What is Power Automate?

Power Automate (formally known as Microsoft Flow)

If you are using Microsoft Office 365 and not using Power Automate, then you are missing out on a great new technology.

Power Automate is a new feature which is integrated with Office 365 subscription. You can use it free for some basic tasks and you have to buy a premium subscription for more business-oriented tasks. 

Power Automate is a great tool which can automate lots of your tasks, mails and reminders.

It can be accessed online at:

https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/ 

and it can also be access through mobile apps for Android and iOS platforms

   

Power Automate can be used to automate tasks between your favorite applications and services

Examples of some of the task you can automate are:

• Save your Office 365 email attachment automatically to your One Drive.

• Get a push notification when you receive a mail from your boss.

• Get an email update when a SharePoint file in updated.

• Get daily reminder Emails.

• Automate approval and follow up emails.

Automated tasks created by Power Automate is called as “Flow”. You can either create these “Flows” in its online website console or through the mobile app. Mobile app are also be used to get push notification from  Power Automate. 

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Now we will see how we can create our own customized “Flow”.

In this demo, we will create a Flow that will send you a reminder mail every month with subject and body text as “Power Automate Test”.

Power Automate Window

1. Click on My Flows on the left sidebar of the Microsoft Power Automate Web Dashboard.
2. On this page, you will see a “NEW” flow option at the top. Click on that.
3. On clicking on “NEW” you will get options to create flow using a template or from blank. 
4. Select “Scheduled from Blank”.
5. In the next window, you will be prompted to add the name of this new flow. Add the name as “Power Automate Test”
6. In the same window will have to enter the date and time from which this flow will start to work. And set its reoccurrence time to one month. Click Create to proceed.
7. In the next window, you will see a Flow process in which Recurrence is at the top. Click on Next Step which is showing below the first step.
8. You will get multiple options to select from. In that select “Mail”.
9. In Mail, option add your mail ID in which you want to get a reminder and in subject and body type “Power Automate Test” and Click Save.
10. Your first Flow is now created. You can also test the flow before its scheduled time. 
11. Again, Click on My Flows in the left sidebar. You can here see all the Flows that you will create.
12. You will see a “RUN” option on the Flow which you have just created now.
13. Click on “RUN” and your Flow will get executed immediately. So you can check whether it is working as per your requirement or not.

Conclusion

Similarly, you can create many other Flows as per your requirement. You can also use thousands of templates available to ease your task.

As this is a new feature available with Office 365 subscription, it has all the details inbuilt with a learning option also. So you can check that to learn in detail about Power Automate.

So, start using Power Automate today to automate your regular routine tasks so that you can focus on which is more important.

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