Nicolae Tarla is the author of Empowering Organizations with Power Virtual Agents, we got the chance to sit down with him and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.
Q: What is/are your specialist tech area(s)?
Nicolae: Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft Dynamics 365
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?
Nicolae: I started with my first book on Scripting for Dynamics CRM back in the day. It was an effort to organize the various script libraries I have built over the years, and a great opportunity to give back to the community. Afterwards it became easier to tackle new topics and create additional titles.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Nicolae: As a Power Platform Solution Architect, I have always kept on top of new features of the platform. For this title, it was a normal progression of learning, implementing and later on documenting it all in a new title. At the time of starting this book, I had been working with this part of the platform for just over a year.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Nicolae: No real challenges were encountered. Most of the material presented in in line with typical implementation practices, and is not new.
Q: What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
Nicolae: This part of the platform it at the beginning of a potentially successful life. While there’s a lot of room to grow, even at the stage it’s at it can provide great value to a large number of organizations. Organization that continue to delay implementing these features will eventually fall behind and end up spending a lot more money in supporting their staff and customers.
Q: Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
Nicolae: This book is a comprehensive approach to learning the basics of Power Virtual Agents. It covers a lot of the most common scenarios, and can get a team from 0 to 100 in a short period of time. It will provide all the necessary basics to delve into this technology and start implementing it successfully, resulting in huge benefits for an organization.
Q. What are the key takeaways you want readers to come away from the book with?
Nicolae: There’s three main takeaways from this title: the value of the platform and the fact that you should stop ignoring it and jump on it right away, the ease of creating automated chatbots even with no technical experience, and the limitations of a no-code approach as well as when you need to start thinking beyond no-code.
Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
Nicolae: Yes, one important advice is that you should always try new tech. You will find value, and will be surprised at the direction it will take you. You will find cost savings opportunities as you start implementing, and business users will start to identify opportunities for you once they see the potential.
Q. Do you have a blog that readers can follow?
Nicolae: I currently blog at https://thatcrm.com/
Q. Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Nicolae: Obviously, follow my blog. In addition, the Microsoft forums and the community forums provide great value and the ability to get involved and interact with a wide community of experts.
Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Nicolae: Absolutely, Packt has always been there for me, providing great feedback and helping with multiple titles.
Q. Do you belong to any tech community groups?
Nicolae: Yes, I am involved with the local community.
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
Nicolae: Documentation form Microsoft, local community meetings and implementations provide the bulk of information needed to be successful.
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
Nicolae: Starting with a clear plan always helps. Allocating the necessary time is also important. There’s always unexpected things, but working around them is easy when you have the support of family, friends and the community.
Q. What is that one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
Nicolae: Focus. You will get new ideas, you will encounter challenges, but if you stay focused you will succeed.
You can find Nicolae’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here
