Are You Power Automating?

Operating a small or medium-sized business (SMB) usually requires wearing multiple hats. From chasing approvals to manually updating spreadsheets, it’s easy for your team to get stuck doing time-consuming tasks that drag down productivity. That’s where smart IT solutions come in, and one of the most effective tools available today is Microsoft Power Automate.

85% of business leaders in 2024 said AI-powered automation was key to driving productivity and efficiency across industries.

Power Automate gives you the ability to streamline the chaos - whether you're offering IT services or managing internal operations, so let’s break down exactly how it works, what it can do for you, and how to start automating your workflows without needing a degree in coding.

What is Microsoft Power Automate for?

Microsoft Power Automate is a service for automating repetitive tasks and creating workflows across various apps and services. It is offered by Microsoft for business automation purposes, designed to assist companies in developing workflows for routine tasks such as notifications, file copying, requesting approvals, and more.

But here’s the best part - you don’t need to be a tech expert to use it. Power Automate uses a simple drag-and-drop interface that works across desktop, mobile, Microsoft Teams, and your browser.

Every bit of time saved is important for SMBs. Power Automate allows you to build workflows (called "flows") that eliminate manual steps and speed things up, without hiring developers or buying extra tools.

It’s like having a virtual assistant that never takes a coffee break, and it even comes with hundreds of pre-built templates and connectors. Need to automatically save email attachments to OneDrive? Done. Need to get a Teams message when a file changes in SharePoint? Easy. Need a manager to approve a vacation request via email? Just pick a template and customize it.

Make Life Easier

But Microsoft Power Automate is not just about fancy features, it's about solving real-world problems. Here are some everyday examples of what it can do:

Makes customer onboarding simple: When a new customer signs up, it can automatically send welcome emails, update task assignments for the relevant teams, and make updates to the CRM.

Simplified sales lead management: When entering a new prospect, Power Automate can set up background follow-up emails, delegate the lead to an available sales executive, and note the prior activity all in one go.

Easy Expense reports: Simply set a workflow to pull receipts, summarize total expenses, and submit for approval instead of collecting receipts and filling out forms.

Better onboarding for new hires: Unfortunately, new-hire onboarding and setup is often chaotic, but with Power Automate, once an employee is added to your HR system, the tool can trigger a series of actions, creating accounts, sharing documents, and scheduling orientation meetings.

Enhanced project management: When you kick off a new project, it will generate automated task lists, team assignments, and progress tracking tools that keep everything on schedule.

What are the benefits of Power Automate?

What does Power Automate have to offer? Check these out:

Handy templates: For frequent but tedious activities like file transfers, email alerts, approvals, and reminders, there are prebuilt templates that can be used.

Connectors: For popular applications such as SharePoint, Dropbox, Outlook, Google Drive, and even Twitter, there are more than 300 built-in connectors available.

Flow triggers and actions: Every flow has a trigger that starts it. For example, when you receive an email, the flow executes actions, which can be any of the following: create a task, send a message, save a file. The actions can be adjusted to achieve your desired outcome.

Effective cross-platform use: Power Automate is available via Microsoft Teams, mobile, desktop, and browser, so you can manage your workflows anywhere.

Cybersecurity

Power Automate benefits from robust security protocols, especially when integrated with Azure Active Directory, because it is built on Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure. You can easily audit your flows, restrict access where needed, and protect sensitive data.

If your IT team is dealing with older systems, Power Automate can connect to legacy software without forcing you to replace or overhaul existing tools.

RPA (Robotic Process Automation)

If you want to really scale things up, Power Automate offers more advanced tools like Robotic Process Automation which allows you to record your screen and mouse movements to create repeatable actions, great for tasks like pulling data from systems that don’t have APIs.

The two types of RPA flows:

1: Attended RPA: Runs while you’re logged in, ideal for tasks that still need some human input.

2: Unattended RPA: Runs in the background based on a trigger, with no user required.

Process Advisor

This is a tool that helps you analyze how your team works. It can identify bottlenecks and highlight steps that slow things down, so you can automate smarter.

Ways Power Automate Helps Project Management:

For those in charge of projects, you know how much time goes into communication, documentation, and keeping everything on track. Here’s how Power Automate can give you back some of that time:

1: Generates Automated Approvals

You can set up automated flows for document approvals, project requests, or budget reviews, no more chasing down signatures.

2: Centralized Document Management</H3>

Stop looking everywhere for documents: You can easily store project documents in one place, track changes, and ensure everyone’s always working off the latest version.

3: Reporting in Real-Time

When you connect Power BI to Power Automate, it creates live dashboards and reports that reflect real-time progress on tasks and budgets.

4: Improved Communications in MS Teams

You can set up instant notifications in Microsoft Teams when key updates happen, like task completions or deadline changes. This makes it very difficult for anything to fall through the cracks.

5: Smart Task Organization

Power Automate’s automation templates can schedule meetings, send reminders, and assign priorities, helping your team focus on what really matters.

It Only Takes Minutes to Streamline Your Work

Once you get started with Power Automate, you’ll find it is much easier than you think. Log into Microsoft 365, open Power Automate, pick a template or build your own, customize, and save. It runs in the background automatically.

This is a great tool that helps small businesses ditch the busywork, boost productivity, and grow smarter. Ready to streamline your workflows? Contact us today to get started.