Fostering collaboration and innovation in policing through the Microsoft Power Platform
The Police Digital Service co-hosted the event ‘Microsoft 365 in Policing’ together with the Greater Manchester Police and Microsoft on 20 October.
Delegates representing more than 30 forces joined the event to learn and share best practices in app capabilities development. The theme for the day was ‘Collaboration and Innovation,’ with a special focus on how to exploit the Power Platform to build processes collaboratively and develop PowerApps through Microsoft 365.
Many of the applications presented during the event, such as the Burglary and the Request Access apps, are already available for all forces to use through the national Solutions Catalogue on PDS’s website.
ACC Chris Sykes from the Greater Manchester Police introduced the day, followed by the force’s Head of IT, Bill Naylor, who talked about Manchester force’s IT journey and aspirations.
T/Supt. Doug Blackwood from Humberside spoke about the national Burglary Power App (see a recent PDS webinar), which helps officers with their investigations. Ch. Insp. Steve Murfin from the Metropolitan Police described how his team supported the delivery of more than 70 Apps and shared some valuable insight with the audience.
During the event, Tom Connor (Technical Architect), Richard Atherton (Business Engagement Manager) and Lisa Lee (Head of Delivery) from PDS gave attendees an overview of the opportunities available to forces with Digital Innovation. They illustrated how the Home Office forces and related Offices of Police and Crime Commissioners can engage with our technology and innovation experts to co-create a digital minimum viable product to suit their needs and requirements.
Simon Laurence, Head of Engagement at PDS, chaired a panel session with representatives from policing (Ch. Insp. Steve Murfin and Ch. Insp. Alex Metcalfe), PDS expert Tom Connor, and Parm Singh from Microsoft. The session explored different storage solutions for Power Apps.
Dataverse versus SharePoint was the hot topic and questions from the audience generated a healthy debate.
The workshop sessions provided opportunities for delegates to discuss their forces’ priorities and consider how collaboration would speed up the delivery of digital solutions for policing. During the workshops there were a variety of breakout sessions, delivered by PDS and Microsoft, for technical inputs.
The ‘Microsoft 365 in Policing’ event is part of PDS’s ongoing sustainment work that builds on the delivery of the National Enabling Programmes, which was completed in March 2022. The event is also the kick-off for future sessions to develop the ideas brought forward, determine what areas are ripe for Power Platform exploitation and agree on a collaborative process with forces to create new applications.
We will be hosting a webinar in a few weeks to share the outcomes of this successful event and we look forward to hosting a follow-up in spring 2023. You can view all our recent webinars on the PDS website.
