Streamline Your Workflows with Microsoft Power Automate

Power Automate is a powerful tool developed by Microsoft that revolutionises the way organisations handle repetitive tasks and streamline workflows. But what exactly is Power Automate, and how does it fit into the broader spectrum of business automation? Let’s break it down and see how it can make a difference.

What is Power Automate?

Power Automate is a cloud-based service that enables individuals and organisations to create automated workflows across their favourite applications and services. Formerly known as Microsoft Flow, Power Automate is part of the Microsoft Power Platform, which also includes Power BI, Power Apps, and Power Virtual Agents. Its primary purpose is to simplify and automate repetitive tasks, allowing users to focus on more strategic and value-added activities.

Key Features of Power Automate

1. Workflow Automation: At its core, Power Automate allows users to design workflows that can automate tasks across various applications and services. Whether it’s syncing files, sending notifications, or collecting data, Power Automate can handle it all with ease
2. Pre-Built Templates: For those new to automation or seeking quick implementations, Power Automate offers a vast library of pre-built templates. These templates cover a wide range of scenarios, from simple notifications to complex multi-step processes, making it easier to get started without building from scratch.
3. Integration Capabilities: Power Automate seamlessly integrates with over 300 data sources and services, including Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, SharePoint, SQL, Salesforce, Dropbox, and more. This extensive integration ensures that users can connect disparate systems effortlessly.
4. AI and Cognitive Services: Leveraging artificial intelligence, Power Automate can incorporate advanced functionalities like text recognition, sentiment analysis, and data extraction, enhancing the automation capabilities beyond simple task execution.
5. User-Friendly Interface: Designed with non-developers in mind, Power Automate boasts an intuitive, drag-and-drop interface. This accessibility empowers business users to create and manage their own workflows without relying heavily on IT departments.

Benefits of Using Power Automate

• Increased Productivity: By automating mundane and repetitive tasks, employees can allocate more time to strategic initiatives, boosting overall productivity.
• Cost Efficiency: Automation reduces the need for manual intervention, which can lead to significant cost savings, especially in large organisations with high volumes of routine tasks.
• Enhanced Accuracy: Automating processes minimizes the risk of human errors, ensuring that tasks are executed consistently and accurately every time.
• Improved Collaboration: Power Automate facilitates better collaboration by connecting different departments and systems, ensuring seamless data flow and communication across the organization.
• Scalability: As businesses grow, so do their processes. Power Automate is designed to scale with your organization, handling increasing volumes and complexities without compromising performance.

Insights into Microsoft Power Automate: Performance, ROI, and Industry Impact

Microsoft Power Automate is a key component of the Microsoft Power Platform, providing robust tools for automating workflows and processes across various applications and services. Here are some important statistics and insights about its performance, rank, ROI, and usage:

Gartner Ranking

Microsoft Power Automate is highly regarded in the industry and is ranked as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in 2024. This recognition underscores its strong market presence and capabilities in the low-code automation space.

Return on Investment (ROI)

A Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) study highlights that organisations using Microsoft Power Platform, which includes Power Automate, have experienced an average ROI of 502%. This impressive figure is attributed to substantial cost savings and efficiency gains, including a 48% reduction in application development costs and a 5% annual increase in efficiency.

Usage and Adoption

Power Automate’s adoption is driven by its ability to significantly streamline operations and reduce costs.

Key benefits include:

• Development Time Reduction: The development timelines have been accelerated by 35% by organizations, making it possible to deploy solutions faster with fewer resources​(Microsoft).
• Cost Savings: The cost savings have been reported by companies to be up to 80% on tech stack expenses and substantial savings on external development costs. For instance, G&J Pepsi-Cola Bottlers achieved over $1.5 million in savings by using Power Automate to streamline their processes.
• Efficiency and Productivity: Power Automate has helped organizations complete tasks 25% faster and automate complex workflows, leading to significant time savings and increased productivity across various departments​(Microsoft)​(Resonate UCC | The Collaboration Experts).

Impact on Business Processes

• Revenue Growth: Businesses have seen up to a 7% increase in revenue attributable to the use of Microsoft Power Platform, as it enables rapid development and iteration of solutions to better meet customer needs​
• Operational Improvements: By automating workflows and integrating various tools within the Microsoft ecosystem, companies have improved decision-making and reduced manual errors, contributing to overall business efficiency and sustainability​

How Does Power Automate Work?

