Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow) is a cloud-based service that automates tasks in the Microsoft Office ecosystem. It helps you create automated workflows between your favorite apps and services. Power Automate works seamlessly with Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook, Excel, SharePoint, Word, and Teams.

It also includes ways to integrate third-party apps and services, such as Gmail, Google Drive, Slack, and more. These integrations will increase productivity, as Power Automate can save time and effort on repetitive tasks.

Understanding the key concepts of Microsoft Power Automate

Before we get started, we need to understand the building blocks that make up the Power Automate platform. If you’re familiar with IFTTT, these components will sound very familiar since the basic concepts are the same.

Going with the flow

In Power Automate, your automations are called Flows. A Flow is like an automated recipe that you design. It’s made up of triggers and actions. A trigger is an event that starts the Flow, like when you get a new email or add a file to OneDrive. Actions are like the steps the Flow takes, like sending an email or updating a spreadsheet.

Power Automate has a bunch of pre-built templates for common tasks. For example, you can find templates to save email attachments directly to OneDrive, notify a team when a new file is uploaded to SharePoint, or sync Excel data with a Microsoft Forms response.

These templates save you time and effort because you don’t have to build a Flow from scratch. But if you don’t find a template that works for you, Power Automate lets you create custom Flows.

Logging into Power Automate

Obviously, you’ll need to set up Power Automate before using it. The service is included as part of your Microsoft 365 license, but you can also subscribe to different tiers of the Power Apps Premium subscription. Let’s get you logged in.

There are two ways you can get to Microsoft Power Automate.

1. You can access it from your Microsoft 365 account. Click the app grid near the top left corner, then type “Power Automate” in the search field. When you see Power Automate, click the icon.
2. You can also get to Power Automate directly at https://make.powerautomate.com. You may need to log into your Microsoft 365 account if you aren’t already signed in.

Creating your first Flow using a template

To get our feet wet in Power Automate, we’ll set up a flow that will automatically save email attachments to your Google Drive account. You can do this with Gmail or Outlook and choose templates to save the attachments to Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive.

1. From the Power Automate home page, click on Templates.
2. In the search box, type attachment and press Enter.
3. Choose the template you want to use, making sure you review what it does, what accounts it uses, and what connections are required.
4. If prompted, sign in to your email and cloud storage accounts so the flow can access your emails and files.
5. Click Create Flow. Some templates allow you to add other conditions, rename actions, or specify specific folders (e.g., only save attachments from a particular sender).
6. Send yourself a test email with an attachment. Power Automate will detect the trigger (a new email) and automatically save the attachment to your chosen cloud storage account.

If you ever want to turn off the flow, click on it from Flows and choose Turn off.

Create a flow from scratch using connectors and actions

If none of the available templates fits your needs, you can create one from scratch using connectors and Actions. You can start from a specific connector, or you can choose one of these types of flows:

Here's how you can start creating your flow from scratch in Power Automate.

1. From the Power Automate home page, click Create.
2. To start from scratch with a certain type of flow, choose the type at the top of the next page under Start from blank.
3. If you'd prefer to create a flow from a connector, scroll to the bottom of the page under the heading Start from a connector.

Here are a few of the available connectors and actions:

More practical scenarios Microsoft Power Automate is helpful for

The list of practical applications for Power Automate is almost limitless. Microsoft and the Power Automate community have created hundreds of templates you can use, and the numerous connectors make it easy to implement automation in workflows for sales, data analysis, scheduling, customer relationship management, and more.

Here are a few examples of what you can use Power Automate for and how to do so.

Automate your document approvals

Automating document approval is a cinch if you use SharePoint to store documents. You can quickly and easily create a flow using the proper connectors that automatically send an approval request to a manager when someone adds a document to a SharePoint library.

You can set up the flow to send the approval request via email or Microsoft Teams, and the manager can quickly approve it. Once approved, you can configure the flow to notify others on the team or move the document to an “Approved” folder.

