Power Automate for health and care

skills
beginner
Published

August 8, 2024

Previous attendees have said…

  • 8 previous attendees have left feedback
  • 100% would recommend this session to a colleague
  • 88% said that this session was pitched correctly

Three random comments from previous attendees
  • Great starting point!
  • Excellent demo and training materials to use yourself later to learn Power Automate
  • Ambitious trying to cover 3 flows in an hour given the issues of different H&SC audience system permissions but you did it!
Session materials

Introduction

  • this session is 🌶 - for beginners

Session outline

  • a warning
  • an introduction
  • scope of the possible
  • three example tasks
  • free play

A word of warning

Warning

Do not use Power Automate for anything unless you’re absolutely sure that your organisational policies permit it

  • many boards and orgs have serious information governance and information security objections to Power Automate
    • automation tools are an excellent way to break your data
    • they’re also an excellent way to compromise its integrity/security
    • especially true if you’re thinking about automating processes with sensitive information
    • if in any doubt, speak to your IG/Caldicott/information security colleagues before setting to work

Quick introduction to Power Automate

Scope of the possible

  • Power Automate is an extremely useful tool for H&SC
  • but you should be aware of some complicating factors for people like us:
    • massive and confusing range of different templates and use-cases, often with a business-focus
    • a thick layer of promotional AI talk over everything at present (late 2024)
    • unexpected cost/IG barriers to using parts of the platform
    • glitchy, and often requiring more coding skills than you might expect
    • generally shockingly poor documentation

This session = honest, application-focused, introduction

  • we’ll build three example flows that will:
    1. take an Excel workbook, extract some parts of it, and save as a new Excel file
    2. turn a response to Microsoft Forms into a Teams post
    3. turn an Excel workbook into a simple mailing list

Subset an Excel file

  • you’ll need a sample data file - I used this open data about council assets from Falkirk
  • I coverted the data to a table, then saved the workbook to OneDrive
  • New flow > Instant cloud flow
    Instant cloud flow
  • Manually trigger a flow
    Manually trigger a flow
  • Add a step
    Add a step
  • Excel online > List rows present in a table and populate
    List rows present in a table
  • there are several ways we could subset the data
    subset the data
  • we’ll demonstrate by taking the first 20 rows
    take the first 20 rows
  • Create csv table
    Create csv table
  • Create file
    Create file

Microsoft Forms to Teams

  • here’s an overview
  • create a simple form (ours is at https://forms.office.com/e/8Zds2aTS5c)
    create a simple form
  • grab the form id
    grab the form id
  • create an Build an automated cloud flow -
    Build an automated cloud flow
  • Enter your form ID
    Enter your form ID(veDvEDCgykuAnLXmdF5Jmn79kl25VpJIq3eErXXCYKBUMU9LWURaUUhUT0xYOUtNQVY1UFpURTQ1Vi4u)
  • Get response details
    Get response details
  • Populate with the form and step details
    Populate with the form and step details
  • Post message in a chat or channel
    Post message in a chat or channel

Excel workbook to mailing list

  • here’s an overview
    overview
  • start with a simple .xlsx. Again, that will need to be on Sharepoint or Onedrive
    start with a simple .xlsx
  • List rows present in a table
    Add a List rows present in a table
  • Apply to each
    Apply to each
  • Send an email notification (V3) nested inside the Apply to each
    Nest your email notification inside an apply to each
  • add the expression items('For_each')?['email'] add the expression items('For_each')?['email']
  • enjoy the result
    Many emails result