Your Power Automate Questions Answered (Part 1) [Guide]

Vitaly Livshits, a Power Platform and Power Automate expert and experienced trainer, has compiled answers to some of the most popular questions he covers in his classes about how to use Power Automate. Vitaly gives his practical advice for working with this component and insightful, real-world answers to common queries, including how to get started, licensing options, what different flows you can create, and more. For hands-on, instructor-led training for your team of 3 or more, browse our Microsoft Power Platform training courses.

Looking for more advanced Power Automate insights? Read Part 2 of this guide to discover how to use Copilot with Power Automate, understand Process Mining, incorporate best practices into your flows, and more.

Table of Contents:

  1. What is Microsoft Power Automate?  
  2. What are the benefits of using Microsoft Power Automate? 
  3. What are the different types of flows that I can create in Power Automate? 
  4. What are some of the most common uses for Microsoft Power Automate? 
  5. What are the different licensing options for Microsoft Power Automate? 
  6. How do I get started with Microsoft Power Automate? 

  1. What is Microsoft Power Automate?

    Microsoft Power Automate is a powerful, low-code automation service that helps you create automated workflows between your favorite apps and services. It allows you to automate repetitive business processes, such as communication, data collection, and decision approvals. As a core part of the Microsoft Power Platform, Power Automate integrates seamlessly with Power Apps, Power BI, Power Pages, and Microsoft Copilot Studio to create comprehensive business solutions. For example, you can create a flow that automatically sends mobile and email notifications whenever a file is uploaded to OneDrive. Such a flow can be easily created in a few minutes in Power Automate's GUI designer: 

  2. What are the benefits of using Microsoft Power Automate?

    • Increased Productivity: Automate time-consuming manual tasks, freeing up employees to focus on higher-value work.
    • Enhanced Accuracy: Reduce human error in repetitive processes, ensuring consistency and reliability.
    • Seamless Integration: Connect to over 1,000 services with pre-built connectors and build custom connectors for your proprietary systems.
    • End-to-End Automation: Combine digital process automation (DPA) with robotic process automation (RPA) to automate tasks across both modern, API-based services and legacy, on-premises systems.
    • AI-Powered Intelligence: Leverage AI Builder and Copilot to create more intelligent automations that can handle unstructured data, make predictions, and be built using natural language.
    • Improved Governance: Centralize, manage, and monitor automation solutions across the organization with robust governance and security features.

  3. What are the different types of flows that I can create in Power Automate?

    • Cloud flows: These flows are executed in the Azure cloud, giving them access to infinite resources and connectivity to a wide range of services. Cloud flows can be executed automatically based on specific events, instantly based on button clicks, or based on a schedule. Cloud flows are also known as Digital Process Automation (DPA).
    • Desktop flows: These flows are executed on a PC or VM and can automate any tasks on a desktop or Web. For example, they can automatically navigate a legacy Windows application, or perform automation via a web browser. Desktop flows are also known as Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
    • Business process flows: These flows provide a set of stages and steps and help guide individuals through complex business activities. For example, you can create a business process flow that starts with a prospect opportunity, creates a quote, generates an order, and processes a payment. 

  4. What are some of the most common uses for Microsoft Power Automate?

    • Automating repetitive tasks: Power Automate can help you to automate repetitive tasks, such as sending out email notifications or updating spreadsheets. Power Automate provides easy-to-use tools that make automation accessible to every user in every organization.
    • Integrating apps and services: Power Automate can help you to integrate apps and services, such as Salesforce and Slack. This integration can be performed on any software, including software that runs in the cloud, in on-premises data centers or on desktops.
    • Building custom workflows: Power Automate can help you to build custom workflows that meet your specific needs. There are infinite possible solutions that you can construct using hundreds of pre-defined activities and a range of system connectors.
    • Standardizing activities across the organization: Power Automate can help you bring additional consistency to processes by switching them to predictable runs that perform the same steps consistently, every time.

  5. What are the different licensing options for Microsoft Power Automate?

    Power Automate licensing is designed to be flexible, with options for individual users, specific workflows, and unattended automation.

    • Microsoft 365 Seeding: Many Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 licenses include standard Power Automate capabilities for automating within the context of those apps.
    • Power Automate Premium: A per-user plan that grants a user the rights to run unlimited cloud flows and desktop flows (attended RPA) with full access to standard and premium connectors. (Previously known as Power Automate per user plan).
    • Power Automate Process: A per-flow plan that licenses a single, core business process. This allows unlimited users to use the workflow and is ideal for critical processes. It can also be used for unattended RPA. (Replaces the per-flow and unattended RPA add-on plans).
    • Power Automate Pay-as-you-go: A flexible option to pay per flow run, linked to an Azure subscription. 
    • Additional specialized license types are available for some types of desktop flows. 

  6. How do I get started with Microsoft Power Automate?

    • Go to the Power Automate website at https://make.powerautomate.com.
    • Sign in with your Microsoft account.
    • Create a new flow.

    The easiest way to start is with Copilot. On the home page, simply describe the automation you want in plain language (e.g., "Every time I get an email with an invoice, save the attachment to a SharePoint folder and notify me in Teams"). Alternatively, you can start from a template or build a flow from scratch by choosing a trigger and adding actions in the visual designer. For example, this selection will generate the flow using the natural language recognition AI:

    Define the flow. For example, when using the AI you can do this by supplying an English-language description:

    The flow is now ready to use! Save it and enjoy the automation.

     

    Browse our Microsoft Power Platform courses or contact us for private, customized training.

    By Vitaly Livshits, a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) with deep knowledge and experience in all aspects of the Microsoft data platform, including Power Automate. He started his career on an IBM mainframe in 1998, authoring printed reports for a bank. Today he helps clients succeed with Microsoft products and actively trains students on Power Automate, Power BI, Azure data engineering, data analysis, database administration, and solution architecture.