Skip to main content
TrustRadius
Microsoft Power Automate

Microsoft Power Automate
Formerly Microsoft Flow

Overview

What is Microsoft Power Automate?

Microsoft Power Automate is an advanced automation platform offering a range of features, including AI-powered automation, robotic process automation (RPA), business process automation (BPA), digital process automation (DPA), and process/task mining. The platform aims to empower organizations to securely automate…

Read more
Recent Reviews
Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing

Power Automate Premium

$15

Cloud
per month per user

Power Automate Process

$150

Cloud
per month per bot

Hosted RPA add-on

$215

Cloud
per month per bot

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://powerautomate.microsoft.com/pri…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $15 per month per user
Return to navigation

Product Demos

Power Automate Guided Tour

powerautomate.microsoft.com
Return to navigation

Product Details

What is Microsoft Power Automate?

Microsoft Power Automate is an advanced automation platform offering a range of features, including AI-powered automation, robotic process automation (RPA), business process automation (BPA), digital process automation (DPA), and process/task mining. The platform aims to empower organizations to securely automate their operations at scale by leveraging low-code and AI technologies.

Capabilities

  • (DPA) digital process automation through cloud flows to connect apps, data, and services.

  • Automates repetitive tasks using UI-based automation with (RPA) robotic process automation through desktop flows.

  • Ensures consistency with business process flows—the (BPA) business process automation capability in Power Automate.

  • Process advisor: Power Automate also includes process and task mining capabilities to analyze and optimize workflows.

  • AI Builder: Power Automate uses AI to automate tasks that are repetitive or time-consuming. For example, its AI can automatically extract data from documents, generate reports, or answer customer questions.

  • The "describe it to design it" feature allows users to create flows by simply describing them in natural language, making it faster and easier for users to create flows, to produce flows that are more likely to be used.

  • The Power Automate platform offers a wide range of connectors, so users can more easily integrate existing applications and systems.

Microsoft is now adding two new features to Power Automate:

  • Copilot, an AI-powered assistant that suggests actions, connectors, parameters, and supports flow debugging.

  • "Create text with GPT," an AI-powered action used to generate text for various purposes, including content creation, feedback gathering, and document information extraction.

  • Power Automate Process Mining (launched August 2023) - Optimizes operations and uncovers opportunities for automation.

Microsoft Power Automate Features

  • Supported: (DPA) Digital Process Automation - Cloud Flows
  • Supported: (RPA) Robotic Process Automation - Desktop Flows
  • Supported: (BPA) Business Process Automation - Business Process Flows
  • Supported: AI Builder
  • Supported: Process Mining - Process Advisor
  • Supported: Task Mining - Process Advisor

Microsoft Power Automate Screenshots

Screenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Work Queues, Initial pageScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Signed-in web portal home pageScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Signed-in web portal create pageScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Desktop designerScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Hosted RPAScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Display of DLP violations (on Run)Screenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Cloud flow designerScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - AI Builder homepage

Microsoft Power Automate Videos

Microsoft Power Automate is a cloud-first, comprehensive automation platform powered by low-code and AI with GPT, designed to accelerate development without comprising visibility and control, modernize business processes, and integrate operations at scale. Key features: advanc...
 Show More
Al Builder's new Azure OpenAl service model enables businesses to integrate intelligent text generation capabilities into their Power Automate and Power Apps solutions. With pre-built templates, users can incorporate relevant prompts into their workflow.

Microsoft Power Automate Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Windows Phone
Supported CountriesAsia, Australia, Canada, Europe, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, South America, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States
Supported LanguagesEnglish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, Spanish, Estonian, Basque, Finnish, French, Galician, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Lithuanian, Latvian, Malay, Norwegian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian (Cyrillic script, Serbia), Serbian (Latin script, Serbia), Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional)

Frequently Asked Questions

Microsoft Power Automate is an advanced automation platform offering a range of features, including AI-powered automation, robotic process automation (RPA), business process automation (BPA), digital process automation (DPA), and process/task mining. The platform aims to empower organizations to securely automate their operations at scale by leveraging low-code and AI technologies.

Microsoft Power Automate starts at $15.

UiPath Automation Platform, SS&C Blue Prism Intelligent Automation, and Automation Anywhere are common alternatives for Microsoft Power Automate.

Reviewers rate Usability highest, with a score of 9.

The most common users of Microsoft Power Automate are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

(223)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-15 of 15)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As working within the RPA automation department. The Microsoft Power Automate is one of the RPA tool we use in our project just to reduce the human intervention within the repetitive process giving best solutions to save both time and cost. In our project it have offered us to create many automated workflows within the Office 365 application
  • AI Copilot capabilities in cloud workflows
  • Process mining feature
  • automated workflows with pre designed solutions
  • only applicable with Office 365 license
  • workflows can penetrate through security ,reducing data privacy
  • malicious workflows can be made with automation capabilities
The Microsoft Power Automate platform is well suited in case of creating custom as well as Partial workflows according to the user needs giving the flexibility to have ease in repetitive tasks. One of the disadvantages is that it can bypass security layers easily creating it vulnerable. Plus point - it can be used with the office 365 license only , no additional license needed for creating custom workflows
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Power Automate desktop to automate mostly desktop based applications like Navision, HIKVISION, VSphere for VMWare and much more. We have mostly automated use cases in every sector that is be it Pharma, Finance, IT or HR. Most innovative solution that we provided was in IT automation where we automated their IT based use cases like monitoring, ticketing. Power Automate has a very strong hold on automating desktop based application because of its best in class recorder functionality. It address mainly all business problems right from sending an email to handling complex excel formulas. Easy on deployment and cheap in terms of licenses makes it even more outstanding RPA platform.
  • Excel Automation
  • Desktop and Cloud Based Automation
  • Intelligent Document Extraction
  • SAP Automation
  • Advanced Trigger Options like changes in desktop files
  • Complexity of Expressions : According to my experience Power Automate's UI needs to be more User friendly as it moves more towards an environment which suits developers
  • Versioning and Source Control
Well suited scenarios like :

Automating email-related tasks, such as sending notifications, parsing emails for specific information, or archiving attachments.
Creating automated approval processes for requests such as leave requests, expense reports, or document approvals.
Automating the collection and processing of data from forms, surveys, or other input sources, and storing the results in a centralized location.
Connecting and automating processes between different cloud services like SharePoint, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and third-party application

Less appropriate :

