Power Automate for health and care

Welcome

• this session is 🌶 - for beginners
• we’ll get going properly at 13.05
• if you can’t access the chat, you might need to join our Teams channel: tinyurl.com/kindnetwork
• you can find session materials at tinyurl.com/kindtrp

The KIND network

• a social learning space for staff working with knowledge, information, and data across health, social care, and housing in Scotland
• we offer social support, free training, mentoring, community events, …
• Teams channel / mailing list

KIND training sessions

Session outline

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

A word of warning

• 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 coverted the data to a table, then saved the workbook to OneDrive
• New flow > Instant cloud flow
  

Subset an Excel file

• Manually trigger a flow
  

Subset an Excel file

• Add a step
  

Subset an Excel file

• Excel online > List rows present in a table and populate
  

Subset an Excel file

• there are several ways we could subset the data
  

Subset an Excel file

• we’ll demonstrate by taking the first 20 rows
  

Subset an Excel file

• Create csv table
  

Subset an Excel file

• Create file
  
  

Microsoft Forms to Teams

• here’s an overview
  

Microsoft Forms to Teams

• create a simple form (ours is at https://forms.office.com/e/8Zds2aTS5c)
  

Microsoft Forms to Teams

• grab the form id
  
• create an Build an automated cloud flow -
  

Microsoft Forms to Teams

• Enter your form ID
  (veDvEDCgykuAnLXmdF5Jmn79kl25VpJIq3eErXXCYKBUMU9LWURaUUhUT0xYOUtNQVY1UFpURTQ1Vi4u)

Microsoft Forms to Teams

• Get response details
  

Microsoft Forms to Teams

• Populate with the form and step details
  

Microsoft Forms to Teams

• Post message in a chat or channel
  

Excel workbook to mailing list

• here’s an overview
  

Excel workbook to mailing list

• start with a simple .xlsx. Again, that will need to be on Sharepoint or Onedrive
  

Excel workbook to mailing list

• List rows present in a table
  

Excel workbook to mailing list

• Apply to each
  

Excel workbook to mailing list

• Send an email notification (V3) nested inside the Apply to each
  

Excel workbook to mailing list

• add the expression items('For_each')?['email']
  

Excel workbook to mailing list

• enjoy the result
  

Feedback and resources

• please can I ask for some feedback - takes less than a minute, completely anonymous, helps people like you find the right training for them