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Power Automate

Contents

Introduction

Before You Begin

Start Using Power Automate Flows

Learn More

 

Introduction

Power Automate is an online workflow service that automates actions across the most common apps and services. For example, you can create a flow that adds a lead to Microsoft Dynamics 365 and a record in MailChimp whenever someone with more than 100 followers tweets about your company. When you have access to Power Automate, you will have the ability to connect to more than 800 services and can manage data either in the cloud or in on-premises sources like SharePoint and Microsoft SQL Server. The list of applications you can use with Power Automate grows constantly.

Power Automate allows employees to create and automate workflows and tasks across multiple applications and services, such native Microsoft Office Apps (Excel, Word, OneDrive, SharePoint, Office365, etc.) and hundreds of third parties (MailChimp, DocuSign, etc.) and without help from developers. Legacy Dynamics 365 workflows are limited to Dynamics CRM only.

Cost reduction in support.

Legacy Dynamics 365 workflows often require extensive support and maintenance, resulting in significant business costs. By choosing Power Automate as a source for business automation or migrating existing Legacy Dynamics 365 workflows to Power Automate Flows, you can leverage its intuitive interface and robust features to streamline processes and reduce the need for ongoing support.

Enhanced monitoring and analytics.

Legacy Dynamics 365 workflows often need comprehensive monitoring and analytics capabilities, making it challenging to identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement. By migrating to Power Automate Flows, businesses gain access to advanced monitoring tools and analytics dashboards, enabling them to gain real-time insights into their processes.

Robust security measures.

Data security is a paramount concern for businesses in today's digital landscape. Legacy Dynamics 365 workflows could lack the necessary security measures, which could result in vulnerability to potential breaches and data leaks. On the other hand, Power Automate Flows provides robust security features, including data encryption, access controls and compliance certifications. This instills confidence in your users, knowing that sensitive information is protected while benefiting from automation.

AI builder capabilities.

After migrating legacy Dynamics 365 workflows to Power Automate Flows, users can build and manage powerful AI models directly to detect complex patterns in data. This will enable better decision-making and improved automation outcomes. Utilizing AI Builder offers a significant opportunity to decrease time, costs and stress by simply predefining AI models. For instance, you can use AI Builder to analyze documents and store data in a database or SharePoint list. You can also examine feedback and reviews and categorize them using tags.

Every Dynamics 365 user is entitled to use Power Automate without additional costs. As mentioned, with gained efficiency and scope, a firm could realize cost savings. However, firms should prepare to spend dedicated time implementing power automate flows whether that is spending time mimicking/migrating currently followed workflows or taking advantage of further automations made available through Power Automate Flows.

Before You Begin

For users interested in beginning to learn more about building Power Automate Flows, we recommend reviewing the basic Power Automate training available from Microsoft: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/paths/automate-process-power-automate/. Please note that the lessons in this Microsoft training may include reference to apps for programs that your company does not use. Users can continue through the exercises by adding the app connectors without authenticating them if building out the process in Power Automate.

Start Using Power Automate Flows

You can use Power Automate to automate workflows between your favorite applications and services, sync files, get notifications, collect data, and much more. Flows open up functionality beyond the capabilities available in Dynamics 365 workflows, which operate only within Dynamics 365 CRM. For example, you can automate these tasks:

See Getting Started with Power Automate for more information.

To replace an existing workflow with a Power Automate flow, the admin must first Deactivate the original definition workflow. The admin can do so by selecting Deactivate in that workflow.

Next, the admin will need to activate the Power Automate flow. To activate, follow these steps:

  1. From the Power Apps Maker Portal, select Solutions.
  2. Select Default Solution.
  3. Select Cloud flows and the flow you want to use.
  4. Select Turn on.

Learn More

Tamarac will be releasing initial documentation in the Help Center as we get closer to the introduction of Power Automate Flows for Tamarac CRM. Microsoft has an array of resources to help learn more about Power Automate and Power Automate Flows as well.

Click here for Frequently Asked Questions.