Microsoft Power Automate

Introduction to Power Automate

Power Automate is used to automate repetitive business processes
It can handle work flows like:
- Send reminders on tasks
- Move data between systems on schedule
- Connect to different data sources and APIs
- Automate tasks on a local computer like Excel workbook calculations
Power Automate was formerly known as Microsoft Flow

What is Power Automate and the value it brings to you

Example scenarios Power Automate can help with:

Regular downloads from emails and uploads to database
Getting approvals for new items
Regular log into a website to get data and save it in another system

Common scenarios and capabilities of Power Automate:

Automating of repetitive tasks like moving data from one system to another
Guiding a user through a process so they can complete the different stages
Connecting to external data sources via one of the hundreds of connectors or directly via an API
Automating desktop based and website processes with robotic process automation (RPA) capabilities

Example: Purchase order approval
- User uses a Power App to create a purchase order request
- Flow evaluates requests and routes it based on criteria like approval from user’s manager in AAD
- Conditional logic for further approvals is done
Work with Data Where it Lives

Use connectors to connect to one or many existing data and services like:
- Microsoft Dataverse
- Salesforce
- Dynamics 365
- Google Drive
- Office 365
- Custom data source provided in a custom connector
Types of Flows
- Cloud flows
  - Runs on a trigger and then one or many actions like emails or mentions
  - Team flows are owned by a group while “my flows” are owned by you
- Business process flows
  - Used with Model-driven apps and Microsoft Dataverse to create a guided experience
- Desktop flows
  - These robotic process automation (RPA) flows allow you to record yourself performing actions on your desktop or within a web browser.
  - You can trigger flow to perform that process for you.
  - You can also pass data in or get data out of the process, letting you automate “manual” business processes
Add Artificial Intelligence (AI) to your Flows without Code
- A wizard based interface at https://make.PowerApps.com allows building and training a model and using Azure Machine Learning and Cognitive services
Security and Administration
- Manage security at the Power Platform admin centre to manage environments, policies, data integrations, licenses, and quotas
- Power Automate also offers PowerShell cmdlets
- Power Automate has flows to help manage itself like a scheduled job to discover all flows and apps daily and add co-owners
Driving Value
- Users can only use flows to do things they already have access to
- Automation can be driven from the business instead of IT

Customer Case Study - TruGreen

They build a new AI enabled virtual agent bot without writing code and used Power Virtual Agents to do routine customer requests and take action on customer intent. It allowed interactions with back-end data using Power Automate.
For systems without APIs, they used desktop flows to mimic onscreen actions that customer service did via robotic process automation (RPA).
See more at Microsoft Customer Stories

Power Automate in Action

Video demonstration for different types of flows:

Start with a template flow, browse or search
Read about flow, connectors
Reuse an existing form, start an approval, and design conditional responses
Choose additional actions
Example flow triggers: schedule, pressing a button, on a certain trigger

Getting Started with Power Automate 2024-02-07

My notes from OPS Hackathon 2024 session with Sravani Seethi, Microsoft Cloud Solution Architect

Content includes info from Microsoft Power Platform Virtual Training Day - Automate Business Processes - Microsoft Power Platform Virtual Training Day - Automate Business Processes

All Power Platform (PP) tools can work together
Copilot AI authoring assistant available in all PP tools
Power Automate - built on Azure logic apps

Demo

Build FLow
- Access https://make.powerautomate.com/
- Use environment where your items are built
- Pinned all visible items
- Create from trigger type or desktop flow
- Search templates for type of flow you are building
- Link to solutions across PP
- Build cloud flow
  - Build on inventory management app, model driven app with a Dataverse table
  - Canvas app with gallery of items
    - Can submit new requests
  - Using a SharePoint list with approvers, and a flow to allow approvers to approve items
- Create instant flow, triggers can be changed later
- Add inputs:
  - itemID
  - itemType
- Add operation
- Save and reopen to edit in “New Designer”
- Add an action, approver
  - Search SharePoint and choose “Get items”
  - Choose site and list name
  - Filter query using inputs, using ODATA filter
    - Title eq "itemType"
- Add an action, approval
  - Start and wait for an approval
  - Choose “Approve or reject” option
  - For approver, get from previous step’s approver data
- Add condition
  - If response is equal to approve - update Dataverse row
    - Use Dataverse connector
    - Use itemID in input
    - Update approval status to “Approved”
- Replace manual trigger with PowerApps(V2) trigger
- Add inputs:
  - itemID
  - itemType
- In Canvas app, add a button to trigger flow
  - On submit button, on select, add “Power Automate” flow, add the flow we created
Test flow
- Use “Test” button
- Input itemID and itemType
- Approval can be email or in Teams
- View approvals in Power Automate portal