Intros: An introduction to Power Platform at Network Rail
- Feb 5, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 16, 2024
Welcome to Admin view
Thanks for taking the time to check out the blog. The aim is to document and share Network Rail's Power Platform journey, the good, the bad and the... well you get it. Being biased, the Technical Lead/Tech Admin role is one of the most crucial, especially early on in a Power Platform enabled organisation. The admin is most likely wearing multiple hats from admin, architect a former developer etc and they most likely know key makers within the organisation personally, something that's key. This is an unbiased blog, it is in no way affiliated with Microsoft and I'll be as open as I can (without being pulled into HR, I need a job to fund my Chicken George addiction). It's also key for me to note that there are other Low Code platforms at Network Rail but the Power Platform is the only Low Code platform that we allow maker development outside of the Pro Dev world.
Two things that I'd like to point out are... We are most certainly not a role model for Power Platform, our adoption is high but we have so much more work to do to get to where I'd like this us to be. Secondly... What we have achieved so far isn't just down to me, yes I'm the figurehead for it but the people in our organisation are what's helped us get us to where we are now.
Blog Rules
You may have seen in the about page that I'm running the London marathon in April so I'm implementing some blog rules, which are outlined below, every time I break a rule, I'll donate £10 to my own Just Giving page for the head injury charity 'Headway'. Each time that I intentionally break a rule, I'll put a number within brackets next to the rule break to keep track, if I don't... please call me out in the comments.
I can't mention Managed Environments in a critical way, any more than twice.
I can't mention chicken more than three times during this blog series.
I can't mention poor Microsoft documentation more than twice during the blog series.
I can't mention the ridiculously over complicated Power Platform licensing model any more than twice during the blog series.
I can't mention a lack of resource at all or my boss won't be happy.
Network Rail's current estate in numbers
Who are we?
I'm sure most of the UK readers will know us but we operate the rail infrastructure in the UK. We provide the infrastructure that train operating companies (TOCs) and Freight Operating Companies (FOCs) can use to run their services for both passengers and freight.
We have a varied number of roles, from IT, legal, HR, scheduling, signallers, engineers, drone pilots and more! We're not short of use cases to use the Power Platform to improve processes and digitise elements of the railway. I'm sure it won't come as a surprise but I think it's fair to say that we have thousands of paper based forms and processes, it wouldn't be sensible to aim to digitise all of these and forcing tech on people is never a good thing but we can be clever and selective about which ones we do.
Who am I?
I'm the Power Platform Technical Lead at NR, I'll try not to focus on me too much but our pro dev capability started in 2020 when I got handed the PP admin role and inherited two IT apprentices, one of which, Ben, is now Head of PP Engineering, without Ben.. I'd need a monthly supply of L'Oreal grey reducing shampoo (it's currently bi-monthly, other grey reducing
My background is Computer science, Digital Forensics, Full stack dev and now Power Platform owner within NR, defining strategy, technical consultancy, a weird approach to architect and a very rusty developer.
In 2021 I suffered a life altering head injury after an accident and I'm running the 2024 London Marathon in April to raise money for the head injury charity 'Headway'. More about that later this year though.
Power Platform at NR
As you can tell from the numbers, the PP is fully embraced at NR and will only continue to do so. Makers range from pro devs, suppliers, project managers, engineers and via many personas. We're strong advocates of makers outside of IT (I don't like the term 'citizen devs') which has helped NR save money, keep knowledge and support in house and deliver at speed by utilising the Power Platform by keeping XS-M sized solutions delivered in-house where possible.
Power Platform is no longer that free cool thing that you got with E5 licenses and IT nerds played around with, it's not a core part to our organisation.
We've done a fair amount of work with our maker community over the last 18-24 months, including setting up the generic 'Power Rangers' community Teams site, running monthly community calls, hosting our very first Hackathon and more. I'll cover this in a future blog post.
The main thing I've learnt at an organisation like ours is that the rollout of the Power Platform is a Business Transformation exercise and not just IT transformation.
