Scope of the possible with Power Automate

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!
• Thought the training was very interesting, and excellent to see how Power Automate can be used to simplify the workload. Would be keen on more training in this and the coding part as it’s not something that I understand.
• Great intro. It’s given me enough to have the confidence to play about! Before I just didn’t know where to start

Session materials

• all materials
• slides html / pdf
• sample data .xlsx

Introduction

• this session is 🌶 - for beginners
• it’s designed as a demonstration session to show what Power Automate might be used to achieve, and how it works

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

• Power Automate is a set of low-code automation tools
• allows users to automate tasks
• lots of options
  • web and desktop versions
  • several different subscription levels
  • hundreds of add-ons

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 converted the data to a table, then saved the workbook to OneDrive
• New flow > Instant cloud flow
  
• Manually trigger a flow
  
• Add a step
  
• Excel online > List rows present in a table and populate
  
• there are several ways we could subset the data
  
• we’ll demonstrate by taking the first 20 rows
  
• Create csv table
  
• Create file
  
  

Microsoft Forms to Teams

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

Excel workbook to mailing list

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