Tag Archive for: Flow

Power Automate Explained: Benefits, Examples and License Requirements

Power Automate is a powerful tool that allows users to automate various processes and tasks within their organization. This can help to save time, increase efficiency, and reduce the risk of errors. Some of the key benefits of using Power Automate include the following:

  1. Increased productivity: By automating routine and repetitive tasks, Power Automate can help to free up time for more important and value-added activities. For example, instead of spending time manually entering data into a spreadsheet, Power Automate can be used to automatically transfer data from one system to another, eliminating the need for manual intervention.
  2. Improved accuracy: Automating tasks can help to reduce the risk of errors, as there is no longer a need for manual data entry or other manual processes. This can help to ensure that the data is accurate and consistent, which is important for making informed decisions.
  3. Better collaboration: Power Automate can be used to automate the sharing of information and documents within an organization, making it easier for teams to work together and collaborate. This can help to improve communication and coordination, leading to better outcomes.
  4. Greater flexibility: Power Automate allows users to create custom automated processes that can be easily tailored to their specific needs and requirements. This means that users can design and implement processes that are tailored to their specific business needs, making it easier to adapt to changing circumstances.

Example Use Cases

Some examples of how Power Automate can be used to benefit an organization include the following:

  1. Automating the onboarding process for new employees: Instead of manually collecting and entering information about new hires, Power Automate can be used to automate the process. This can involve sending emails to new employees, updating HR systems with their information, and assigning tasks to the appropriate team members.
  2. Automating the generation of reports: Instead of manually collecting data and creating reports, Power Automate can be used to automatically generate reports on a regular basis. This can involve pulling data from multiple sources, applying any necessary calculations, and formatting the report in the desired format.
  3. Automating the process of sending out marketing emails: Marketing teams can use Power Automate to automate the process of sending out newsletters, promotional emails, and other marketing communications. This can save time and effort, allowing the team to focus on other tasks.
  4. Automating the process of reconciling accounts: Financial teams can use Power Automate to automate the process of reconciling their company’s accounts. This can improve accuracy and reduce the risk of errors, ensuring that the financial data is always up-to-date and accurate.
  5. Automating the process of sending out project updates: Project managers can use Power Automate to automatically send out updates to team members when a project is updated. This can improve collaboration and communication within the team, ensuring that everyone is always up-to-date on the latest project developments.
  6. Automating the process of backing up important data: IT teams can use Power Automate to automate the process of backing up important data. This can ensure that the data is always protected and easily accessible, reducing the risk of data loss in the event of a disaster.
  7. Automating the process of scheduling meetings and appointments: Administrative staff can use Power Automate to automate the process of scheduling meetings and appointments. This can save time and effort, allowing them to focus on other tasks.

License Requirements

To use Power Automate, you must have a valid license. There are different types of licenses available for Power Automate, each of which provides access to different features and capabilities. The specific license you need will depend on your specific needs and how you plan to use the service.

One common license for Power Automate is the Microsoft 365 Business Premium license. This license includes access to Power Automate, as well as other Microsoft products and services such as Office 365, Exchange Online, and SharePoint Online. The Microsoft 365 Business Premium license is suitable for small and medium-sized businesses that want to automate their processes and improve productivity.

Another common license for Power Automate is the Microsoft 365 Business Standard license. This license includes access to Power Automate, as well as other Microsoft products and services such as Office 365 and Exchange Online. The Microsoft 365 Business Standard license is suitable for small and medium-sized businesses that want to automate their processes and improve productivity, but do not need all of the features and capabilities included in the Business Premium license.

Finally, the Microsoft 365 E1 license is another option for Power Automate users. This license includes access to Power Automate, as well as other Microsoft products and services such as Office 365, Exchange Online, and Skype for Business. The Microsoft 365 E1 license is suitable for organizations that want to automate their processes and improve productivity, but do not need all of the features and capabilities included in the Business Premium or Business Standard licenses

In conclusion, Power Automate is a valuable tool for organizations looking to save time, improve productivity, and work more efficiently and effectively. By automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks, it can help teams to focus on more important tasks, improving overall organizational performance.

How can we help?

A Microsoft Partner Such as AccessOrange can help with the development of Power Automate flows in a number of ways.

For example, a we can assist with the design and implementation of Power Automate flows by providing guidance on best practices and offering expertise in specific areas such as data integration, business process automation, and user experience design.

In addition, we can help with the deployment and management of Power Automate flows, including setting up the necessary infrastructure, integrating with other systems, and providing ongoing support and maintenance.

Overall, working with a Microsoft partner such as AccessOrange can help organizations to maximize the value of Power Automate by leveraging the partner’s expertise and experience in implementing and managing these types of solutions.

For more information, contact us at [email protected] or chat with us on our website.

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How to use Power Automate to create recurring tasks in Planner

Microsoft Power Automate (earlier known as Microsoft Flow) allows you to automate repetitive manual tasks and paper processes via an easy to use drag-and-drop wizard.

Microsoft Power Automate can create workflows to sync data across apps and software, generate real-time notifications to alert stakeholders, update databases with new information and collect data from Power Apps or other data sources.

In this example we will teach you how to use Power Automate to create recurring tasks in Microsoft Planner.

For this example we imagine that we want to remind our finance department to check and send out a monthly invoice to the customer.

Step 1: Create new Power Automate Flow

Go to https://make.powerautomate.com/ and click on “Create”, and select “Scheduled Cloud Flow”

Step 2: Enter Flow Name and Set Schedule

Give the flow a name, and enter the schedule. In our example we want to have a monthly reminder, so we set the repeat time to every 1 month.

Now we can see the Flow editor screen, with our monthly recurring task as starting point. We click on new step:

Step 3: Create New Task in Planner

We find Planner and select “Create a Task”

After that we select which Planner Plan the task need to be created, and we fill in the information that we want to show in the planner task.

In our example we want to enter some dynamic fields, for the Start Date, Due Date and also to show a dynamic date and time in the Title.

For the Start Date we want today’s date, so we will have to fill in a Dynamic Expression:

Expression:

utcNow()

For the Due Date, we want to set it 15 days from today, hence we fill use the expression adddays() to add 15 days from today (utcnow()):

For the Title we also want to add the Due date, hence we will add the adddays function as well there:

Expression 1:

formatDateTime(adddays(utcnow(),-15),'MM')

Expression 2:

formatDateTime(utcNow(),'yyyy')

Important: For Assigned User Id’s, fill in the email addresses of the users that you want to assign the task to.

Step 4: Update Planner Task Details

Now we have created the main task, we can also update or add more details under the planner task details. For this we add one more flow called “Update task details””.

In this task, we need to refer to our original planner task ID.

 

And after that we can add some more information. In our case we add a link to the billing sheet we want the finance department to use, which is an Excel file. But you Can also add a checklist here.

That’s it! Now our Flow is ready. We can save it, enable it and test it out. If everything runs smooth, your task will now appear in Microsoft Planner every month.

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