The Power Platform technical ownership resides with myself and a team within central IT and we also have a pro developer capability consisting of an internal dev team and offshore capability. One of our biggest successes is our apprentice scheme which has allowed us to fill all of our internal dev team (apart from 1) with former apprentices. Team structure, purpose and the apprenticeship scheme are all on the cards to dig deeper within later on in this series.
We have a wide range of solutions on the PP, from event reporting, project management, engineering forms and processes and diagnostics apps, the PP has enabled us to cater for a wide range of use cases. The PP has enabled us to somewhat offer a true rapid development service, showcased by NR's industrial action last year where an app was needed at very short notice, I had the customer on a Teams call with me and I developed the app and flows in front of them, for me... that's the true value of PP, MVPs and delivering at pace, if you get it right... it's well catered for genuine true agile application development.
One thing I'm asked a lot is are you not worried about what's being built?
As a Power Platform admin, I have more visibility of what's out there than any rogue Excel files or Access apps, if I'm not happy with something then I can reach out to the owner, implement more governance or worst case scenario... disable any associated flows and quarantine the app until I'm happy.
For me, the Power Platform has almost unintentionally transformed our organisation without any initial launch or adoption, the success of the PP so far has been mainly as a result of the characteristics of our makers, intruiged by technology.
The Power Platform gives us in IT a unique opportunity which is largely unheard of with any other technology, to bridge the gap between IT and the rest of NR. The PP enables us to interact, support, coach and work together with user personas that we might never have crossed paths with before.
What's to come?
Our journey has been somewhat... challenging but along the way we've realised many things which I hope any potential future PP customers can grasp from this series. From maker communities, strategy, PP use cases, our pro dev set up and guest interviews, the series is somewhat varied but hopefully can bring some value, it's also so I can remember what on earth I/we've done over the years.
The future for the Power Platform at NR is bright but it needs governance and support along the way. To do that, we will be shortly rolling out a solution registration tool to capture solution criticality, support, data sensitivity, ROI and value and more. We're current development a Power Platform Helpdesk solution built on the Power Platform, to automate requests where possible, collate knowledge based articles and more via the platform's capabilities, to ease the pressure off our Helpdesk and support the platform via self help, automation and technology where possible. Technology is great and I'm an absolute nerd but I've learnt that tech is nothing without people focus, later this year we will be rolling out a developer pathway with badges for makers to work towards.
Successes
Over 5% of our organisation are makers
13k monthly active users is nearly a third of NR are frequently using Power Apps
A really successful Apprentice and Graduate scheme which has provided our Pro Dev team with many devs
We were the first organisation to successfully use the Wrap feature (at scale) to our 40K end users
A great community
Power Champion
Getting to meet many companies, speaking, meeting new people
Things to work on...
Resourcing a Platform team, with the right skillset
A view on the demand to proactively support rather than reactively
Things failing without context
Ridiculousness....
Licensing model.
A few things that I'd like to cover during this blog series are...
Power Platform Makers at NR - Who they are, how we encourage Power Platform at scale, communities and events etc
Power Platform use cases - Showcasing some apps that we've built within the Pro Dev team as well as outside of IT
Pro Dev set up - A focus on the team structure and purpose of our Pro Dev team
Measuring value - How I/we aim to surface the value of the value via a solution registration app
Support - How do we support the insanely large PP estate that we have?
Successes - A spotlight on some successes that we've had since using the PP
What we've learn - For me, this is the big one.
Licensing - How do we manage the demand and the endless questions regarding Microsoft's ridiculously complex licensing model that's so ridiculous that it has a 20 page document, part of an exam and designated job roles (1).
Hackathon - An in-depth focus on our first ever hackathon which we hosted in May 2023
If I had my time again - What would I do differently?
Ten things I recommend to do
Guests
Me - A short blog about myself
Future plans - This could be a very long post, I have some wild and ridiculous plans for NR this year that seem to come to me during a run and even in dreams (yes, I'm that sad that I dream about the PP)
If you'd like me to cover anything in particular, please contact me via the form on the contact page and I'll do my best to cover it off.
Thanks for reading and the next post in the series will come very soon!
What's been your biggest challenge when considering/rolling out the Power Platform?
Complex licensing model
Adoption
Recruiting specialists
Exec buy in
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