Workflow Automation with Microsoft Power Automate, Second edition - Second Edition

Workflow Automation with Microsoft Power Automate, Second edition - Second Edition

by Aaron Guilmette
Released August 2022
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781803237671

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

Make your organization more productive and simplify your workflow by using Microsoft Power Automate for business process automation Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free eBook in PDF format.

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

Product information

  • Title: Workflow Automation with Microsoft Power Automate, Second edition - Second Edition
  • Author(s): Aaron Guilmette
  • Release date: August 2022
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781803237671