I recently took Microsoft Power Automate for a test drive. The introductory group video I watched was full of useful ways to automate everyday tasks. It’s simple to create a mobile notification when you receive an important message because you can select from hundreds of scenarios and set it up in a few clicks. If you want to do something more complex how about automatically adding an email request for more information to Dynamics 365, Salesforce or even a spreadsheet. Power Automate could record registrants for an event you are hosting into a guest list, automatically forward a registration package and alert the organizer. The possibilities are endless.

Plays Nice With Others

Power Automate works with One Drive, Teams, SharePoint, Dynamics and a host of other services like DropBox and more. I successfully created a simple app, in under ten minutes. There was no coding required. I just had to download the Power Automate app on my phone. You create Apps from a template. There are thousands of templates that do basic things like sending a notification and ones that can do much more like add a name to a shared list, update a spreadsheet or send a notification.

Do you frequently save email attachments to OneDrive? You can do that with Power Automate. This is just one of the ways you can automate everyday tasks. These time saving tasks are easy to accomplish. There are hundreds of pre-built apps. After you pick a template it verifies access and displays an interactive diagram allowing you to add, change or remove steps. There is a dashboard where you can see every time the app runs. Power automate community members can share their apps.

Remote Work Is Here to Stay

The remote work revolution has pushed us to learn technology to collaborate with co-workers, share information and meet with customers. Face to face meetings and paper are not suitable. We need software that works the way we do now. Software that bridges the gap between legacy systems and desktop apps. Tools that are easy to learn and use.

Empower the People

The demand for coders will continue to increase and that demand will far outstrip talent. According to Gartner, the demand for low-code is enormous, giving rise to the need for “Citizen Developers”. Microsoft believes the answer is to empower everyday people by building extraordinary tools. Microsoft’s answer is the power platform, applications like Teams, Dynamics, Microsoft 365, Power Apps and Power BI that work together and play well with your favorite apps. Microsoft has built connectors for services like DropBox, Google Drive and more. Companies that have legacy apps can focus their resources on create connectors for mainframe apps. Using Power Automate non-programmers now have the power to flow the data into their app of choice.

For more information or to book an appointment contact me.