Introducing Native Views for the Powell Mobile App

A new mobile experience built for everyone

The Powell Mobile App is getting a major update: a set of native views designed from the ground up to serve both office workers and deskless employees — each with a dedicated, optimized experience.

These views are not wrappers around intranet pages. They are purpose-built, use-case-driven interfaces that load fast, configure easily, and adapt to the profile of the user accessing them.

What's changing?

We have revisited the app's core functionality around two distinct usage profiles we support today: office workers and deskless workers. Each profile now gets a tailored experience built around their actual needs and constraints.

For office workers

Office workers with an M365 license get access to a richer, Graph-powered experience directly within the app:

• Social Feed — A scrollable news feed based on Microsoft Graph queries, surfacing SharePoint news, company updates, and announcements. Fast, lightweight, and no full intranet load required.
• Org Chart — A new native Org Chart component, powered by Azure Active Directory, letting employees browse the company hierarchy and reach colleagues in one tap.
• Buddy Bot — Direct access to the Powell Buddy AI assistant within the app, enabling conversational interactions with company knowledge bases.
• Coming soon: Flexdesk — Quick desk reservation integrated directly into the mobile experience.

No additional infrastructure prerequisites are required for office workers beyond their existing M365 setup.

For deskless workers

Deskless workers — those without an M365 license — get a purpose-built experience designed around the reality of their work: on the go, often without a fixed workstation, and without requiring intranet access.

What's new:

• Better content integration — Improved surfacing of content published from your intranet portal, including company news and announcements, in a social-media-style feed adapted for short, frequent sessions.
• Likes & Comments — Deskless users can now react to and comment on content directly from the app. This was not possible before, and it opens up genuine two-way engagement for frontline teams.
• Org Chart — The same native Org Chart component is available for deskless users, giving frontline employees easy access to the company directory and contact information.
• Coming soon: Buddy Bot for deskless — AI-powered access to HR, IT, and other knowledge bases directly from the app, to better support employees on the ground. (Requires Powell Buddy Advanced license.)

Infrastructure prerequisites for deskless views:

Deskless native views require two infrastructure components on the customer's environment:

• Azure Blob Storage — Used for content retrieval and delivery to the app.
• Azure Search — Powers content indexing and querying for deskless-specific feeds.

These prerequisites will be fully documented, and the configuration process is being simplified as part of upcoming platform improvements.

Note on authentication: Deskless views remove the login friction that previously excluded frontline workers from mobile intranet experiences. The minimum requirement is that the user has at least an entry in Azure Active Directory.

Coming soon: For organizations whose frontline workforce isn't fully registered in Azure AD, we are evaluating an admin-facing registration flow that would allow administrators to onboard users directly from the app at first login.

Summary