Microsoft Power Platform Virtual Training Day - Automate Business Processes

Source: My notes from Microsoft session led by Janhavi Anturkar

Introduction to Power Automate and Flows - Module 1

Power Platform Automate is an online platform for automation of business processes using:

Friendly user interface (UI), API, and artificial intelligence automation
Power Automate Flows - access at https://make.powerautomate.com/
- Built on Azure logic apps platforms
- Use connectors to data sources and platforms, triggers, actions
- Start with templates
- High availability
- Can be shared

Example Use Cases

Deal with emails, receive notifications
Tasks management
Copy email attachments to OneDrive
Collect business data and share with others
Approval workflows

Where to create and administer flows?

UI in browser, mobile friendly
AI Builder - everything inside in Power Automate, no additional Azure services needed
- Built on Azure Cognitive services
- Can build AI parts to include in flows

Making Flows

Flows
1. Types
  - Cloud
    - Good for automated, scheduled, process automation
    - Build on website
  - Desktop
    - Automation of tasks on desktop, like recorded flows, robotic process automation
    - Good for legacy applications, desktop only services without APIs
    - Build using Power Automate Desktop application
  - Business process
    - Good for case management, staged processes
    - Guide for people to get work done flowing a business process
  Flows can be build on web, desktop, mobile app, and in Teams.
2. Components
  - Trigger - When to start a flow? event that starts the flow
    - Automated - when something happens
    - Schedule - always on a certain regular time
    - Instant
    - Notifications
    - Approvals
    - Mobile
  - Actions - 1 or more steps that are run
  - Connectors - connect cloud flows to apps, services, data
    - Standard - ex. Office365 licensed, SharePoint
    - Premium - expanded set like Dataverse, SQL, Azure services
    - Custom - good for APIs, other data sources
Desktop Interface

Install with: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/install
- Drag and drop steps
Web Interface

Access https://make.powerautomate.com/
- Action items for you
- Create flows, for example from templates
- Connectors - Manage connectors, find new ones
- Data - data sources
- Other options
  - AI Builder
  - Learning

Demo: Create flow from Template

Access https://make.powerautomate.com/ on web on desktop
Make a save office 365 email attachments to OneDrive flow
Reuse template: “save Office 365 email attachments to specified OneDrive for Business folder”
In the flow template, it shows required connections you have to enable like email and OneDrive
Modify template, can add your name to the “To list” so only on emails to you
See template saves files to OneDrive under default folder email attachments from Power Automate
Can check flow using Flow Checker and Test functionality in UI
Test by sending an email to yourself with an attachment
Check flow status under “My flows” to see if steps ran and they did

Create from Mobile
- Install Power Automated app on Android
- Use button flow
- Create a flow “Send myself a reminder in 10 minutes”
- Manually trigger flow, time delay, send push notification
- Can invite others to own flow and share
- Can see flows and history

Dynamic Content in Power Automate

Creating flows from scratch

Example, when a record is created in data source, send an email based on record content added
For this example, create the flow from a template “get a push notification when you get an email…”
In flow, change email to field to you
Note in get manager task in flow uses get your profile and gets your manager based on your user principal name
Condition to check email gets email from the original email, your manager and compares them
- Yes: you get a push notification
- No: do nothing

Expressions in Power Automate

May need to evaluate, calculate using the data (dynamic content) in the flow. Use with open Dynamic Content menu and then select Expression

Demo: Manually Trigger a Flow
- Create new flow on manual trigger
- Add inputs:
  - Square Footage: Number
  - Cost: Number
- Add “compose” data operation, called “Compose”
  - For inputs, use Expression: multiply with the dynamic content, square footage and cost: mul(triggerBody()?['SquareFootage'], triggerBody()?['Cost'])
- Add “compose” data operation, called “Compose 2”
  - As input, use output from earlier compose operation
  - As output, use format number: formatNumber(outputs('Compose'), 'C2')
    - C2 = currency format
- Save and test where you enter 2 inputs and get a formatted currency result

Introduction to Business Process Flows - Module 2

Guides users in stages of process to a completion
- Can be customized
- Requires Power Apps Dynamics 365 or Power Apps license to get access to business process flows
Integrated with Dataverse to securely store and manage business data
- Set of tables with rows and columns
- Standard tables and custom tables
Defining business process flows:
- A guide
  - Visual
  - Help your users
  - No time limit
- Stages and steps
- Stage gating
  - Requirements in each stage
- Conditional branching
- Include multiple tables
  - Dataverse has built in flows, but restricted to Dataverse and no other data sources
- Switch any time
  - Can use other processes at same time
- Built for roles
  - Example, other certain roles can use or see process steps
Licensing: requires Power Apps Dynamics 365 or Power Apps licenses

When to Use Business Process Flows

Differences from Business Process Flows and Power Automate Flows

Business Processes	Power Automate
Visual Guide	No visual guide
Dataverse only	Not restricted to Dataverse
No time limit	Steps based on data and user interaction
Standardized, logical branching	Complex logic, call other flows

