Fundamental knowledge - Power Automate
Microsoft Power Automate is a cloud-based service that helps simplify the process of building workflows that automate time-consuming business tasks and processes across applications and services for line-of-business users.
Power Automate is part of a powerful and adaptable business application platform that includes Microsoft Power Apps, Microsoft Dataverse, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Office 365. This platform helps customers, partners, and ISV partners create purpose-built solutions for their own companies and industries and for functional roles or specific geographies. Line-of-business users, who understand their business needs best, can now analyze, compose, and streamline data and processes. Professional developers can extend the automation, analytics, and apps so that line-of-business users can use Microsoft Azure services, such as Functions, App Service, and Logic Apps. API connectors, gateways, and Microsoft Dataverse make it possible to get more value out of services or data that's already in use, whether in the cloud or on-premises.
You can accomplish several tasks with Power Automate, including:
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.
Automate tasks on your local computer, such as computing data in Microsoft Excel.
Power Automate is about automation. After you use Power Automate to automate repetitive, manual tasks, you save time by recording mouse clicks, keystrokes, and copy/paste steps from your desktop.
Microsoft Copilot Studio connects with Power Automate, where you can pass the variables from user's responses and retrieve data from several different data sources. You can also perform complex operations on that data, and then return to Microsoft Copilot Studio to share that data with the user. The ability to operate on and retrieve data from almost any data source that's accessible through an API is one of the most valuable benefits of Microsoft Copilot Studio.
As part of this Microsoft Copilot Studio in a Day lab, this module doesn't include an extensive introduction to Power Automate. However, it covers a basic scenario of how you can retrieve data from an external data source and use it in the conversational experience of Microsoft Copilot Studio. For more information, see Microsoft Docs on Power Automate and also review the in-a-day material for Microsoft Power Apps, which includes Power Automate.