Workflow Automation with Microsoft Power Automate: Use business process automation to achieve digital transformation with minimal code, 2nd Edition

✍ Scribed by Aaron Guilmette

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 421
• Edition: 2
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Make your organization more productive and simplify your workflow by using Microsoft Power Automate for business process automation

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

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
CopyRight Page
Contributors
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Introducing Microsoft Power Automate
What is Power Automate?
Choosing what to automate
Reviewing general terminology
Business process
Workflow
REST
Learning Power Automate terminology
Flow
Connectors
Triggers
Steps
Actions
Conditions
Dataverse
Gateways
Templates
Packages
Branching
Getting Power Automate
Summary
Chapter 2: Getting Started with Power Automate
Logging in to Power Automate
End user web portal interface
Mobile app interface
Power Automate Desktop interface
Admin interface
Creating your first flow
Understanding the flow components
Creating and executing the flow
Examining the flow
Summary
Chapter 3: Working with Email
Learning about email connectors and actions
Working with email
Reading email
Handling attachments
Creating the flow
Verifying completion
Sending email
Summary
Chapter 4: Copying Files
Learning about file connectors and actions
Working with files
Copying files to SharePoint
Verifying results with Test Flow
Verifying the results manually
Publishing files to Dropbox
Verifying the results
Summary
Chapter 5: Creating Button Flows
Learning about button flows
Creating a button flow to email a manager
Executing a button flow
Summary
Chapter 6: Generating Push Notifications
Learning about push notifications
Configuring a notification for emails from your manager
Introducing conditions
Creating the flow
Reviewing a notification
Reworking the flow
Summary
Chapter 7: Working with Shared Flows
Understanding shared flows
Sharing a cloud flow
Sharing a desktop flow
Creating a basic desktop flow
Sharing a desktop flow
Sharing a flow with run only permissions
Managing shared flows
Summary
Chapter 8: Working with Conditions
Understanding condition operators
Evaluating objects
Using expressions and multiple conditions
Adding multiple conditions
Adding condition groups
Using a switch condition
Summary
Chapter 9: Getting Started with Approvals
Understanding Dataverse
Creating an approval flow
Creating a SharePoint site and list
Creating an approval
Adding calendar events and notifications
Starting the flow
Responding to approvals
Summary
Chapter 10: Working with Multiple Approvals
Working with sequential approvals
Working with parallel approvals
Working with advanced scenarios
Mixed approval types
Everyone must approve
Creating a basic sequential approval
Configuring the prerequisites
Creating the flow
Creating the trigger
Creating the first-stage approval
Creating the second-stage approval
Completing the flow
Testing the flow
Adding parallel branches
Summary
Chapter 11: Posting Approvals to Teams
Understanding the flow
Configuring prerequisites
A SharePoint site
Power Automate app for Teams
Configuring an approval flow to use Teams
Getting the requester’s information
Creating the approval
Returning the response
Testing the flow
Requesting approval
Approving the request
Reviewing the response
Summary
Chapter 12: Using a Database
Understanding database connectors, triggers, and actions
Triggers
Actions
Connecting to a database
Creating a server
Creating a database
Creating a database table
Creating a connection to a database
Adding content to a database
Creating the flow
Executing the flow
Verifying the flow
Reviewing the run history
Reviewing the SQL data
Summary
Chapter 13: Working with Microsoft Forms
Understanding the Forms connector triggers and actions
Triggers
Actions
Creating a basic form
Processing a form with Power Automate
Testing the flow
Verifying the result
Reviewing the run history
Reviewing the SQL data
Summary
Chapter 14: Accepting User Input
Understanding the user input options
Creating a flow that uses all input types
Configuring the prerequisites
Creating the flow
Executing the flow
Verifying the flow execution
Expanding further
Summary
Chapter 15: Automating Azure AD
Technical requirements
Learning about connectors and actions
HTTP action
Parse JSON
Create CSV table
Configuring prerequisites
Configuring an Azure AD application
Creating a client secret
Creating an HTTP flow
Gathering the data
Parsing the output
Creating a report
Testing the flow
Verifying the flow
Expanding further
Summary
Chapter 16: Introducing Robotic Process Automation
Technical requirements
Learning about actions and variable passing
Run a flow built with Power Automate for desktop action
Variable passing
The Power Automate recorder
Configuring prerequisites
Configuring Power Automate Desktop
Configuring a Microsoft Access database
Configuring the Microsoft on-premises data gateway
Configuring an RPA flow
Configuring the flow framework
Configuring an application to open
Running the Power Automate recorder
Updating the variables
Finishing the flow
Testing the flow
Verifying the flow
Summary
Chapter 17: Introducing AI Models
Learning about AI models
Technical requirements
Configuring prerequisites
Creating a Forms survey
Creating an Excel workbook
Creating a sentiment analysis flow
Testing the flow
Reviewing the output
Expanding further
Summary
Chapter 18: Exporting, Importing, and Distributing Flows
Exporting a flow
Importing a flow
Distributing a flow
Sending a flow via Power Automate
Publishing a flow to the template gallery
Summary
Chapter 19: Monitoring and Troubleshooting Flows
Monitoring flows
Viewing the run history
Resubmitting a flow
Reviewing email error reports
Resolving authentication errors
Examining detailed errors with the flow checker
Understanding error codes
Finding additional resources
Summary
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