Then we jump into reviewing the power automate interface and learning how to navigate within it. We'll create a power automate flow using both a template and from scratch, we'll learn and use triggers, conditions and actions to perfect our flows before activating and testing. We'll move on to integrating power automate with Microsoft forms, planner, power apps, and teams. Lastly, we will monitor flows, statistics and metrics. If you're enjoying these videos, please like, and subscribe. If you have any questions you want answered by one of our instructors,.
Please join our offsite community. The link is in the description as well as always. If this course has exercise files, you'll find them in the video description below. Uh, first lesson before we get hands-on is an overview of workflow concepts. So as you'll see on the slide, on my screen, you know, a workflow is a sequence of. Tasks or activities based on user defined rules or conditions to execute a business process..
Now those tasks can be sequential or parallel or a combination of both and they work for. So Microsoft power automate, it was formerly called Microsoft flow. Let you automate those manual tasks using it's no code slash low code platform. So virtually you can get automation without having to have any coding experience, which is awesome. It's also used across a variety of industries..
So whether you work in a state agency or you're in healthcare or you're in environmental services or banking, it's used by regular users, as well as it professionals. Power automate has the ability to create three types of workflows. And by the way, they're known as flows within the application they're referred to as flows..
So three different types of flows. This course really focuses on cloud flows. So I'm going to skip that for a moment and come back to. In addition to cloud flows, there are desktop flows and business process flows. The desktop flows are used to automate tasks on the web or the desktop of your computer business process flows. Provide a streamlined user experience. So what a business process flow does is it leads people through the processes..
Since our focus in this course is on cloud flows. Let's take a deeper dive into the ways they can be started. So there are automated flows and that means you create an automation. That's triggered by an event. So an event can be the arrival of an email from a specific person or a mention of your company and social media, or a new file being placed in one drive or SharePoint library. Those are events that can start the flow to happen..
Your instant flows can be started with a click of a button you can automate for repetitive tasks from your computer or mobile devices. For example, if your have your phone, you can instantly send a reminder to your team with a push of a button. And then you have scheduled flows. They will schedule an automation such as a daily data upload to SharePoint..
Or a database. So, or maybe there's something that you want to run weekly. You can schedule a flow to run at your convenience when you need it to run. So since we'll be focusing on cloud flows in this course, you'll see instances of automated flows, instant flows, and how to set up a scheduled flow. And our second lesson will be hands-on accessing power automate..
We're going to access power, automate three different ways here. We're going to access it from SharePoint, from one drive and from office 365. Before we get started on this lesson, there are some files in the video description that you're going to want to retrieve so you can follow along. So in the video description, there are three Excel files and one word document, the Excel file named remodel project plan S P you're going to want to place that in a SharePoint document library. Remodel project plan..
Oh, D it's the same file. Just a different name. You're going to run a place that Excel file in a one drive folder, the power automate project demo. You can put that Excel file on your desktop for later. And the attachments word document. You're going to also put on your desktop for later access. Feel free to pause the video until you get those files where they need to be. And then you can resume. If you do not have access to SharePoint or one drive, feel free to just watch.
And you can take it in as a demo. We're going to get started in SharePoint.
So I've navigated to my SharePoint document library, where I placed that remodel project plan S P file. If you need to pause the video and navigate to your SharePoint site, and then you can read it. Power automate is access from the task bar in SharePoint..Now my task bar is kind of collapsed. So I have the more button where the blue circle is, and I'm going to click on that more button and then I will see automate. And when I hover over automate. I can hover over power automate and see that it gives me the option to create a flow, see your flows or configure flows. Now that's without having a document in the library selected, I'm going to click away from that. And then I'm going to select this remodel project plan document by putting a.
Checkbox in the circle in front of it. And I'm going to go back to my more, but. To expand it. And now when I hover over automate, the first thing I see is request sign off. So if I have a document that I put in the library and I need it to be signed off on, I can request that sign off from the automate menu. And I also, if I hover over power automate, have the typical three choices in SharePoint, create C and configure flows. Let's click on configure flows to start. And so this is for this library, right?.
