Describe how Power Platform works with Microsoft 365 apps and services

Completed

Organizations around the world use Microsoft technologies in the enterprise capacity. They often use Microsoft 365 as their email and productivity platform. They might also use SharePoint as their document management platform. Because of the pervasive use of Microsoft 365 services, there are multiple built-in scenarios where the Power Platform can help you to create a more streamlined solution by interacting directly with Microsoft 365 services.

Power Platform includes multiple connectors that are designed to work with Microsoft 365 services.

Just a few of the connectors available include:

  • Office 365 Outlook

  • Office 365 Users

  • Excel

  • SharePoint

Administrators, managers, and end users can use these connectors to become more productive. During any given day, a typical end user can receive more than 100 emails. Many of those incoming emails have attachments that need to be saved somewhere, such as a SharePoint site or a OneDrive folder. With Power Platform, a user could easily create a Power Automate flow that monitors their inbox for incoming emails with attachments. When attachments are detected, the flow could locate the appropriate customer folders in SharePoint and automatically save the attachments there. If that process manually takes 1 to 2 minutes and is being done 20 to 30 times per day, this illustration alone could save up to 2 hours a week. This is just one of many examples.

Many organizations still use Microsoft Excel to run entire departments. Excel’s formula capabilities and the ability to create elements such as Charts and Pivot tables make it easy for managers to keep track of daily items. Unfortunately, getting data into Microsoft Excel is often a manual process consisting of copying and pasting data from different applications into Excel. In some cases, it needs the user to manually enter the data. In some industries, end users spend 5 to 10 hours a week just entering data into Excel. With the personal productivity automation tools available from the Power Platform, end users can automate the process of capturing this data and entering it into Excel. Power Automate Desktop flows mimic the keystrokes and mouse clicks on behalf of the user. Now, data entry tasks that took minutes could take seconds, freeing the users to work on other items.

These are just some of the many different examples of where Power Platform can be used with Microsoft 365 apps and services.