Item: Microsoft Power Automate
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

There are always forms and reports that need to be moved out of one system, and imported into another one. Power Automate is the perfect tool to do this. A new item added to SharePoint, or Teams files? You can automate how to archive the information, how to notify people that there is new content.

Pros and Cons

If/then automation in the the Microsoft Office environment.
Linking different data systems outputs to automate data chains.
Link internal process to Internet sites and services.

Web Flows designer needs more development.
Process isn't always intuitive.
Product is powerful, but requires effort to dig into.

Most Important Features

Detection and activation of flows.
Online and contained in Office.
Office integration.
Increased connection to non-365 content

Return on Investment

Allows easier creation of impromptu automation for sudden tasks that don't need the dedication of a full app or development team.
Allows more end users to interact and transform data faster than requiring programmers.
Proliferation of code libraries means that is is easy to re-duplicate the wheel inside an organization.

Implementation Rating

Beyond programming our own internal tools, we didn't have much in the way of process automation. Power Automate has allowed non- and low skill programmers to automate and increase the speed of data flowing between systems in the organization. Using the drag and drop interface for basic interactions This has empowered our users to be able to program data transfers without needing to rely on the ITS department.

Generative AI

We have not started implementing the AI tools into our organization, but given the use of AI to allow users to be able to describe the use case of the automation will expedite the development and deployment of data automation to more users than ever before. This use of AI isn't as troublesome as the use of ChatGPTesque tools that will create plausible information, rather than summarizing existing information.

Alternatives Considered

There are few programs that provide the same level of support of automation inside the Microsoft tenant. Most other automation software portals like IFTT (If this, then that) are concentrated on moving or reacting to data triggered in other domains or tenants. PA concentrates on automating and responding to events and data inside the Microsoft ecosystem, allowing you to interact with the Office suite, Teams or other Microsoft components as needed.

Key Insights

Do you think Microsoft Power Automate delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft Power Automate's feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft Power Automate live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Microsoft Power Automate go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Microsoft Power Automate again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Microsoft Intune

Likelihood to Recommend

Power Automate is great at any task in the Office eco-system where you need to perform repetitious work that needs to be moved from one system to another. It can link systems and data together very easily, change and produce notifications, change document types, or move a file from one location to another to kick off another process when the file is present.

Support Rating

Microsoft has provided a number of avenues for documentation and support to develop and grow the Power Automate infrastructure. Power Automate has available to it the 'application in an afternoon' fundamental courses that will help you to develop and support an entire application in one afternoon's virtual training session. Microsoft Learn provides a full documentation of Power Automate, it's functions and data types, as well as the more advanced topics of iterating through data as arrays, functions and variables.

Microsoft Power Automate Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed	None

Premium Support

We didn't purchase any premium support beyond what is available on line through Microsoft Learn and our built in enterprise support contracts provide. Power Automate is very much end user and community supported for extension and advanced functionality topics. I don't even think there is a level of premium support available for this product.

Bug Resolution

Exceptional Examples of Microsoft Power Automate Support

Microsoft has not had to provide any direct support to us for this product, the community of Microsoft engineers, developers and end users has provided plenty of free articles and community commentary on how to improve your data flows and programs. It is a vibrant and exciting time to start using the product.

Usability

Microsoft Power Automate has an easy to understand interface that allows the low or no code skill user to be able to create a data flow with little or no IT support to get started, but provides an advanced interface that will allow multi skilled programmers to bring high end data structures and programming techniques to bear on the problems they are seeking to resolve.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Convenient Feel confident using	None

Power Automate, reduce your interactions with your email beyond just using mail! then Automate all the things!

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Power Automate