And it's saying, do you want approvals in this library? So that means any documents that are uploaded or created in the library would need to be approved if that switches set to on which is the default. And then. If you upload a document in a, to a library that requires approval. The only people that can see that document in the library is the person that uploaded it. And the people who are approvers it doesn't show universally for everybody else until it's approved..
So all new documents. Uploaded or created in a library would require approval. By default, we're going to cancel out a configure flow options. I'm going to go back to my more button and hover over automate and click on power automate again, to see the other options. If you already have flows and power automate, you can see your flows. If you click that. Kind of routes you over to power automate and you'll see.
Any flows that you have there since it opened power automate in a new tab, I'm going to just navigate back to my SharePoint site so I can get back to where we were and I'm going to go back to my options. Automate power automate. And if you want it to create a flow from here, you would click on, create a flow. Let's do that. So it loads templates here for you, right?.
You can send the customized email when a new file is added. And if you look at the icons in front of the templates, it's telling you the applications, the connection. In power automate language connections that will be used. So the first one is showing SharePoint icon with the office 365 icon. This one is showing SharePoint and teams. This one is showing outlook. So this one has saved my email attachments to a SharePoint document library..
And you have a show more. Icon where you can see more templates that you could potentially use from SharePoint. If you scroll to the bottom of that, you can also keep seeing more templates. You can show less, or you can get back to see your flows from here, and you can also get some documentation on learning more about power automated. For this file, we're going to use the, add an outlook task for a selected file flow. So go ahead and select that in the list. It will open on a new tab in power automation..
I just zoomed in my screen. I want to protect my privacy. So at the bottom of your screen, you have two connectors. I believe SharePoint and outlook tasks. You're going to want to make sure that they each have a green check mark. That means you're connected to them. So if they don't have a green check mark, you probably need to need to click on them. It may ask you to sign in. And once you do that, you'll get your green check marks. Once you have both green check marks, you can go ahead and click the create flow button at the bottom of the screen..
Now that we've created the flow. We're not going to actually get it started. And here we're going to get it started in SharePoint.
And you'll see that in just a moment. We're going to just switch back over to our SharePoint tab now, uh, internet tab. So go ahead and do that. And on SharePoint, we're going to re select the docket. And we're going to go back to more or automate access automate. And now you'll see on the list underneath request, sign off the flow.That we created from the SharePoint library is showing on the list. So now we can select the flow from the list at an outlook task force selected file, and it opens a panel on the right side of the screen. And it lets you know, that it uses the following it apps, SharePoint and outlook tasks at the bottom. You're going to go ahead and click on continue. You can enter in a subject for this task. So I'm going to put in review this file.
And for importance, I'm going to put normal. And now on the bottom left, I'm going to click on run flow. So it tells me it started to flow and the flow is done. And I just click away from that. So now I want to take a look at my outlook task list to see that the task is there and the flow ran successfully..
And there you have the review, this file task. I have it in my outlook tasks lists and I can mark it complete if I want or handle it like any other tasks in the task lists. So you have a successful. I switched back over to the power automate window where you see the flow. And what I wanted to show you here is the 28 day run history toward the bottom of the screen. So now that we ran the flow, we'll see that it succeeded. It gives you the date and the time when it was run, we ran it from within SharePoint.
And you can see that it succeeded. One more thing I should mention about SharePoint and power automate is power automate is going to be replacing all of the workflows in SharePoint. At some point it's already replaced some of them and it's going to replace the rest of them. I've switched over to my one drive folder that contains the remodel project plan O D Excel file..
Before we actually select the file. I'd like to show you the options that are up here on the task bar, under automate what's presented to you when you do not have a file selected. So when I click on automate and hover over power automate, I can create a flow or just like in SharePoint. My flows that I've already created. It doesn't have an option here in one drive to configure your flow, because that is specifically for the SharePoint application..