At its essence, Power Automate operates by setting up triggers and actions. A trigger is an event that initiates the workflow, such as receiving an email or a new entry in a database or new document added to your SharePoint library. Once the trigger is activated, Power Automate performs a series of predefined actions, like sending a notification, updating a record, or generating a report. Also, you can schedule your flow to run on a specific time in a repetitive way, or you can simply run it manually.

• Power Automate in the Microsoft Ecosystem

Being a part of the Microsoft Power Platform, Power Automate seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft services like Power BI for analytics, Power Apps for building custom applications, and Microsoft Teams for enhanced collaboration. This integration creates a cohesive environment where data and processes flow effortlessly between tools, fostering a unified approach to business automation.

Moreover, Power Automate supports both cloud-based and on-premises data sources, offering flexibility to organizations with diverse infrastructure setups. Whether you’re leveraging Microsoft 365 applications or third-party services, Power Automate bridges the gap, ensuring comprehensive automation across your entire digital ecosystem.

Use Case: Securing SharePoint Folders

As a Nintex premium partner, AMO Consultancy provides automated solutions using Power platforms, either as part of a broader solution or as a complete offering.

In this section, we will showcase a process we developed with Nintex Automation (K2 Five) on-prem, integrated with SharePoint O365 as the document management system. This Power Automate flow monitors a SharePoint document library and automatically triggers whenever a new folder is created.

For each root folder, we should have 3 SharePoint groups of 3 different levels of permissions (Read only, Read and Write, and Full Access) associated with it. The flow will first check if these SharePoint groups exist.

If they don’t exist, the flow will create them by calling a SharePoint HTTP Request with the following parameters:

• Site Address: your_SharePoint_site_URL/sites/subsite_name
• Method: POST
• URI: _api/web/siteGroups
• Body:

{
“__metadata”: {
“type”: “SP.Group”
},
“Title”: ‘Your_Group_Name’,
“Description”: ‘Your_Group_Description’
}

Next, we’ll associate the newly created SharePoint group with the current folder. This is accomplished by retrieving the SharePoint Group ID and the corresponding permission level ID (Read, Edit, Full Access, etc.) using SharePoint HTTP requests.

Configure the action as follows to get the group details:

• Site Address: your_SharePoint_site_URL/sites/subsite_name
• Method: GET
• URI: _ _api/web/sitegroups/getbyname(‘Your_Group_Name’)

To get the role Definition ID, we will configure the action as follows:

• Site Address: your_SharePoint_site_URL/sites/subsite_name
• Method: GET
• URI: _ _api/web/roleDefinitions/getByName(‘Your_Permission_Level’)

Then, we have to break the role inheritance on folder level to be able to associate new groups to this folder. We will do that also using the Send HTTP Request to Sharepoint action.

• Site Address: your_SharePoint_site_URL/sites/subsite_name
• Method: GET
• URI: _api/web/GetFolderByServerRelativeUrl(‘Your_Folder_Full_Path’)/ListItemAllFields/breakroleinheritance(copyRoleAssignments=true, clearSubscopes=false)

Finally, we will associate our group to the created folder using the same action as previously.

• Site Address: your_SharePoint_site_URL/sites/subsite_name
• Method: POST
• URI: _api/web/GetFolderByServerRelativeUrl(‘Your_Folder_Full_Path’)/ListItemAllFields/ roleassignments/addroleassignment(principalid=Your_Group_ID,roleDefId=Your_Role_ID)

After flow completion, the result will be as shown as follows:

Key Takeaways on the impact of Microsoft Power Automate

Microsoft Power Automate stands out as a powerful tool for businesses aiming to enhance their automation capabilities and achieve significant cost and time savings. Its high ranking by Gartner, substantial ROI, and widespread adoption demonstrate its value in the modern digital landscape.

At AMO Consultancy, our expertise primarily lies in Nintex Automation K2—a platform we work with extensively to create custom applications tailored to our clients’ unique needs. K2’s capabilities allow for building complex, scalable workflows, which can integrate smoothly with Power Automate to provide comprehensive solutions for diverse automation challenges.

To explore how K2 and Power Automate can transform your operations, connect with our team for insights and real-world success stories.

*References

Resonate UCC | The Collaboration Experts

Microsoft