What is our primary use case?
Our primary use for this product is for the automation of manual tasks that may require some small integrations between systems. An example would be something like automatically sending an email from an action that is performed on our online system. Another might be writing data to our CRM database based on the input from an online form.
How has it helped my organization?
The thing that this product has provided is a solution for quickly developing prototypes. We can create some new solutions really fast, test it to understand exactly which data is needed and then deploy the solution moving forward quickly through the process. That has been important for us. It is not necessarily that we all use Power Automate as a production-ready solution. It is more that we can use it to make prototypes that we can test with.
What is most valuable?
I think the most valuable thing about this product for me is that it is really quick and easy to use. You do not need to have a lot of development skills to be able to create solutions. There is very little code involved, which is great, and it is very logical. It has also got great reporting. You can see the success and failure of each item that has been run through it. There are a lot of out-of-the-box connectors as well that make things easier.
What needs improvement?
To improve the product, I think it would be great to see even more connectors available out-of-the-box and more maturity in that direction. I would also like to see some readiness for creating test and production environments so that you can differentiate which environment is you are working in.
As far as additional features I am not sure what could really improve the product. It could maybe do with some more insights like triggered alerts.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using this product for about a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
So far we find that the stability of the product is really good. There is also good reporting if it is down for any reason. We have not really experienced stability problems or had any complaints about that.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is really good. We have been able to use it for lots of different kinds of things. We do think that Power Automate is more for prototyping than for production-ready applications. You should probably upgrade to using Power Apps if you need something production-ready. You can build something quickly as a prototype in Power Automate and then upgrade to Power App to create a more refined application. Using those together means that what you develop is more production-ready. But in general, I think it is really scalable. There are lots of different use cases and lots of different solutions you can build and make available.
There are not a lot of people currently using the product in the company — maybe like 10 or 12. We really want more and more people to use it, but it is not our job to roll it out to everybody. We just found it and thought it was interesting. We share it with people when they want to know how to try and automate something. But it is not something we had planned to really roll out company-wide as a solution initially.
We will eventually roll it out to more people as we grow with it and discover more uses.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not really use a different solution before Microsoft Power Automate. We were using Flow originally, which is what the same product was called before it became Power Automate. The name change was just within the last two months.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is really straightforward. It is immediately available out-of-the-box when you have Microsoft Cloud. You just click on the button and it is there ready to use.
Our deployment took maybe a week or so. Most of that was just to play around and get familiar with it and become ready to start doing actual projects. Because you are building your own little mini-applications inside of it and the framework is available already, it is just a matter of learning how to work with the tool. You need to learn how to use it to build what you want to build.
There were only two people involved in the deployment process. It did not require a lot of effort. It was just a couple of minutes to be ready to start using it and a week to get to the point where we could be productive.
The framework for the product is maintained by Microsoft. Any applications that we build inside of it is all we need to maintain ourselves. So we do not have to maintain the framework at all.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Power Automate is really cost-effective. You pay for use and if you want a premium connector then you just pay for a premium connector. But a lot of things are available for free. If you want to use an adapter that is not available for free, then you have to pay the provider for it. I do not know how much that costs.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to people who are considering implementing Microsoft Power Automate is that I think it is a really great tool that allows you to get started quickly on prototyping and integrating solutions that will simplify some redundant tasks. The best idea would be to just get started with it and experience what it can do.
The biggest lesson we have learned from using Microsoft Power Automate is that there is just so much that is possible to automate. Thinking about the potential scope of what the tool can do, we now look at a problem and think that maybe we can use Power Automate to resolve the issue.
On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Microsoft Power Automate as a nine-out-of-ten at this point. To become a ten they would just need some more maturity with the test and production environments and making things more production-ready. Also, some additional guided help would valuable for new users to orient them and get started building their own applications. But other than that, it is perfect.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner