IDMC mapping task config level is not capable due to parameter concatenation issues. Workaround as follows.,
  • Ensure to use a separate parameter within the parameter file to have the Mapping task log file names suffixed with the Concurrent run workflow instance name.
• IDMC doesn’t honour the “Save Session log for these runs” property set at the mapping task level when the session log file name is parameterized. Workaround as follows.,
  • Ensure to copy the mapping task log files in the Secure agent server after the job run
• If Session Log File Directory contains / (Slash) when used along with parameters (ex., $PMSessionLogDir/ABC) under Session Log Directory Path, this would append every run log to the same log file. Workaround as follows.,
  • Ensure to use a separate parameter within the parameter file for $PMSessionLogDir
• In IDMC, the @numAppliedRows and @numAffectedRows features are not available to get the source and target success rows to load them in the audit table. Workaround as follows.,
  • @numAppliedRows is used instead of @numAffectedRows
• Concurrent runs cannot be performed on taskflows from the CDI Data Integration UI. Workaround as follows.,
  • Use the Paramset utility to upload concurrent paramsets and use the runAJobCli utility to run taskflows with multiple concurrent run instances from the command prompt.

Conclusion

While performing PWC to IDMC conversions, the following Development and Operations workarounds will help avoid rework and save effort, thereby achieving customer satisfaction in delivery.

With the advancement of technology, machine learning and AI capabilities in the customer care space, customer expectations are evolving faster than ever before. Customers expect smoother, context-aware, personalized, and generally more effective and faster experiences across channels when contacting a support center. 

This calls for a need to revisit and redefine the success metrics for a Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) strategy. 

Let’s break this down into two categories. The first category includes key metrics that are still essential to be measured. The standards for these metrics though are raised and the way they are measured have evolved. The second category introduces new metrics that are emerging because of advanced CCaaS capabilities in a modern contact center landscape. 

Key Traditional Success Metrics Reimagined  

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) remains a cornerstone success metric. Every improvement a customer service center is looking to make, from improving operational efficiencies to enhancing agent and customer experience, will directly or indirectly impact the customer and is aimed at elevating that customer experiences. With automated personalized journeys being an important part of modern customer service, it is important to monitor real-time analytics on automated journeys in addition to live agent interactions. This helps better understand the customer experience and find opportunities to fine tune the friction points to improve customer satisfaction. Customer service is not only about resolving customer issues, but also about providing an effortless experience. 

First Contact Resolution is still a key success metric in the CCaaS space, but modern tools can revolutionize the extent a customer service center can go to improve this metric, so the standards for this metric have raised. Passing context effectively across channels, real-time monitoring, predictive analytics and insights, and proactive outreach can increase the likelihood of addressing customer needs on the first contact or even sometimes without the need for a live agent interaction. 

Customer Retention Rate metric has been revamped with the advancement of technology in customer service. Advanced predictive analytics can help track the customer experience throughout their journey and shed light on the underlying customer behavior patterns. This will enable proactive engagement strategies personalized to every customer. Real-time sentiment analysis can provide instant feedback to the customer service representatives and their supervisors to give them a chance to course correct immediately in order to shift the sentiment to a positive experience and retain customers. 

Emerging Success Metrics 

Agent Experience and Satisfaction has a direct impact on the operation of a contact center and hence the customer experience. Traditionally, this metric was not tracked broadly as an important metric to measure a successful contact center strategy. However, we know today that agent experience and satisfaction is a key metric for transforming contact centers from cost centers into revenue generating units. Contact centers can leverage modern tools in different areas from agent performance monitoring, training and identifying knowledge gaps to providing automated workflows and real-time agent assistance, to elevate the agent experience.

These strategies and tools help agents become more effective and productive while providing service. Satisfied agents are more motivated to help customers effectively. This can improve metrics like First Contact Resolution rate and Average Handle Time. Happy and productive agents are more likely to engage positively with customers to discuss potential cross-sell and upsell opportunities. Moreover, agent turnover and the cost associated with that will be lowered due to the reduced burden of onboarding and training new agents regularly and constantly being short of staff. 

Sentiment Analysis and Real-time Interaction Quality provides immediate insights to the contact center representatives about the customer’s emotions, the conversation tone, and the effectiveness of their interactions. This will help the contact center representatives to refine their interaction strategy on the spot to maintain a positive and effective engagement with the customer. These transforms contact centers into emotionally intelligent, customer-focused support centers. This makes a huge difference in a time where the quality of experience matters as much as the outcome. 