Then I go over and select the remodel project plan. Oh, D file. And now I'm going to go to my more options. Ellipsis, hover over automated. And I get two other choices. One of them we saw in SharePoint and that would be request sign off, but you can also copy a file as a PDF in one drive for business. Now again, if you hover over power automate, you'll see that you're able to create a flow and see your flows..
We're going to copy a file as a PDF. That is a very practical application of this, especially in one drive. Sometimes we need to share a file with someone in a PDF format and all the steps we would take to open the file. Save it as a PDF. And then share it. We can use this flow on it instead. So the creative flow panel opens on the right side. It's an instant cloud. You may have to sign in for one of the connections here I'm already signed in..
So I have green check marks for one drive for business office 365, outlook and office 365 users. And I'm going to click on the next button at the bottom. Once it's done creating the flow. It gives you the ability to run the flow right now with that file that is selected. And it's going to put the PDF copy in the same folder. So I'm going to go ahead and click on run flow. It tells me my flow ran successfully. And I'm going to just click done on this..
Once I refresh my one drive screen, I pressed F five to do that. You can see that the PDF was created off of that document that had been selected. So real good practical applications. Of power automate, um, because that is a very typical thing that happens when you need to convert something to a PDF and it's already in your one drive. It's I select the Excel file again. And make my way back to more options automate. I'll see that that flow is there. Copy file as a PDF and one drive business. So in this folder, in my one drive account, I could be on any file.
And have the ability to convert it to a PDs, a click away from that. And de-select the file. Another way to get into Microsoft power automate is by using the app launcher. I like to call it the waffle it's located in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. It's that series of nine dots. Go ahead and click the app line. If you don't see power automate in the list, you can go to the all apps link in the bottom left in order to be able to see more apps..
If you do see the link or when you find it, go ahead and hover over power automate. And I like to open the context menu, the vertical ellipsis on the right side. So I can have it launched the application in a separate tab, so it doesn't take over. I'll still have my one drive tab open, and then I'll have another tab for power automate. Go ahead and click on open and new tab..
Pardon? My privacy cover up in the upper right hand corner. So this is power automate. When you go in, it brings you to the home screen. As you can see from the menu on the left and that menu on the left. If you want to collapse it, you can use these three lines. So you get more working space if you need it. And I'm going to just click the three lines to expand it again. So we're on the home tab and on the home tab gives you the ability to watch a quick video and you can search for a template by the app name, a task or industry..
It gives you a few templates right here. And if you scroll down, you can see that you can search all tents. You can start from a template and there they have, they been categorized. So you have your top picks, remote work emails, so on and so forth. You can, there's a link underneath where you can view all the templates. If you continue to scroll down, you'll see popular services and the services connectors they're referred to as a lot of different things. Right? But your popular services would be your apps that you could connect.
To notice there's over 572 services that can be used with power automate and not all of them are Microsoft. If you can continue down, you'll see some more learning opportunities hair, and they have different categories as well. So you can become comfortable with this environment now on the left side, in that menu, click on action items and you'll see if you had anything waiting for your approval. If you click on approval..
You would see that you've received, re-approval sent them an, a history. If you had anything that you were expected to approve, it would show up in your approvals. Going to expand action items in the menu again, and you also have business process flows. If you had any of those, you would see the active versus the in active ones. Some of them might require your attention. Now, again, this course is focused on cloud flows. We're not going to really do any business process flows during this course, going to just collapse action on..
I could go to my slows. If I click on my slows, it shows me the flows that I have. So we did add an outlook task for selected file from SharePoint and copy file as a PDF in one drive in our one drive. So we have those showing as part of our, our flows that we've already created. And up top, these are all cloud flows. If you had desktop flows, they would show that. Business process flows and flows that are shared with you..
You would be able to sign very easily so you can create a flow, share it with other people. Same can be done with them. Sharing photos with you. We have the create. Option on the menu over there. So this is where I usually start when I'm working in power automate, I go directly to create, and I can start from blank. I can also start from a template here..