Benefits of Business Process Flows
- Consistent stage and work steps
- Data collection and reporting
- Better time and results due to standardization, guidance

Why Use Each Flow

Business Process Flow
- Automated business processes with Dataverse
- Need a visual guide
- Want to use out of box business process flows
- Have Dynamics 365 license and use Dataverse and Dynamics 365
Power Automate Flow
- Need scheduled or triggered flows
- Need trigger or flow outside of Dataverse or other connectors
- Need push notifications outside of Outlook like SMS and other connectors
- Only have an Office 365 license and want to use flows

Demo: Creating Business Process Flows

Access https://make.powerautomate.com/ on web on desktop
Under My Flows, select business process flows
Create a new business process flow with name and Dataverse tables
Stages
- Add 1st stage in flow called Customer Check In
- Name of stage
- Dataverse table and fields
Add data steps in stage
- Select data fields
- Keep adding data steps for inputs
Start flow, enter data
Check data entered in Dataverse
Add a 2nd stage - Automobile Make
- Add fields in Dataverse to Customer Check in table
- Add data steps in stage for inputs to those new fields
- Save process flow and refresh page to pick up new Dataverse fields
- Associate data steps to new fields
Add condition after 2nd stage - Manufacture Year Prior to 1971
- Add condition to check if Automobile Year field is greater than 1971
Add two new stages depending on condition evaluation of yes and no
- Yes - Stage: Post 1971 check
  - Add data steps to check certain car components are intact
  - Add following stage: Collect Payment
    - Add data steps to collect cost and payment method
- No - Stage: Pre 1971 check
  - Add data steps to check certain car components

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Builder - Module 3

Analyze text for classification, key phrases, language, and sentiment
Prediction using data
Get business card info
Process text from images
Read and save info from documents

Benefits:

No Azure subscription needed or data science skills required
Friendly point and click UI
Create custom AI model in Power Apps and Power Automate
- Category classification
- Entity extraction
- Form processing
- Object detection
- Prediction
- Other prebuilt models to read - prebuilt models can be used right away:
  - Business card
  - Language
  - Invoice, receipt processing
  - Sentiment

Use Cases

Documents processing
Natural language processing
Image processes

Demo: Create an AI Model

Access https://make.powerautomate.com/
Create a model to detect green tea bags and their type
Using object detection premium AI model as base
- Select “Common objects”
- Other possible selections are items on retail shelves and logos, but not suitable for this model
Create each object names - the green tea flavours
Upload the necessary images needed for model training and set the entities for each image
The tagging and training will take a long time
Assuming the model is ready, you can view the model and test it for image detection
Publish the model for use in Power Automate or Power Apps

Demo: Using AI Builder with Power Automate

In https://make.powerautomate.com/, select the published model
Use template “Click a button to recognize and count objects in images using AI Builder”
Note it has an image as input and uses the model to detect objects
Test the flow and see the result with the detected objects and their count and confidence

Automate Processes with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Power Desktop Automate Recording - Module 4

Build desktop flows to replace repetitive tasks with benefits for increasing productivity and more engaging work environment
Can use anything on a desktop
Steps:
- Learn Power Automate Desktop flows
- Create a new desktop flow
- Record actions performed in desktop based application
- Perform a test run

Requirements

Need access to make changes in environments in your tenant and RPA license
- Free trials are available

Set up an Environment
- Set up an environment in Power Platform admin center
- Add a database to the environment
- Install Power Automate Desktop on your computer - under My flows - install button
- Install an extension on your preferred browser and run it

Demo: Create a Power Automate Desktop Flow

Access the Power Automate Desktop app
Create a new flow
Note interface of the flow - actions, designer, variables, data capture
Add actions:
- Run application
- Click on desktop recorder, start recording
- Make sure application is open
- Do things in application like navigation, clicks, text input
- End recording
- Go back into designer to see auto generated steps
  - You can edit the recorded steps like text input

Define Input and Output Parameters
- In variables, add input variables “Amount”, “Contact Email”, “Account”
- In the auto generated steps from before, set up inputs in the relevant steps
- Add output variable “InvoiceID”
- Add step “Get details of UI element”, using tracker, select the element to read

Optimize Business Process with Process Advisor

Goal is improve efficiency
Process advisor maps a process and begins automation to help simplify business processes and improves efficiency
- You need access and license and must see “Process Advisor” in the Power Automate menu, otherwise contact your admin

Demo: Using Process Advisor
- Access https://make.powerautomate.com/
- Use Process advisor menu item
- Create a new process
  - Add a recording, using Power Automate Desktop
  - Record the business process you go through
- View the process that was just recorded on the Process Advisor page
- Wait for it to be processed
- Add activities using “Add activity” that describe steps of the process
- Note each step has a screenshot, the screenshot can be deleted if needed without impacting the automation
- Save the process, wait for it to be ready to analyzed, when ready, click “Analyze” in the process advisor
- See the analysis of the process using “Analytics”, shows:
  - Steps and how long they take
  - Variations and information across different recordings
  - Data can be filtered by variation
  - Data like application(s) used, time spent in applications
  - Advisor will make recommendations