Predictive Analysis Accuracy represents an entirely new set of metrics for a modern contact center that leverages predictive analytics in its operation. It is crucial to measure this metric and evaluate the accuracy of the forecasts against customer behavior and demands as well as the agent workflow needs. Inaccurate predictions are not only ineffective but can also be harmful to contact center operations. They can lead to poor decision making, confusion, and disappointing customer experiences. Accuracy in the anticipation of customer needs can enable proactive outreach, positive and effective interactions, less friction points and reduced service contacts while facilitating effective automatic upsell and cross-sell initiatives. 

Technology Utilization Rate is an important metric to track in a modern and evolving customer care solution. While with the latest technological advancements a lot of intelligent automation and enhancements can be made within a CCaaS solution, a contact center strategy is required to identify the most impactful modern capabilities for every customer service operation. The strategy needs to incorporate tracking the success of the technology adoption through system usage data and adoption metrics. This ensures that technology is being leveraged effectively and is providing value to business. The technology utilization tracking can also reveal training and adoption gaps, ensuring that modern tools are not just implemented for the sake of innovation, but are actively contributing to improved efficiency within a contact center. 

Conclusion

The development of advanced native capabilities and integration of modern tools within CCaaS platforms are revolutionizing the customer care industry and reshaping customer expectations. Staying ahead of this shift is crucial. While utilizing these advancements to achieve operational efficiencies, it is equally important to redefine the success metrics that provide businesses with insights and feedback on a modern CCaaS strategic roadmap. Adopting a fresh approach to capturing traditional metrics like Customer Satisfaction Scores and First Contact Resolution, combined with measuring new metrics such as Real-time Interaction Quality and Predictive Analysis Accuracy will offer a comprehensive view of a contact center’s maturity and its progress towards a successful and effective modern CCaaS solution. 

We can measure these metrics by utilizing built-in monitoring and analytical tools of modern CCaaS platforms along with AI-powered services integrations for features like Sentiment and Real-time Quality Analysis. We can gather regular feedback and data from agents and automated tracking tools to monitor system usability and efficiency. All this data can be streamed and displayed on a unified custom analytics dashboard, providing a comprehensive view of contact center performance and effectiveness. 

I have been writing about the Redwood Experience with Supply Chain Management, especially with the Inventory Management. Oracle has gone all-in with Redwood Experience in Inventory Management in 25B.

The 25 Inventory Management readiness documentation lists all new features and how to use them, so I will not repeat this greatly written document: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/readiness/scm/25b/inv25b/index.html

For the previous features in Redwood, please consider visiting the Readiness documentation: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/readiness/scm-all.html

This page is my personal favorite since it provides easy to find features and documentation along with that.

 1. Why?

You may be asking the question: why is the Redwood so hot and why do I have to transform?

If you are an Oracle customer or you have been in Oracle space for a while (I have been in the space for almost three decades), you know that once Oracle sets a vision and starts delivering new technology it becomes the future.  We have witnessed this when Oracle moved the business applications from 10.7 Character mode to 10SC (Smart Client) 10NCA (Network Architecture). We went from character mode to GUI.  It wasn’t easy and quick, but it happened. Then we moved from major releases in EBS and got used to the Self Service architecture.

Oracle delivered the Fusion Applications long time ago and we have witnessed that each quarterly release has added more functionality.  Since 2024 Oracle has been improving user interface and adding mobility to the Inventory Management pages, but the most radical improvements have happened in 25A and 25B.  Now, almost 100% of the Inventory Management is in Redwood and it’s the next generation of Cloud applications.

Redwood brings better usability and better user interface that I explained in my past blog https://blogs.perficient.com/2025/05/30/starting-redwood-experience-with-25a-inventory-management/, but it also opens the door for Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Oracle is expected to release major AI improvements in 25C that  I plan to write a blog to talk about. Redwood Experience is a prerequisite for all cool AI technology to work.  Agentic AI features or AI Agents will be part of the Fusion Applications which is a topic for another blog.

So, while majority of the screens are optional, why not get ahead of the game and start adopting?