Sync Microsoft Forms data to an Excel spreadsheet

Microsoft Forms is a great way to collect input from surveys, questionnaires, and feedback forms. With Power Automate, you can set it up so that every new response is automatically saved in an Excel Online worksheet. No more manual data transfers and everything stays consistent. Plus, stakeholders can easily access the latest results whenever they need them.

Setting up an automated flow is relatively easy. Just create a form, connect it to a Power Automate flow, and watch as it sends the intended triggers every time someone fills out the form. The data is saved directly into your chosen Excel spreadsheet, making it easy to analyze, create reports, and share your insights with your team.

Put your Outlook email management on autopilot

Automating email workflows boosts your inbox organization and ensures you never miss a crucial message. Setting up rules to send specific emails to specific folders can streamline your processes and reduce clutter. This way, you won’t miss essential communications amidst all the spam and low-priority messages.

You can also create an automated summary email that collects all the key updates and sends them to a group of people. This automated digest is like a central hub, keeping your team informed without them having to dig through individual emails. By using these automated processes, you can boost productivity, optimize communication, and stay focused on the most important things.

Automate all of those calendar events and reminders

Integrating SharePoint lists with your calendar tools can significantly improve your team’s collaboration and task management. Whenever a new task or item is added to the list, your flow automatically creates a corresponding Outlook calendar event or Microsoft To Do reminder. This proactive approach ensures that deadlines and critical milestones are never missed.

Power Automate makes the setup process a breeze. Set up a flow that triggers automatically whenever a new list entry appears, and let the process handle the rest. This automated approach saves you time and reduces manual data entry, keeping your team productive, organized, and ready for any challenges that come your way.

Connecting your favorite Office tools to external services

Power Automate takes the features you already appreciate about Office applications and dramatically improves upon them. It connects with many other platforms, such as Salesforce, Twitter, Trello, and DocuSign. This allows you to easily share data between all your different systems without having to do it manually. For example, if you fill out a Microsoft Form, the data can go straight to Salesforce, making your sales process smoother.

Power Automate also helps you stay connected and informed. You can receive social media notifications in your Microsoft Teams to avoid missing anything important. Integrating Office with external services can boost your productivity, make things more visible, and help you get more done.

Monitoring and managing your Power Automate flows

Of course, no tool can ever work flawlessly, but Power Automate has several features that help you monitor your flows to make sure they’re doing what you expect.

Monitoring your flow run history

Once your flow is up and running, you'll have the ability to monitor how it’s doing. Power Automate has a great way to trace what happened with each run, so you can ensure everything went smoothly or find any problems. This way, you can make sure your automations are working exactly how you want them to.

Looking at the run history also makes it easy to fix any issues. Looking at each run, you can see exactly what went wrong and how long it took. This information can help you change your automations so they work better and faster.

Managing errors and failures when they arise

Even well-designed processes can hit snags. Power Automate has your back with error-handling tools like try-catch logic with parallel branches. You can use the built-in Flow Checker to access these tools. By isolating the trouble spots, you keep disruptions to a minimum and your automation processes running smoothly. You can also use some extra settings, like retries, delays, and timeouts. These help you deal with temporary issues and ensure your flows keep working.

For posterity’s sake, version control and documentation (premium only)

It is extremely important to keep track of changes to your automation, especially when things change. Power Automate has a feature that lets you save and manage different versions of your flow without impacting what you’ve already done. If something unexpected happens, you can easily return to a previous version to avoid losing any progress.

Another great thing about Power Automate is that you can add comments to each action. This clarifies what each step is supposed to do and helps your team understand why you’ve set things up the way you have. It’s also really easy to update the flow in the future because everyone knows what’s going on.

Making the most of Microsoft Power Automate

Power Automate is like a virtual assistant that helps you automate tasks in Microsoft Office. It’s all about identifying those pesky repetitive actions in your life, and creating workflows that connect different Office 365 applications and other services. You can customize triggers and actions, test your solutions, and improve them over time. With all the connectors, templates, and other excellent features available, Power Automate can seriously boost your productivity and reduce manual work.