Another innovative tool in the Microsoft Power Platform suite is Power Automate. Connecting your business solutions, data and people is a vital to helping everyone in your business free up time for value-added tasks. This is where Power Automate (formerly called Microsoft Flow) is priceless. You can create workflows with native integration across the entire Microsoft stack. Power Automate also offers capabilities to build custom connectors for the diversity of apps and services your business uses.
What is Power Automate?
Power Automate can be used for anything from creating simple connections – for example, sending a single type of information from one source to another – to fully automating entire business processes from start to finish. It empowers both end-users and professional developers to automate and integrate more effectively, in less time, at a lower cost. Connect all your different solutions and services so they talk to each other and automate tasks that move through multiple platforms. It is much simpler to create workflows between apps and services than ever before.
Access hundreds of pre-built templates and connectors
Power Automate offers hundreds of options for pre-built connectors that will share data between different services and applications. These connectors can be used as the foundation for users to rapidly build event-based workflows. Additionally, there are thousands of pre-built templates for complete workflows. Examples of templates include “Send an e-mail to any audience when a Power BI data alert is triggered” and “Sync new OneDrive Files to Google Drive Files.”
Easily customize workflows
If the workflow you want to create isn’t already available as a template, you can build your own pretty easily using a simple guided interface. Connect to online services and apps, or use a data gateway to connect to on-premise data sources, and build data connections and multi-step workflows.
Eliminate redundant tasks with robotic process automation
Automate repetitive tasks to reduce mistakes, save on resources, and free your employees to focus on more important things. For those apps with no available API to allow the use of connectors, UI flows can automate repetitive manual tasks by recording and replaying user interface actions.
How Power Automate works with Power Platform apps
Power Automate seamlessly connects functionality created in other Power Platform tools. Use Power Automate to push data from a custom-built app made with Power Apps to a dashboard in Power BI. Power Automate can also work closely with Power Virtual Agents to automate your chatbots.
As an example of how these tools work together, a business could use Power Automate combined with a custom-built returns tracking app which allows workers to take photos and log information about return items. With Power Automate, the information from the returns could automatically initiate an appropriate response process. Meanwhile, Power BI could be used to track trends in return items over time. Power Platform utilizes a common data model, making it easy to connect and share all your data across all your applications.
Want to learn more about Microsoft Power Platform?
Microsoft Power Platform is a set of tools that build on each other to democratize the creation of business solutions. The four apps within Power Platform make it possible for end users to build complete business solutions using guided interfaces and little to no coding.
Western Computer is committed to helping businesses like yours thrive with innovative technologies like Power Platform. Contact us today to speak with an expert about your business needs and the solutions and services we offer.
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