2. How

You may be asking the question: what actions do I need to take to use Redwood

Read Documentation.  In Customer Connect, we are seeing many questions from the Oracle Community about Redwood pages not populating items or screens are coming out blank.  Please see this documentation for the important considerations

https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/readiness/scm/25a/inv25a/25A-inventory-wn-t65792.htm

By the way, if you have not registered to Oracle Customer Connect, I highly recommend, so you can get in contact with the rest of your peer Oracle Community members and Oracle ACEs like myself who can possibly respond to your questions: https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/

Then please see the Profile options for the new features. You will have to flip the profile options at site level from No to Yes, so that the features are enabled.

The documents I previously mentioned have the profile option names and the navigation is to use the task bar from the Functional Setup Manager and search for Manage Administrative Profile Values.

3. What

You may be asking the question: what Redwood Pages I should use first

Adoption is very critical when changing the user experience. Change Management becomes critical migrating from traditional cloud pages to the newly designed Redwood Pages.  What I would recommend is to first enable the configuration pages, so that the internal Oracle team and business analysts have a feel of the Redwood Experience.

Then there are a few pages that users can be beneficial that I mentioned in my prior blog: https://blogs.perficient.com/2025/05/30/starting-redwood-experience-with-25a-inventory-management/

One bold move is to flip all features to Redwood and start testing internally first in a lower pod.  Oracle has designed this, so companies have time to take on as much as they can during the course of an unidentified period of time. As of today, Oracle has not announced when the Redwood Experience will be mandatory.  Most pages are possible to switch back and forth, but please read the feature’s release note to see if there is a not that will explicitly say that once it’s turned on, there is not a path to go back.

In conclusion, Oracle Fusion Application’s future is in Redwood Experience and built in AI, so I recommend that you try to adapt and use.

Contact Mehmet Erisen at Perficient for more introspection of this functionality, and how Perficient and Oracle Fusion Cloud can digitalize and modernize your ERP platform.

Oracle has delivered many features in Redwood Experience as of 25A. The purpose of this blog is to give a taste of a few Redwood pages and provide a recommendation to migrate to Redwood Experience on select pages to ease the transition and adoption. The pages I’ll cover in this blog are:

• Item Quantities (Manage Item Quantities)
• Inventory Transactions (Review Completed Transactions)
• Lot and Serial Numbers (Manage Lots and Manage Serials)
• Review Item Supply and Demand (Review Item Supply and Demand)

*names in parenthesis are the traditional cloud menu entries

Important Step before you start

Oracle has documented the Important actions to be taken before the Redwood enablement in 25A readiness notes.  We recommend that you read and follow this documentation for successful roll out https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/readiness/scm/25a/inv25a/25A-inventory-wn-t65792.htm This document also has a list of newly designed Redwood pages that you can pick and chose for your company. I wanted to cover a few that seems to be a good start with Redwood enablement.  

Item Quantities

“Manage Item Quantities” is one of the most visited pages in Oracle Fusion Inventory Management.  It’s a very functional page that one can see on hand quantities as well as incoming stock and stock in receiving.  The page also allows various actions and provides additional information.  I’ll share a few screenshots of the user interface to explain the look and feel of the Redwood Pages. The traditional page The page gave great functionality with the lack of exporting the results.  Also, the nodes in the page caused users to drill down multiple levels, for example from Item to Subinventory and Locator, to LOT number and project and task.  This multi-node architecture was good to see the information but prevented users from seeing all data in one place and exporting it. The Redwood Experience “Item Quantities” page takes the “Manage Item Quantities” page to the next level.  Immediately, the user will enjoy a more modern responsive experience.  The data is displayed in a tabular format The Redwood Experience gives the user a flexible layout. Easily add remove filters, follow the deep link to the Lot or Serial number, see the on hand quantities as well as other measures such as available to transact, available to reserve, inbound in receiving quantities all in one line. This is a huge improvement compared to the traditional Manage Item Quantities page. The Redwood Experience pages are user friendly and support download of the “on hand quantities” without needing additional reporting. In this case, I’m downloading all items that are in my inventory organization by clicking the export button. Clicking the Inbound deep link will show the user inbound details. Clicking the Lot under item Control will take the user to the Lot information page.   Please note that the user is now at the lot details page.   After testing the Redwood Item Quantities page, I was very pleased with the improvements:

1. Seamless navigation to various pages within the same user interface
2. Ability to export the tabular data (functionality highly sought after by users)
3. All information in one place, no nodes, no drilling
4. Additional functionality of directly creating subinventory transfers, transer orders, miscellaneous transactions and more

  One caveat I observed on this page is that the item description cannot be added at this time to Redwood Experience, but it is available if the user clicks on the item number.  There is also a need to scroll down to the last record, so the export includes all results. After carefully reviewing the new Redwood Experience, and testing the page thoroughly, I believe that this is one of the Redwood Pages that can be enabled to transition from traditional user interface to the Redwood Experience.

