Automate with Microsoft Power Automate

In recent years, Microsoft has invested heavily in their RPA tool Power Automate. This led research firm Gartner to put them in the same category with market leaders such as UiPath last year. However, this solution is unknown to many people. We are going to change that with this blog!

What is Power Automate?

Power Automate is Microsoft's RPA software solution and consists of two parts. On the one hand, you have an online module, which many companies even include in the Microsoft license, and on the other hand, an RPA package that must be installed on your PC.

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What can I use it for?

Power Automate was created to help automate administrative processes. Due to the combination of an online and local solution, there are few packages it can't handle! You can use it for simple automations, such as storing attachments from your email in a folder, to entire business processes from A to Z, and everything in between.

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What do I need to get started?

The cloud solution requires a license. Some Microsoft Enterprise plans include this. Otherwise, you can close them from your account per user. The desktop software is available free of charge for Windows 11, and for anyone who has a license for the cloud solution. Then you can get to work!

For large automations that you want to run independently, so-called unattended robots, you still need an additional license and an environment where they can work. For our customers, we set up a separate server environment for this.

Can I build automations myself?

You can often build simple tasks and processes yourself without programming knowledge after a short training. With more complex processes, we notice that most customers would like to receive help and support. Apart from the fact that it takes a lot of time to develop yourself because you don't do it every day, you often also need some code knowledge. You should also realize that once you have built and implemented an automation, it must also be monitored and occasionally adjusted if an underlying system has had an update.

An alternative is therefore to outsource the construction work, or the entire automation process.

What is the advantage of Power Automate over other RPA software packages?

On the one hand, this is a technical story and, on the other hand, a cost story. At VionA, we work with two software packages for RPA. One is Power Automate, the other Robocorp. The choice for which package we use with a customer depends on the systems that are included in the process. Robocorp is more cost-effective and often the best solution for automating SaaS packages, but once a local software package is part of the process, Robocorp has a harder time dealing with this. Power automate is technically capable of including local packages in automation, but is somewhat more expensive than Robocorp. Compared to the market leader UiPath, Power Automate, on the other hand, is interesting in terms of costs, while technically it is not much inferior. This makes it an ideal solution for many SMEs.

Automation with Power Automate as a Service

VionA has the technology and knowledge to provide you with full automation as a service, with or without Power Automate. We can completely take care of this, from looking for automation potential within your organization, to permanently monitoring the solutions we have built and everything in between. In addition to RPA, this also includes, for example, advising on your processes, building forms and solutions to make your process run better, and training courses. You find here more about this approach. Continue browsing our site for all potentials and inspiration for potentially interesting processes.