Ever had a mind-numbing repetitive task that you had to complete each week?… Don’t worry you’re not alone! Although not initially obvious, automation is ingrained into almost every aspect of today’s modern workplace. From chatbots to email marketing, there is now an automation tool for almost anything – Saving businesses (and clients) time and money. Unlocking the power of automation could inevitably be the component of your digital transformation strategy that improves your businesses’ future.
The good news is, although getting started with automation may be daunting, included in your Microsoft 365 licensing is Power Automate – an application designed to help you automate recurring tasks.
Power Automate is Microsoft’s cloud-based automation application that can be used to create automated workflows for a wide range of activities. Here are just some of the different types of ‘flows’ you can create within Power Automate:
This sophisticated tool uses ‘triggers’ to create a ‘reaction’ so that repetitive, time consuming, and manual tasks are completed with no, or minimal human resources involved.
Example of some flows (Graph 1): A ‘trigger’ can be anything from a button click, an event, specific time etc.
By leveraging Power Automate businesses can confidently scale basic automations across their business. Offloading menial tasks frees up time to be spent on more meaningful activities, while also making business processes more efficient. Here are the four main benefits of using Power Automate:
Benefit 1: Low Code – Non-Technical Staff Can Use
With a low code approach, Power Automate is accessible to all. It empowers non-technical users to build flows that can help them get their jobs done; supported by many pre-built templated flows already in Power Automate.
Benefit 2: Streamline Daily Business Tasks
Reducing manual efforts and focusing on more valuable tasks can drive more innovation as well as give businesses an edge over competitors. According to a 2021 Zapier report, 88% of Small to Medium sized businesses said “automation allowed them to compete with larger companies by enabling them to move faster”.
Benefit 3: Removes Costly Human Error
When tasks become monotonous or involves multiple different applications, the chances of errors arising is inevitable. Using automation ultimately lowers the likelihood of errors in processes where humans are involved.
Benefit 4: Integrates Seamlessly
If your business uses other Microsoft applications like Teams, SharePoint, Lists etc., then integrating data between these platforms and Power Automate will likely be straightforward. Notably, Power Automate integrates with over 250 applications (both within and outside of Microsoft).
IT Partners has a strong internal focus on automation, leveraging Power Automate in most areas of the business. Some of the ways we use the tool includes reoccurring reminders into Microsoft Teams for anything from outages notifications, time entries, or even Friday drinks. Our People and Culture team run several competitions/giveaways throughout the year, so we use Power Automate to automatically register someone if they say write “yes please” in the comments section of the giveaway post. Another handy way we use Power Automate is for documentation review. With several hundred live documents at any one time, it’s important for the owner of the document to be reminded when something needs to be reviewed for updates or archived.
As your business innovates for the future, automation will ultimately save your organisation time and money. If you’re interested in finding out how Power Automate can be applied to your business processes, get in touch with our team of experts today at hello@itpartners.co.nz or phone 07 957 2650.