Inventory Transactions

This page with Redwood Experience replaces the Completed Transactions page.  Once again, it’s another Redwood Page that is easy to adopt and use.  It has all the bells and whistles of the traditional cloud page and more. What I like about the Redwood Experience is that it is so easy to add and remove columns.  One can quickly scroll through the available columns and check or uncheck multiple columns at a time, and use the Control+F (Find) feature of the browser.   Another improvement is that the user can share the saved searches with others leveraging the filter save tool. The one has been on the wish list for many users.

Lot and Serial Numbers

The newly designed Lot and Serial Numbers Redwood page is also a great way to start the Redwood Experience with one caveat.  If you frequently jump to Lot/Serial transactions or on hand quantities from the manage Lot/Serial pages, this feature is yet not available as of 25A in Redwood Experience.

Review Item Supply and Demand

Another easy to transform Redwood page is the Item Supply and Demand page.  All functionality is the same, but Redwood Experience has additional columns such as supply/demand quantity in separate columns, Party, Work Order Description, Shipping Priority and Created by to give the user better information. User acceptance and adoption comes with time, so the sooner the transition begins, the more successful the implementations will go. Perficient can help you with your transition from traditional Fusion or legacy on-prem applications to the SCM Redwood experience. When you are ready to take the first step and you’re looking for some advice, contact us. Our strategy is to craft a path for our clients that will make the transition as seamless as possible to the user community and their support staff.

Contact Mehmet Erisen at Perficient for more introspection of this functionality, and how Perficient and Oracle Fusion Cloud can digitalize and modernize your ERP platform.

Even highly capable teams with solid plans can fall into the same ol’ traps. It’s not really our fault, human biases are hardwired into all of us. Awareness helps, but under pressure and tight deadlines, it’s tough to recognize these mental pitfalls in the moment.

Seven Common Human Bias Problem Areas

1. Optimism Bias – Wanting the best-case scenario but failing to plan for realistic outcomes.
2. Confirmation Bias – Seeking and remembering information that supports your original belief.
3. Anchoring Bias – Overly focusing on one piece of information (often first impressions) while ignoring others.
4. Sunk Cost Fallacy – Continuing investment because of past effort or money spent, even when it no longer makes sense.
5. Dunning-Kruger Effect – Overestimating your skills if you’re not an expert, or underestimating them if you are.
6. Groupthink – Aligning with the group to avoid conflict and seem agreeable.
7. Authority Bias – Going along with leadership’s opinion simply because of their position. This is also known as the HiPPO effect (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion).

The Result of Human Bias in Action

The seven biases listed above are just a few examples, but there are many more where our brains use shortcuts based on beliefs and past experiences instead of facts. In the rush to move fast, seem knowledgeable, and avoid problems, we often introduce new risks.

This might mean killing promising ideas too soon (confirmation bias), underestimating challenges (optimism), or spinning our wheels because we focus too much on sunk costs. Sometimes, the desire for consensus leads teams to follow the crowd or get swayed by less experienced voices.

I’ve been fascinated by human bias for years. Even knowing about these traps, I still catch myself falling into them. Just recently, I had to discuss optimism and sunk costs with my teams and clients.

How to Mitigate Human Bias in Projects

The biggest mistake is believing you are immune to bias. Our brains are wired to take these mental shortcuts to manage daily cognitive load. While it may seem futile to fight against it, the best choice is to build processes that protect us from our own instincts.

These safeguards fit well in Q2 of the Eisenhower Quadrants of Productivity because it is important but not urgent. Though we don’t often see it, Project Managers should include bias mitigation in their risk registers.

Here are other ways to reduce bias in your projects:

• Psychological Safety – Encourage open debate and let team members play devil’s advocate without fear…avoiding psychological barriers.
• Foster Diversity – Beyond nationality, race, and gender, include diversity in thinking styles, experiences, and expertise. Wild card team members can provide fresh perspectives.
• Track and Learn – Track and compare project estimates to actual outcomes. Use this data to identify patterns and improve over time.
• Rely on Process – Be intentional about setting up structured processes. Emerging AI tools can also help spot bias creeping into decisions.

Conclusion

Human biases hide in plain sight…even in teams that believe they’re being open-minded and careful. The best approach is to acknowledge this reality and commit to continuously challenging our own habits and instincts.

Perfection will never be achieved…we’re only human. But with awareness and intentional processes, we can get as close as possible. Bias is inevitable, but it can be managed and designed around.

……

If you are looking to aim for excellence despite ourselves, reach out to your Perficient account manager or use our contact form to begin a conversation.

Choosing a provider is one of the most personal decisions in healthcare. Yet, one in five consumers abandon healthcare organizations due to poor digital experiences.

In our recent webinar “Reimagining Find Care: How AI is Transforming the Digital Healthcare Experience,” healthcare leaders explored how AI-powered search, recommendations, and personalization are redefining the “Find Care” experience. Hosts Tara Becker, Perficient principal of healthcare and life sciences, and Mike Raley, Coveo SVP of marketing, detailed why this matters more than ever for health systems seeking to grow, compete, and deliver better outcomes.

Below, we break down the most important takeaways from the session:

1. Find Care Is the New Front Door—and It Must Feel Like Commerce

Healthcare is increasingly judged by the same standards as consumer brands like Door Dash and Expedia. Patients expect to search, compare, and book appointments as easily as they would a hotel or a ride share.

Key Insights:

• Digital access is a revenue driver. A seamless Find Care experience builds trust, drives patient acquisition, and reduces leakage.
• Friction leads to churn. 41% of consumers consider switching providers if the digital experience doesn’t meet expectations.
• Convenience drives action. Patients want to search by criteria that matters to them—location, gender, language, availability—and they want to book instantly.

2. AI-Powered Search and Personalization Are Game-Changers

AI relevance platforms like Coveo are transforming how patients find care. By unifying content, provider data, and real-time intent signals, AI enables hyper-personalized, intuitive experiences.

What AI Enables:

• Smart search that understands intent. Patients can type “family doctor near me” and instantly see relevant, bookable options.
• Dynamic filtering and recommendations. AI surfaces providers based on availability, insurance, and patient preferences.
• Generative answers grounded in trusted content. Patients get accurate, contextual responses—without hallucinations.

3. Strategy First: Align Digital Investments with Business Outcomes

Technology alone isn’t enough. A successful Find Care transformation starts with a clear strategy aligned to organizational goals.

Strategic Best Practices:

• Define your North Star. Establish KPIs that serve as success criteria for your new Find Care experience and prioritize service lines (e.g., cardiology, oncology, primary care) that drive revenue and impact.
• Map patient journeys. Understand your personas (e.g., caregivers, chronic patients), their preferences, expectations, journeys, and friction points. Design a seamless experience that removes obstacles and guides healthcare consumers to conversion.
• Audit and optimize content. Ensure provider profiles are robust and updated. Service line pages need to be relevant, actionable, and conversion-focused.

4. Build a Scalable, Interoperable Tech Stack

Find Care must integrate seamlessly with your existing systems—EHR, CRM, DXP, and more. Flexibility and interoperability are key.

Technical Considerations:

• Platform-agnostic design. Because our AI-powered Find Care solution is DXP-agnostic, it can be tailored for your organization and preferred martech stack, whether that includes Adobe, Sitecore, Acquia, Optimizely, WordPress, etc.
• Unified data layer. Connect provider directories, appointment systems, and content repositories so the most relevant information is delivered to users.
• HIPAA-compliant AI. Ensure patient data is secure while delivering personalized experiences.

5. Measure What Matters: From Clicks to Conversions

Digital success must be measured in business terms—not just traffic. Establish an outcomes dashboard that ties digital engagement to revenue, access, and health outcomes—and report it to the C-suite.

Metrics That Matter:

• Appointment conversions and completions
• Search abandonment and content gaps
• Patient satisfaction and Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Operational efficiency (e.g., reduced call volume, fewer no-shows)

6. Start Small, Scale Smart

You don’t need to do everything at once. Begin with priority, high-impact experiences and service lines, then iterate.

A Phased Approach:

• Phase 1: Define a patient-centric Find Care blueprint.
• Phase 2: Implement Coveo for a powerfully integrated, unified search experience.
• Phase 3: Launch online appointment scheduling for primary care and urgent care.
• Phase 4: Expand to specialty services and guided journeys.
• Phase 5: Layer in generative AI and conversational experiences.

