Introduction to loops
Repetitive rules-based tasks performed on large data sets are prime candidates for automation. Automating such tasks greatly reduces their completion time, while also eliminating human errors. Such tasks are commonly found across all industries, and are automated by the use of repetitive structures called loops.
Consider the following example: once a month, a report is generated containing all insurance contract changes for a multinational corporation’s employees. Contained in this report are all employees whose insurance status should be checked and updated according to the company’s policies. Depending on the company size, this file may contain hundreds, or even thousands, of records that will have to be examined and updated in the company’s internal systems one by one. This is a task that would take up valuable employee time, and would be highly error-prone due to its repetitive nature. In the above scenario, loops can be used to automate the task at hand efficiently.
In this module, you will learn about the use of loops, and how the different types of loops are deployed based on the task at hand. You will also use loop actions in different scenarios, in order to better understand their application in real-world scenarios.
By the end of this module, you will be able to understand the differences between the different loop types, and use them to automate repetitive tasks with ease.
Learning objectives
In this module, you will:
- Use simple loops to perform a given number of repetitions and iterate through data
- Deploy loop conditions in order to repeat actions until a condition is met
- Iterate through the items of a list using For Each loops
- Explicitly end loops when required
Prerequisites
- Basic familiarity with the Power Automate for desktop flow designer
- Basic familiarity with lists, tables, and the square brackets notation