Workflow Automation with Microsoft Power Automate

THIRD EDITION ALERT!

Power Automate has evolved since this edition was published. A newer edition is available with updated coverage of Copilot, AI, and modern automation capabilities.

Key Features

• Learn the latest in Power Automate with updated user interface visuals and new technology included
• Apply practical knowledge like managing user inputs, documents, approvals, and database storage
• Create flows that integrate with services both inside and outside the Microsoft 365 ecosystem

Book Description

MS Power Automate is a workflow automation tool built into MS 365 to help businesses automate repetitive tasks or trigger business processes without user intervention. It is a low-code tool that is part of the Microsoft applications framework, the Power Platform.

If you are new to Power Automate, this book will give you a comprehensive introduction and a smooth transition from beginner to advanced topics to help you get up to speed with business process automation. Complete with hands-on tutorials and projects, this easy-to-follow guide will show you how to configure automation workflows for business processes between hundreds of applications, using examples within Microsoft and including third-party apps like Dropbox and Twitter. Once you understand how to use connectors, triggers, and actions to automate business processes, you’ll learn how to manage user input, documents, and approvals, as well as interact with databases. This edition also introduces new Power Automate features such as using robotic process automation (RPA) to automate legacy applications, interacting with the Microsoft Graph API, and working with artificial intelligence models to do sentiment analysis.

By the end of this digital transformation book, you’ll have mastered the basics of using Power Automate to replace repetitive tasks with automation technology.

What you will learn

• Learn the basic building blocks of Power Automate capabilities
• Explore connectors in Power Automate to automate email workflows
• Discover how to make a flow for copying files between cloud services
• Configure Power Automate Desktop flows for your business needs
• Build on examples to create complex database and approval flows
• Connect common business applications like Outlook, Forms, and Teams
• Learn the introductory concepts for robotic process automation
• Discover how to use AI sentiment analysis

Who this book is for

This book is excellent for information workers and Power users who are looking to automate repetitive tasks for their organizations or for projects they are undertaking. To make the most of this book you should have some basic exposure to the MS 365 platform.

Table of Contents

1. Introducing Microsoft Power Automate
2. Getting Started with Power Automate
3. Working with Email
4. Copying files
5. Creating Button Flows
6. Generating Push Notifications
7. Working with Shared Flows
8. Working with Conditions
9. Getting Started with Approvals
10. Working with Multiple Approvals
11. Posting Approvals to Teams
12. Using a Database
13. Working with Microsoft Forms
14. Accepting User Input
15. Automating Azure AD
16. Introducing Robotic Process Automation
17. Introducing AI Models
18. Exporting, Importing, and Distributing Flows
19. Monitoring and Troubleshooting Flows

Aaron Guilmette, a Senior Program Manager for Customer Experience (CXP), provides guidance and assistance to customers adopting the Microsoft 365 platform. He primarily focuses on collaborative technologies, including Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange, and Microsoft Teams. He also works with identity and automation solutions.

He has been involved with technology since 1998 and has provided consulting services for customers in the commercial, educational, and government sectors internationally. Aaron has also worked on technical certification exams and instructional design for Microsoft and other organizations.