Final Thought: Find Care Is Not Just a Feature—It’s a Strategic Imperative

In an increasingly competitive and crowded health care marketplace, Find Care is your digital front door, your commerce engine, and your trust builder. AI-powered experiences are no longer optional—they’re expected.

Healthcare leaders who invest in intelligent, patient-centric digital pathways will not only win market share—they’ll improve outcomes, reduce costs, and build lasting loyalty.

Ready to Reimagine Your Find Care Experience?

If you’re exploring how to modernize your digital front door, consider starting with a strategic assessment. Align your goals, audit your content, and evaluate your tech stack. The path to better outcomes starts with a smarter, simpler way to help patients find care.

We combine strategy, industry best practices, and technology expertise to deliver award-winning results for leading healthcare organizations.

• Business Transformation: Activate strategy for transformative outcomes and health experiences.
• Modernization: Maximize technology to drive health innovation, efficiency, and interoperability.
• Data + Analytics: Power enterprise agility and accelerate healthcare insights.
• Consumer Experience: Connect, ease, and elevate impactful health journeys.

Our approach to designing and implementing AI and machine learning (ML) solutions promotes secure and responsible adoption and ensures demonstrated and sustainable business value. We are one of a select group of Coveo Platinum partners helping brands design, architect, and implement modern intelligent search solutions that empower users to be more successful and deliver a winning customer experience.

Discover why we have been trusted by the 10 largest health systems and the 10 largest health insurers in the U.S.  Explore our healthcare expertise and contact us to learn more.

Watch the On-Demand Webinar Now

We’re thrilled to announce that Perficient’s “What If? So What?” podcast, hosted by Jim Hertzfeld, area vice president, strategy, has been honored with a Gold Award in the podcast series category at the prestigious 2025 Hermes Creative Awards. This recognition is a testament to our commitment to providing listeners with insightful, engaging, and actionable content. 

The Hermes Creative Awards is an international competition that celebrates excellence in traditional and emerging media. This year’s competition attracted entries from more than 30 countries and showcased an impressive range of creative excellence. The judging process is rigorous, and Gold Awards, which recognize work that exceeds industry standards, are presented to only about 20% of entrants. 

Jim Hertzfeld shared his excitement about the award. “I’m grateful to our guests for sharing their real world ideas, and I am honored that the Hermes Awards have recognized the creative way that we’ve delivered those ideas to our listeners.”   

The Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP), which administers the Hermes Creative Awards, celebrates the work of creative professionals while supporting the industry’s philanthropic spirit. Through this program, AMCP has contributed more than $325,000 to charitable organizations. 

For more information about the Hermes Creative Awards and to view the full list of winners, visit Hermes Awards Winners. 

Thank you for being part of our journey and stay tuned for even more episodes of “What If? So What?” 

Subscribe or stream episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

In today’s hyper-connected world, the Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming industries, from smart manufacturing to intelligent healthcare. However, the real potential of IoT is to connect continuously with enterprise systems, providing real-time insights and automating. This is where MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform comes in, a disturbance in integrating IoT units and API to create an ecosystem. This blog explains how MuleSoft sets the platform for connection and introduces a strong basis for IoT and API integration that goes beyond the specific dashboard to offer scalability, safety, and efficiency.

Objective

In this blog, I will show MuleSoft’s ability to integrate IoT devices with enterprise systems through API connectivity, focusing on real-time data processing. I will provide an example of how MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform connects to an MQTT broker and processes IoT device sensor data. The example highlights MuleSoft’s ability to handle IoT protocols like MQTT and transform data for insights.

How Does MuleSoft Facilitate IoT Integration?

The MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform is specific to the API connection, native protocol support, and a comprehensive integration structure to handle the complications of IoT integration. This is how MuleSoft IOT does the integration comfortably:

1. API Connectivity for Scalable Ecosystems

MuleSoft’s API strategy categorizes integrations into System, Process, and Experience APIs, allowing modular connections between IoT devices and enterprise systems. For example, in a smart city, System APIs gather data from traffic sensors and insights into a dashboard. This scalability avoids the chaos of point-to-point integrations, a fault in most visualization-focused tools.

2. Native IoT Protocol Support

IoT devices are based on protocols such as MQTT, AMQP, and CoAP, which MuleSoft supports. Without middleware, this enables direct communication between sensors and gateways. In a scenario, MuleSoft is better able to connect MQTT data from temperature sensors to a cloud platform such as Azure IoT Hub than other tools that require custom plugins.