Implementing complex integration scenarios that involve advanced protocols, transformations, or require advanced error handling. Azure Logic Apps, with its broader capabilities, may be a better fit
Handling large-scale batch processing or data migrations. For these scenarios, tools like Azure Data Factory or Azure Logic Apps might be more appropriate
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My team has access to Power Automate through our O365 licences. we caught its potential usages after Microsoft made a presentation of the Power platform.
Since it is a cloud based solution depply linked to office 365, our main usages were first around Word, Excel, Sharepoint and Outlook simple but repetitive tasks automation. we then automated daily paperwork/management workflows.
we then began to use power Automate for some company wide business processes.
  • easy to use workflow solution
  • very efficient integration with all O365 components, especially Word, Outlook, Sharepoint, MS Teams...
  • easily extracts data from a great number of sources ( and can be used as an ETL tool)
  • updates are sometimes not backward compatible and can break existent workflows
  • Power Automate can be tough to learn for people that aren't used to Microsoft/Azure products and UI
  • 3rd party connectors troubleshooting can be confusing
if your company relies on Microsoft Office products, Power Automate helps to set up workflows, approval forms and everyday paperwork custom apps with minimal development charges.
If you use MS Teams collaboration features, power automate makes it easier to bring/process information from various sources to a single place
Data teams can also easily use power automate as an ETL to bring data to PowerBI, regarding the large number of connectors available.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Microsoft Flow to automate internal processes such as material purchase approval flow, document file upload, customer data collection, technical teams communication when new documents are published in the file repository, and recently the integration between our chatbot to support technical and commercial teams, implementing in the bot the sending of emails with attachments and password validation by 2FA. All these automation have been integrated with Office365 products: SharePoint, Microsoft Forms, Outlook 365, Office 365 Users, and Microsoft Teams. Activity flows utilize various integration components such as HTTP webhook, Egnyte, Office 365 user, and groups search. As a result, we reduced the time spent on internal processes, with email exchanges and billing between teams, improved the dissemination of important documents, and expanded the resources and services available to our internal users.
  • Easy to configure and implement the flows.
  • Large catalog of addons and integration components.
  • Ease of working collaboratively.
  • Allows creation of custom flow components.
  • Easy to share and distribute the flows.
  • Depending on your license type, access to different integration components
  • Documentation about some components, functions, and usage syntax needs to be improved.
  • A tool for creating custom connectors.
  • Poor visualization of complex flows with multiple steps and unfolding
For those who use Microsoft and Office 365 products, it is a great orchestrator and Automator of routines, running autonomously to integrate SaaS products, databases, and collaborative tools such as Teams and Sharepoint. Depending on the need, a Premium subscription is necessary, as it enables a series of native or third-party connectors and integration services. Integrations with third-party systems and services require you to have a subscription or license to these services. Microsoft Flow will be much better used in situations involving several teams, or manual processes with many steps, standalone use can automate many routines that should be done using a workstation, even if server components, such as Sharepoint, are required. Possible to create a flow integrating the components of these two environments. However, the workstation flow editor is not for beginners, it is a more complex tool that requires prior knowledge of the functioning of corporate systems and infrastructure and programming logic.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Microsoft Power Automate to create approval processes. Requests are submitted using an MS Form form, the responses are collated in an MS List document and approve/deny requests are sent to decision-makers. In some cases, subsequent approvals are required from different individuals or teams, so I build a second approval process following the first. These usually end with a notification for action via email and/or MS Teams to the responsible team, after a request has been approved by the various levels of approval. Throughout the process, the List document is updated as to the decisions made and the progress of the request through the process, and the original form respondent, ie the requestor, is notified by email/Teams as well.
  • Automates request processes
  • Moves processes from email inboxes to a public document
  • Automates the compilation of a record of all requests
  • The need to constantly refresh connections
  • More third-party software integrations
  • More auto-completing where long flows recycle information
  • Better templates
  • Better help resources, particularly re the more technical details like strings, numbers
  • Support of non-US time zones!!!!
  • Support of non-US date format!!! You're the only country that uses mm/dd/yyyy
Microsoft Power Automate works well for creating a form that then initiates a simple approval mechanism, or adds a task to an MS Planner board. However complicated approval processes, say involving different paths/approvers depending on money amount threshold; In my opinion,it gets very fiddly and time-consuming, and subsequent maintenance or updates become difficult, particularly for someone who is new to this flow (ie not the original creator). Updating email addresses across a long flow is also a very manual process - a replace all function would be useful.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We needed a solution for our payables department to receive invoices from email attachments, going into a one drive folder. Microsoft Power Automate gave me the tools needed to design a product that achieves our end goal in simplifying payables document management. We linked it from our Exchange Online mailbox to our Microsoft OneDrive account.
  • Allows you to create automation and scripts that speed up productivity in the workplace.
  • Shows an overview of the workflow and job history.
  • Has lots of plug-ins with other Microsoft and third party vendors' product's.
  • Would like to see deeper integration with Exchange online, specifically the plugin realizing that an email is being sent via an alias address, not the primary SMTP address. We had to do a workaround that involved creating multiple single-member distribution groups to get power to automate to differentiate different email addresses going to the same mailbox.
  • The interface is slow to load at times.
The integrations for Microsoft products seem robust and reliable. It's well suited for workflows staying inside 365 products, but not as much when it comes to third-party integrations. Microsoft Power Automate also is not suited for IoT due to a lack of integration with those services.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Microsoft Power Automate to streamline various business processes and enhance overall operational efficiency within the organization, both within IT teams and the wider business. It is used primarily for workflow automation as manual processes can often lead to delays and errors in our workflows, especially when dealing with large volumes of data and complex approval processes. Power Automate is used to automate routine tasks such as data entry, approval workflows, and notifications, ensuring seamless and timely processing of tasks. This also frees up our employees to focus on more value-adding activities rather than spending time on routine, low-value tasks such as approvals.
  • Simple approval workflows with mail notifications
  • Seamless integration with other Microsoft products including Forms, Outlook, SharePoint etc. as well as other data sources
  • Automating basic data processing tasks such as validation, transformation, and loading
  • Creating complex conditional statements like nested conditions or intricate logical operations can be challenging due to UI limitations
  • Cannot set breakpoints so debugging flows and understanding errors in the flow logic can sometimes be difficult especially when dealing with large and interconnected workflows
  • Lack of version control features makes collaborative/team flow development difficult. It is often easier for one person/account to create a flow.
Power Automate works well for automating repetitive and routine tasks like data entry, form submissions, approvals etc. One specific example is automatically creating Microsoft Planner tasks for team members based on specific triggers or form submissions. It is also ideal for creating notification systems such as sending email alerts to designated users when specific events occur, such as new customer inquiries or low inventory levels. It is less suited to scenarios where very complex logic needs to be implemented or where processing very large data sets in real-time is required. For these kinds of scenarios we tend to use dedicated programming environments.
Umesh Kataria | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
I use Microsoft Power Automate to automate the repetitive tasks which has low to moderate complexity but high in volume. I basically use Parent child bot methods to run concurrent processes. Business problems in which we have used Power automate are fetching data from the upline environment, processing it and then emailing it to the concerned departments. Another use case was to read content from the different documents (pdf, word) and using it to type into the client’s ERP system. We used Microsoft Power Automate’s AI builder feature to extract the content. In some use cases the ERP connector was not available so we managed to create custom connectors and able to push and pull data from clients proprietary systems.
  • AI Builder for intelligent Automation
  • So many connectors for popular applications to have a seamless data transfer and easy integration
  • Great connectivity and support for Microsoft office 365 applications
  • Extremely easy to use and doesn’t require much technical knowledge
  • Works well only with sequential processes
  • Can’t change permission on SharePoint item without using a third party connector
  • Allows only 250 actions in a single flow
  • Maximum time allowed for a flow to be triggered is just 15 mins
It is well suited for a seamless integrations between apps, whereas it struggles when the workflow becomes complex. It can easily be learned for simpler tasks but require deep regular expressions knowledge for complex tasks. However with the advent of GenAi and AutoPilot in Power platform . Learning curve for these complex regular expressions will reduce greatly. Licensing part is also very confusing. Forms customisation not possible and hence you need Power apps for the same which again increases the license cost.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We are using Microsoft Power Automate to integrate multiple Office 365 applications and other third-party applications. It helped to automate multiple businesses as usual workflows which saved a lot of time for manual work. It does not require any coding skills and is very easy to use. Any kind of scenario could be easily automated with this tool instantly.
  • Integration with Office 365 suite and third-party applications
  • Easy to use and does not require any coding knowledge
  • Any workflow could be easily integrated
  • Customer support sometimes is slow
  • Couple of third party applications are yet to be fully integrated with the tool
  • Mobile application could be optimized more
Microsoft Power Automate is the best tool in the market to integrate any workflow and is well integrated with Microsoft Office 365 suit which makes daily task integration easier. The user interface is very easy to use, and fresh could quickly learn and could start automating any scenarios.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Used Power Automate to create instant flows linked with SharePoint Lists to collect/Modify data and notify users. Flow captured the data and converted it into a pdf file and sent it to relevant users in an email.
1. Power Automate helped us streamline our internal expense approval process.
2. Customer Voice Survey results were collected using Power Automate.
3. PowerBi report's data refreshed using Power Automate to show the most relevant data in the dashboards.
  • Capture/modify data in real time.
  • Notifying the users of any changes in data.
  • Customized response email to customers service request emails.
  • Approval file size limit can be increased. currently 50mb in attachment limit.
  • Ability to recover the flows. Currently if a flow is deleted there is no way to recover it.
  • Converting data from SharePoint into pdf can be done but need to use 3rd party connections.
Well Suited
- Collecting data and organizing it.
- Eliminate a lot of admin work.
- Send auto-response emails to customers/users.
- Notify relevant users when the data is updated.
- Creating business process flows.

