In this tutorial, we’ll talk about Microsoft Power Automate. We’ll also discuss why it’s vital to learn about this indispensable tool and its underlying features.
What Is Microsoft Power Automate?
Power Automate is a tool that allows us to automate any task. Those tasks can be as simple as sending out an email every morning. It can also be very complex, like uploading a document to a file system when meeting a certain criteria.
There’s a wide variety of tasks that we can do using this tool. Another cool thing about this tool is that the tasks can go between any application.
For example, we can have a task that basically takes an email from Outlook and puts it on Twitter. We can also have a task that simply reads your Slack messages, finds keywords, then sends us an email based on those.
There are a lot of default connectors that Power Automate has, like Outlook, Slack, Twitter, YouTube, Gmail, One Drive, Google Drive, and many more.
If connections don’t exist, Power Automate allows us to connect to our application using third party API tools.
The tasks can also be personal or business-related. We can have a simple task where we send out an email or notification every morning based on something. The task can also be business-related, where we can automate our expense system process or invoicing process, or anything that’s repetitive in a business setting.
Additionally, tasks can have interactions from people. Power Automate has a feature called Approvals where in-between our task flows, we can get approvals from people.
Lastly, we can also have tasks not only in these applications, but also on our desktop or website. We can have a flow that takes control of our mouse to move files around our desktop and open any application. For websites, Power Automate allows us to streamline and automate any workflow that we have without using any code.
Features Of Microsoft Power Automate
Microsoft Power Automate has four notable features.
1. Easy To Use
Power Automate is definitely easy to use. There’s no code required, it has a very simple design, and it’s quite similar to using Microsoft PowerPoint or Excel. If you know how to use those two applications from the same Microsoft ecosystem, then you probably already know how to use Power Automate.
It’s also accessible to people. If you know how to code, then you can easily do some cool and complex things. But if you don’t, that’s also fine. You can still create some complicated and usable workflows in Power Automate.
2. Comprehensive
Power Automate is also comprehensive. You can connect to hundreds of connectors including Slack, Gmail, Outlook, One Drive, Salesforce, and text messaging. You can basically support everything in Power Automate. As I’ve mentioned earlier, if there’s not a connector available, then you can connect it through a third party support like API or HTTP requests.
Moreover, it has a feature called UI flows, which allows you to perform process automations on your desktop and on the web.
3. Powerful
Power Automate allows you to create complex logic in your workflows to make them more powerful. You can also have conditions in your workflows. For example, let’s say we’re creating a workflow on invoices. If our invoice is greater than a thousand, then we should seek approval before paying it out. If our invoice is less than a thousand, then we can just pay it out.
It also has loops, which allows us to iterate through things in our workflows. Furthermore, it offers approvals which we already mentioned earlier. Approvals allow us to add user intervention into our workflows. We don’t want every single workflow to be automated. Instead, we want some to rely on user approvals and we can add that into our workflow using Power Automate.
4. Scalable
Last but not the least, it’s scalable. It’s scalable in a sense that once we create a workflow in Power Automate, we can easily share it with people. We can share it with all the colleagues in our businesses. We can also monitor who’s using it, and who’s not.
Power Automate can actually automate a lot of our business processes. And once we do that, it’s scalable no matter how many people use it. Thus, if a new employee comes in, they can just use the Power Automate flow instead of learning about a whole new business process which can be quite complicated.
So, those are the four features of Power Automate. It’s easy to use, comprehensive, powerful, and scalable.
The Importance Of Learning Microsoft Power Automate
The next thing we’ll discuss are the various reasons why it’s essential to learn and understand how to use this tool.
1. Boost Your Productivity
First, it can really boost your productivity. This is perfect for automation enthusiasts who want to automate any repetitive tasks. It allows you to have more time during the day for things that matter the most.Â
It also allows you to create an impact in your organization or business. You’ll be able to automate a process for someone that takes them about 30 minutes to do during the day. You can save a lot of time for everyone who’s using this.
2. Get Hired
The next reason why you should learn it is because it can get you hired. It’s definitely one of those skills that employers are looking for nowadays. Power Automate is becoming more popular along with Power BI, Power Apps, and Power AI. Therefore, this is something that can help you get employed.
3. Improve Your Toolkit
It’s also helpful in improving your own toolkit. It can be powerful in conjunction with Power Apps. They work really well together. If you ever want to automate something, even if it’s for business-related or personal reasons, you’ll be able to do it. It also has RPA (robotic process automation) capabilities, which is one of the hottest trends of 2020.
The Impact of Power Automate To Businesses
Just to prove the importance of learning Power Automate, here’s a sample chart that shows how Power Automate can be impactful to businesses.
Based on the presented data, businesses that use Power Automate save about 15% in their business process efficiencies in the third year that they do it.
So, imagine doing this in your company and saving them 15% of time, money, and their business processes. That’s absolutely impactful. Furthermore, Power Automate is currently regarded as a visionary in terms of robotic process automation.
Get Certified
Microsoft has certifications that you can take to prove to your employers that you actually learned about the Power Platform. So, I would definitely recommend trying to get certified. Taking this course can be a great addition to your resume, especially with the other certifications that are listed here.
***** Related Links *****
Using Power Automate To Refresh Data In Power BI
New Enterprise DNA Masterclasses: Power Apps and Power Automate
Power Apps: Getting Started With This Revolutionary Tool
Conclusion
So, that’s what Microsoft Power Automate is. We’ve learned about its features and why it’s essential for us to learn about it. With this tool, you can streamline repetitive tasks and paperless processes so you can focus your attention where it’s needed most.
You can expand your automation capabilities across desktop, web, and mobile with Power Automate. It’s definitely a better way to improve productivity across your organization.
Until next time,
Henry