3. Real-Time Processing and Automation

IoT requires real-time data processing, and MuleSoft’s runtime engine processes data streams in real time while supporting automation. For example, if a factory sensor picks up a fault, MuleSoft can invoke an API to notify maintenance teams and update systems. MuleSoft integrates visualization with actionable workflows.

4. Pre-Built Connectors for Setup

MuleSoft’s Anypoint Exchange provides connectors for IoT platforms (e.g., AWS IoT) and enterprise systems (e.g., Salesforce). In healthcare, connectors link patient wearables to EHRs, reducing development time. This plug-and-play approach beats custom integrations commonly required by other tools.

5. Centralized Management and Security

IoT devices manage sensitive information, and MuleSoft maintains security through API encryption and OAuth. Its Management Center provides a dashboard to track device health and data flows, offering centralized control that standalone dashboard applications cannot provide without additional infrastructure.

6. Hybrid and Scalable Deployments

MuleSoft’s hybrid model supports both on-premises and cloud environments, providing flexibility for IoT deployments. Its scalability handles growing networks, such as fleets of connected vehicles, making it a future-proof solution.

Building a Simple IoT Integration with MuleSoft

To demonstrate MuleSoft’s IoT integration, below I have created a simple flow in Anypoint Studio that connects to an MQTT Explorer, processes sensor data, and logs it to the dashboard integration. This flow uses a public MQTT Explorer to simulate IoT sensor data. The following are the steps for the Mule API flow:

Step 1: Setting Up the Mule Flow

In Anypoint Studio, create a new Mule project (e.g., ‘IoT-MQTT-Demo’). Design a flow with an MQTT Connector to connect to an explorer, a Transform Message component to process data, and a Logger to output results.

Step 2: Configuring the MQTT Connector

Configure the MQTT Connector properties. In General Settings, configure on a public broker (“tcp://test.mosquitto.org:1883”). Add the topic filter “iot/sensor/data” and select QoS “AT_MOST_ONCE”.

Step 3: Transforming the Data

Use DataWeave to parse the incoming JSON payload (e.g., ‘{“temperature”: 25.5 }’) and add a timestamp. The DataWeave code is:

“`

%dw 2.0

output application/json

{

sensor: “Temperature”,

value: read(payload, “application/json“).temperature default “”,

timestamp: now()

}

“`

Step 4: Connect to MQTT

                Click on the Connections and use the credentials as shown below to connect to the MQTT explorer:

 Step 5: Simulating IoT Data

Once the MQTT connects using an MQTT Explorer, publish a sample message ‘{“temperature”: 28 }’ to the topic ‘iot/sensor/data’, sending to the Mule flow as shown below.

Step 6: Logging the Output

Run the API and publish the message from the MQTT explorer, and the processed data will be logged into the console. Below shows an example log:

The above example highlights MuleSoft’s process for connecting IoT devices, processing data, and preparing it for visualization or automation.

Challenges in IoT Integration and MuleSoft’s Solutions

IoT integration faces challenges:

• Device and Protocol Diversity: IoT ecosystems involve different devices, such as sensors or gateways, using protocols like MQTT or HTTP with different data formats, such as JSON, XML, or binary.
• Data Volume and Velocity: IoT devices generate high volumes of real-time data, which requires efficient processing to avoid restrictions.
• Security and Authentication: IoT devices are unsafe and require secure communications like TLS or OAuth for device authentication.
• Data Transformation and Processing: IoT data sends binary data, which requires transformation from Binary to JSON and needs improvement before use.

The Future of IoT with MuleSoft

The future of IoT with MuleSoft is promising. MuleSoft uses the Anypoint Platform to solve critical integration issues. It integrates different IoT devices and protocols, such as MQTT, to provide data flow between ecosystems. It provides real-time data processing and analytics integration. Security is added with TLS and OAuth.

Conclusion

MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform reviews IoT and API integration by providing a scalable, secure, real-time solution for connecting devices to enterprise systems. As I showed in the example, MuleSoft processes MQTT-based IoT data and transforms it for useful insights without external scripts or sensors. By addressing challenges like data volume and security, MuleSoft provides a platform to build IoT ecosystems that provide automation and insights. As IoT keeps growing, MuleSoft’s API connectivity and native protocol support establish it as an innovation, with new smart city, healthcare, and more connectivity. Discover MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform to unlock the full potential of your IoT projects and set the stage for a connected future.