Get started with Power Automate

Article
04/22/2023

Welcome! What can you expect from Power Automate? Here are a few examples of what you can do with Power Automate.

Automate business processes
Send automatic reminders for past due tasks
Move business data between systems on a schedule
Connect to more than 500 data sources or any publicly available API
You can even automate tasks on your local computer like computing data in Excel.

Just think about time saved once you automate repetitive manual tasks simply by recording mouse clicks, keystrokes and copy paste steps from your desktop! Power Automate is all about automation.

The following video shows you how to get started building your first flow.

Power Automate is for everyone

Anyone from a basic business user to an IT professional can create automated processes using Power Automate's no-code/low-code platform.

Check out how some companies implemented Microsoft Power Platform solutions using Power Automate in:

Find examples from your industry

The first step in creating an automation is to sign up, or, if you already have an account with Power Automate, sign in.

Limitations for guest users

Guest users can trigger flows with automatic triggers. For example, a guest could trigger a flow that uses the When an item is created trigger in SharePoint. Guests can't trigger manual (instant) flows, like the For a selected item trigger.

Guests users can participate in approvals. They can't create and edit flows.

What are the different types of flows?

To learn more about the different types of flows that you can create to automate your tasks, go to the flow types article.

Check out the Home page

On the Home page for Power Automate, you can explore a diverse set of templates and learn about the key features for Power Automate. You can get a quick sense of what's possible and how Power Automate could help your business and your life.

Each template is designed for a specific purpose. For example, there are templates for sending you a text message when your boss emails you, adding Twitter leads to Dynamics 365, or backing up your files. These templates are just the tip of the iceberg. They're intended to inspire you to create customized flows for the exact processes you need.

Create your first flow

Select a template that's useful for you. A simple template is Notify and Email when a new file is uploaded to OneDrive.
Select Continue.
Select the OneDrive folder that you want to monitor.
Select Save.

Note

You can explore the conditions that trigger the flow and the action that results from that event. Play around with the settings to make the flow your own. You can even add or delete actions.
Follow this tutorial to learn more about creating flows from templates.

Get creative

Now that you've created your first flow from a template, use any of the more than 500 data sources that Power Automate supports to create your own flows from scratch.

Building a cloud flow.

When you create a cloud flow from scratch, you control the entire workflow. Here are a few ideas to get your started:

Peek at the code

You don't need to be a developer to create flows; however, Power Automate does provide a Peek code feature that allows anyone to take a closer look at the code that's generated for all actions and triggers in a cloud flow. Peeking at the code could give you a clearer understanding of the data that's being used by triggers and actions. Follow these steps to peek at the code that's generated for your flows from within the Power Automate designer:

Select the ... menu item at the top right corner of any action or trigger.
Select Peek code.
Notice the full JSON representation of the actions and triggers. This includes all inputs, such as the text you enter directly, and expressions used. You can select expressions here and then paste them into the Dynamic Content expression editor. This can also give you a way to verify the data you expect is present in the flow.

Find your flows easily

When your creative juices start flowing, you might create many flows. Don't worry, finding your flows is easy - just use the search box on the My flows, Team flows, Connections, or Solutions screen to display only flows that match the search terms you enter.

Note

The search filter only finds flows that have been loaded into the page. If you don't find your flow, try selecting Load more at the bottom of the page.

Get notifications when something's wrong

Visit the cloud flow activity page to see the list of cloud flows that recently ran, sent notifications, or have failed.

Sign into Power Automate.
Select Monitor on the left side of the screen.
Select Cloud flow activity.

Use the mobile app

Download the Power Automate mobile app for Android, iOS, or Windows Phone. With this app, you can monitor flow activity, manage your flows and create flows from templates.

Get help planning your Power Automate projects

If you're ready to start your Power Automate project, visit the guidance and planning article to get up and running quickly.