One of the most common things that people say to me when the topic of automation comes up is that they have no idea where to start with it, or what they could automate.
Although the possibilities of automation are wide-ranging, when it comes to using Power Automate (Microsoft's low-code automation service which is one of their Power Platform apps), there are some workflows that first-time users can try to get a sense of how the tool works.
Before making your first flow, though, there are some features of Power Automate that you should familiarise yourself with so you can navigate the homepage with ease.
To access Power Automate, go to make.powerautomate.com and sign in with your usual account details if prompted. If you are already signed in and working from office.com, you can also access it via the App Launcher and select it from there, as the image below shows.
From there, your screen should look similar to the screenshot below:
From the Power Automate homepage, the left hand navigation panel (circled in yellow in the screenshot above) contains several key links that you will frequently need to use:
- My flows: this is where you can see all of your 'flows' - automations that you have created, or that have been shared with you. From here you can monitor activity, edit and share flows.
- Templates: in many scenarios you can use a template to build an automation with some of the actions pre-designed for you. Templates are organised by process type (Approval, Email, Data collection, for example). When you select a template, you will be prompted to sign in to the connectors that it uses so that the data sources are set to the correct accounts.
- Create: if you do not want to use a template, you can click on 'Create' to start from blank. If you use this option, you will be prompted to choose a name for your flow and select a trigger - the action or event that starts the flow. For example, when a new email arrives, or when a new response is submitted to a form.
When setting up and running flows, the following three features will be essential to know too:
- Run history: from within a flow (which you access by clicking on the name of the flow from within the 'My flows' list), you can see the flow details and a 28-day run history. This can be useful to view the inputs and outputs of each run, and to pinpoint where flows are succeeding or failing so that you can make fixes.
- Drag and drop functionality: when building a flow, you can grab the item headers to drag and drop actions. This can be useful if a certain item needs to reference another action higher up in the flow to enable it to perform as expected.
- Test, test, test: testing your flows before leaving them to automate in the way that you have built them is crucial. The test button is in the top right of the 'Edit' screen (look for the conical flask symbol) and will allow you to test manually or automatically, depending on whether there are any existing runs for the flow already.
Part 2 of this blog post introduces a set of flows to get you started with common triggers, connectors and actions. Read it here: Power Automate: Where do I start? (Part 2) | Power Up (bath.ac.uk).
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