Less Appropriate
- If creating a flow to create a pdf file that combines all the attachments into one pdf file.
- Flow will fail sometimes if the flow is too long and complex and if the flow connections are changed from one user to another.
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Power Automate for getting data to where it needs to be. We have some information on premises in different places, as in sharepoint or a SQL database, that need to match up to certain tasks in the 365 cloud. For example, we may have an incident report that could tag different users, send emails, and generate a form that needs to be archived. This requires some information from our SQL DB and our Sharpeoint 365 solution. Then it will store that record back in a datbase on premises. This is where Power Automate comes in handy. It helps get the data where it needs to go each step of the way.
  • Taking employee information, like demographics and contacts, from an on premises DB to the MS 365 Cloud
  • Taking questionnaire information from a form in the cloud and populating an on premises DB
  • Taking badge photos from an on premises database to a back storage device
  • More customizations for taking human resource related information with a lot of time stamps and transferring it to applicable forms. Whether for on boarding or training documents
  • More ways to trigger events and have them use multiple if thens, or different orders of operations.
Power Automate is well suited to move basic pieces of data to items that are of similar type. For example, moving data between two sharepoint lists. It is also well suited for taking local database information and moving it to online cloud forms. It is not as well suited for moving items between sharepoint lists in the cloud. It could also improve by having some more granular triggers for starting the process based on data changes.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
MS Power Automate is a part of the overall o365 suite and is directly available for any of our staff who wishes to use it. It helps us to automate all those repetitive functions over desktop and SharePoint with ease. Best part is it is very easy to take up and learn and not requires the user to get too technical unnecessarily.
  • Repetitive task can be automated
  • Filling up forms and managing plans and data flow/ approval processes
  • Integrates well with other commonly used products in office suite
  • For 3rd party products, it can be used by means of mouse movements and keyboard click recording
  • integrations to PowerPoint not as strong as one might see or expect.
  • similarly, integrations to Outlook could also be enhanced.
  • sometimes the "flow developer IDE" is a bit slow and laggy that lowers user experience
Unlike all other automation tool, this is from Microsoft and hence has a good patch/support mechanism by default and is readily available to all the o365 users as a part of the subscription making it one of the most easily accessible tools across all levels of staff. This has helped in places where we need to do mundane and repetitive tasks by enabling automation - one such scenario is creating reports from excel data on a weekly basis. The data is always of the same format and so is the final report. Once the flow is setup, the weekly reports are automatically generated and sent to end users via the outlook integrations thereby saving a good deal of manual labour.
Aruna Bandara | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft flow (Power Automate) is the best product of Microsoft, and it came to the organization as a part of Office 365. We have been using it for three years now. And it is one of the best products to automate our work efficiently. Because it allows us to automate the routine activities for saving our time, so, it makes our lives easier and smarter. And anyone can quickly learn to use it. So, this is also a plus point of Microsoft Flow.
  • Mainly it helps to automate the routine activities for us. And it helps to save time and money.
  • Microsoft Flow works with other applications, software, and operating systems very smoothly. Also, it is easy to use and straightforward.
  • It allows for essential tasks, reminders, and emails to be automatically redelivered and pinned for importance.
  • It consists of easy and attractive templates. So, it is very user-friendly.
  • The initial set-up process of this is a little confusing and challenging.
  • The 3rd party add-on connectivity is a bit complex.
It allows for essential tasks, reminders, and emails to be automatically redelivered and pinned for importance. So, some activities that are always forgotten can be done through Microsoft Flow.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Microsoft flow for automating tasks within our processes. As we are using an Office 365 subscription in our office, the flow has helped us a lot from downloading the data from Twitter to publishing it to Power BI. Flow has been a life saver in most of the tasks that I work on.
  • Scheduling the flow- this feature has helped to schedule the flow late into the night, so that the data is ready when you come to the office in the morning.
  • Social Media Triggering: Once of the major use of flow in our company is to trigger an email to us whenever there is a not-so-good review about the brand. As soon as we get a trigger from flow, we work on it.
  • Inbuilt templates have made most of my manual tasks easier such as storing your personal email to OneDrive .etc
  • Third-party add-on connectivity is a bit complex and not as seamless as Microsoft add-ons.
  • Initial setting up the automation flow could be challenging as it involves giving the right passwords, doing the right connections, but after that, things are smooth.
Well Suited: To automate simple to semi-complex tasks without an IT professional. Less appropriate: For automating complex tasks, For tasks that involved lots of third-party add-ons, When your flow involves pulling large amounts of data from a website. This will make the flow timeout at times.
Jesse Bickel, MS - PMP | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Flow came to organization as part of the O365 suite. It was an overlooked product as part of the suite early on but gained adaptation once it became clear you could automate everyday tasks across multiple platforms to increase daily productivity. The product is available across the whole organization but has seen early adoption in the IT departments and development groups. The main problem it addressed for us was allowing for team members to automate functions, organization, approval process and even tasks/reminders. We were able to remove other paid for programs such as Boomerang from the organization.
  • Allow for important tasks, reminders and emails to be automatically redelivered and pinned for importance.
  • Ease of template use and flow wizard to help those unfamiliar with its potential.
  • Integrates across the entire O365 suite which makes the tool easy to access and little effort to deploy. Simple licensing roll-out is all that is needed.
  • Self-help knowledge base is very informative.
  • If you do not follow the wizard or template it can be complicated to understand the early benefits of the software.
  • There seems to be a slow down of third party integration's and hooks. I hope this continues to grow.
  • Microsoft Flow lives in the shadows of the O365 suite. I think this product deserves more push as a key part of the suite. It's often overlooked.
Microsoft Flow is highly effective to those individualized work environments for those who have the flexibility to customize their processes. While the O365 suite is often available as a whole, in some environments such as campus life or education areas I could see this being less effective. This product is definitely geared for the office/business enterprise environment.
Return to navigation