Power Automate: Automate Your Tasks Without Coding
Power Automate: Automate Your Tasks is a beginner-level course of 5 lessons (about 1 h 35 min), with 15 exercises and 15 quiz questions. No prerequisites. The course needs a Windows virtual machine with Power BI, planned for a later phase of the platform.
- Power Platform
- Beginner
- 5 lessons
- 1 h 35 min
- 15 exercises
- Windows virtual machine (phase 2)
The course in brief
This course teaches you to build reliable Power Automate cloud flows without programming. You create automated, instant and scheduled flows, process emails and attachments, set up approvals, steer your flows with conditions, loops and expressions, and read or write in Excel and SharePoint. You finish with error handling and the good practices that let you hand a flow over to a whole team.
What you will be able to do
- Create automated, instant and scheduled cloud flows and read their run history
- Process emails and attachments, save files and set up an approval
- Use conditions, switches, loops, variables and expressions
- Read, filter and update Excel and SharePoint data while controlling data types
- Handle errors with the Try / Catch / Finally pattern
- Prepare a flow for production: naming, co-ownership, solutions, security
Syllabus: 5 lessons
- Distinguish the types of Power Automate flows
- Build a flow with a trigger, actions and dynamic content
- Test a flow and read its run history
- 02
Emails, Files and Approvals
- Automate the processing of incoming emails and their attachments
- Create and move files in OneDrive or SharePoint
- Set up an approval and act on the response
- 03
Conditions, Loops, Variables and Expressions
- Steer a flow with a condition or a switch
- Iterate over a list with a loop and accumulate a result in a variable
- Write expressions to test, convert and assemble values
Conditions and switchApply to each loopsVariablesExpressions
- 05
Error Handling and Best Practices
- Configure run after and the Try / Catch / Finally pattern
- Notify and diagnose failures from the run history
- Apply best practices for designing, sharing and governing a flow
Final project
Automate the Supplier Invoice Workflow
The accounting department receives its invoices by email and tracks their payment in the Factures.xlsx workbook (Factures table). Automate the workflow: saving the attachments received, requesting the manager's approval for any invoice over €1,000, updating the workbook according to the decision, a daily reminder for unpaid invoices over €1,000, and an alert when a flow fails.
Deliverables
- The automated flow that files attachments (subject filter "Facture")
- The approval flow with Approve / Reject branches and an update of the workbook by the Numero key column
- The scheduled reminder flow, which chases F-102 and F-104 on the course data
- Try / Catch / Finally error handling in each flow
- A production sheet (naming, co-owners, connections, solution, environment variables)
Assessment criteria
- Filtered triggers and flows that process only useful data
- Correct type conversions and OData filters (2 reminders out of 4 invoices to be paid)
- Approvals used correctly (comparison to Approve, comments passed on)
- Errors intercepted, useful alerts and an accurate final status
- Readable flows that are ready for a team (names, co-owners, environment variables)
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to know how to code to use Power Automate?
No. Flows are built by configuring triggers and actions. A few simple expressions, introduced in the course, let you go further.
Which license do I need for Power Automate?
It depends on your organization's license and the connectors you use. Check with your IT department: the course points out when a feature may depend on it.
What is the difference between a cloud flow and a desktop flow?
A cloud flow runs on Microsoft's servers and links online services through connectors. A desktop flow automates the applications on a Windows computer by reproducing a user's actions.
Is it better to automate from Excel or from SharePoint?
Excel suits simple, personal tracking. For a shared process, with several people entering data, permissions and triggers on change, a SharePoint list is a better fit.
This course, told for your job
Say what you want to be able to do: “Power Automate: Automate Your Tasks” takes its place in your path, with examples from your field. The concepts stay those of the course.