We talked about the three different types of cloud flows. So if I want an automated one, an instant one or a scheduled one, I can get them from here or start them from here from blanks, as well as desktop and business process flows. If I want to start from a template, I have the same categories as we had on the home screen and the ability to search for templates. And I can start from connectors. Now, some apps are also connectors, right? So these would be, you know, your office 365 outlook, outlook.com, also apps. So that's all from create in the menu. You can go directly to templates and you can search up here..
So you have the ability again, to search. It takes a moment to load. And when it does, you're seeing templates for all flows, featured the ones that were shared with you. If templates were shared with you, you know, they have all of these different categories and you'll notice to the right of the categories. There's an ellipses button, so you can expand it and scroll through to see all of the categories. I just clicked on the ellipsis to collapse that again, the next one is connector. And it has them by your popular connectors recently added connectors..
These are not ones that you recently added, but that were recently added to power apps. Some of them are premium, meaning that they may have a charge associated with them going back to the menu. You have data over there. So if you've been working in power automate, I just clicked on tape. And it takes me to power apps, which we're not going to talk about right now, but there is a link between power apps and power automates. I'm going to just get myself out of that. But you can see on the menu that you, you know, I went into tables, there's.
Connections, custom connectors, gateways. We're not going to really get into those in this course. You have a monitor category, which I'm going to expand, where you can come in and monitor your cloud flow activity. If you have any desktop flows, you can look at their runs, any machines, you can look at that information. You have AI builder, artificial intelligence builder. And we're not going to be touching that in this class. You have a process adviser on the menu where you can create.
Processes and you have solutions. Learn. Learn is very good. Microsoft has done really good documentation. There's even videos about power automate, virtually any of their cloud-based apps that are really good. That are out there for you. So just wanted you to get your feet wet, looking at what you have on your menu. And we're going to go ahead and click on, create on the menu. That'll be our starting point, but before we start creating a flow on,.
You know, using, we're going to start by creating one, using a template, and then we'll build one from scratch. There are a couple of different terms that you need to get comfortable with. So before we build our flow, let's break down these three terms, triggers. Those would be events that start a cloud flow. So for example, someone uploads a document to a SharePoint library that could be a trigger that would start a cloud flow. You have conditions which in a lot of flows can be optional..
So if someone uploads a file to a SharePoint library, depending on who that someone is, we may need an approval on that file. That would be a condition. You have choices when you use a condition. Right. You can put in a condition and tell it what to do. If the condition is met and what to do, if the condition is not met. So let's say I'll just use Mickey mouse here. Mickey mouse uploads a file to a SharePoint document library and Mickey.
Mouse is relatively new to the company. So his manager wants to make sure that he reviews. Whatever Mickey submits to the library. So the condition could be, if it was uploaded by Mickey mouse, then route it to his manager. If not, if it wasn't uploaded by Mickey mouse, uh, uploaded by anyone else, take no action or do a different action. So that's where the actions come in. That's a task. Or a series of tasks that start when a trigger is invoked triggers, conditions.
And actions, three terms that are kind of nice to know in the background when you're building power automate flows. Before we build a flow using a template. Go back to your one drive folder and create another folder and name it, email attachments. We're going to need to access that folder in the upcoming exercise. Once you've created the folder, go ahead and switch back over to your power automate, create screen.
In power automate. We're going to scroll down until we can see the start from a template section. And we're going to use the filtering here and click on emails, just so we're seeing templates related to. We want a template. That's going to take email attachments from outlook and save them in the email attachments folder that you just created in the one drive account. So there's several different ones. We're looking for the one..
So that says save office 365 email attachment to specified one drive for business folder. And once you find that template, go ahead and click on it. So it confirms on the top, the name of the template that you selected. It shows you including the icons, the applications that are involved. And it tells you what the template does. So now it says it's going to save email attachments from a specified client or person to a designated folder in one drive for business. So I can do two for one here..