Microsoft Power Automate Reviews

We use Microsoft Power Automate when we need to automate manual processes in our automation, or when we need to send a document for approval, or when we need to integrate some beams channels and messages.

It's quite simple to use. You can automate almost everything in your organization by simply dragging and dropping and selecting a few options, whether it's an Excel spreadsheet or other on-premise data.

Power Automate is integrating artificial intelligence into the product, allowing us to automate future aspects, such as in pharma companies, medical agencies, and even banks, which are now using these products to automate their manual processes. And because robotic process automation is already built into Power Automate, these features make this product fantastic and accessible to everyone.

These products are intended low-code, no-code solutions. As a result, even a strategic developer can create and automate your day-to-day tasks at their workplace, whether it's management work or a developer is dealing with day-to-day issues with APIs.

In terms of IT, everything can be automated, but other things can also be automated. We can automate the reporting process, as we can with the help of an AI builder. Using Power Automate and Power Apps, we can generate sales reports on the fly.

In terms of issues, I haven't had any until now because automation requires you to complete a task in less time. These products have some limitations, such as the need to build some custom controls in PCF or use the JSON format. There are some limitations, but it's a mature Microsoft product, and we can do almost everything.

Third-party systems can also be added. We can create a beautiful dashboard if another software provides open APIs. Even when discussing complete Power platforms, four components must be mentioned: Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, and Power BI. When we use all four, we can create a complete solution, whether it's a visualization dashboard, automated chatbots, or the rest, which we can achieve using Power Apps. Power Apps is also divided into three types of apps: canvas apps, model-driven apps, and data-driven apps. Another option is to use open-source, which refers to open projects known as portals. So we can actually do the same thing. When someone is creating a website, we can do the same thing here in the portal. So the things we can do with Power Apps are the same as the things we can do with the Power platform.

I have been working with Microsoft Power Automate for almost two years.

There are some limitations with the calls and other things, but it is a stable product.

Typically, we raise technical support through the Azure portal. If we have a basic plan in place, we can submit a request to Microsoft. 

Microsoft also provides Twitter support. If you have any questions or encounter any technical difficulties while deploying your Power App or configuring your Power Apps or Power Automate environment, you can raise a ticket on the portal and Microsoft will respond directly to you.

I also work with Power Apps.

The initial setup is a very simple procedure. We can deploy in any organization depending on their needs,  we can look into licenses to see what kind of license will meet their requirements. 

As it is in the cloud, it's very simple to deploy. It's ready-to-use software as a service, and we can use various connectors. In addition, if something is outside the scope of Power Automate, we can create a custom connector. How it is deployed is entirely up to the organization. If for example, they have three environments: development, testing, and production, we can easily switch, and we can use Azure DevOps to create CI/CD pipelines, and we can deploy that solution in any environment in the organization.

It is not a costly solution. You can have two types of licenses, one is user-based, and the other is app-based in the Power Platform. 

I work as a senior consultant for Microsoft technology as a developer, mains power developer, but I would love to explore other options.

It's a genuine Microsoft product, which is the main reason I would recommend it to someone.

I would rate Microsoft Power Automate an eight out of ten.

It's an RPA (Robotic Process Automation), so it's a robot and we use it to automate a lot of financial reports.

This solution improved the reporting in our organization. The financial department was doing a lot of copy-pasting from different sources to create financial reports. Through ProcessRobot, we were able to automate all those copy-pasting and produce all those financial reports overnight. Our financial department was able to free up a lot of their time. They no longer need to invest their time in the work, particularly in creating the report. They can focus their time on analyzing the data more, rather than exerting more time in report creation.

This solution is easy to use. It was one of the easiest to use, plus the price-quality was the reason why we selected this. Its features for its price were the best fit for our company.

As for what could be improved in this solution: I tried to do some automation on Microsoft Dynamics AX and it was not successful. The integration with Dynamics AX was not really a success, but for the rest, I don't have problems with.

Some automation features on some programs did not work smoothly, so that's a negative feature. That might be solved now with the newer version because Microsoft took over Softomotive. I hope they have improved that feature and that it now works better with their own software.

I'm not really missing features I'd like to see on the next release because we only use it for a really small target area. We just use it for reporting. It's not like we're using it extensively on test automation and other similar processes, but I know we can do a lot more with this solution.

We've been using this solution for three years now.

This solution is really stable.

About the scalability of this solution, we're using the desktop version now, and I know that there's some other version. We can scale it up to use more robots, but we don't have a requirement for it currently.

The technical support for this solution was really okay. Information on the website was documented well e.g. there were nice manuals. I didn't use their technical support, but the website where I could find all the technical documentation was really good. Because it was well-documented, it was self-explanatory and I could start from there.

We used two different solutions, but we switched because they were too expensive for the purpose we wanted to use those solutions for.

Setting up this solution was really straightforward. It just needed a little bit of clicking. It only took a few minutes to install as it's a really simple program. It's not complicated.

Implementing this solution was self-explanatory. I did the implementation myself.

We saw a significant return on investment because we were able to save a lot of time from our financial and human resources staff, so this saves a lot of money and the return on investment on that 1,000 euros is quickly felt.

We paid for one license for this solution. It was a lifetime license for this version (version 8), and we paid around 1,000 euros. At the moment, as long as we use this version, there is no additional cost, but when we upgrade to the new version, it will be a monthly subscription.

We bought the license from Softomotive, so we had one license and that license was restricted to version eight. When we upgrade to the newest version, we would need to buy that upgrade, because Microsoft has taken over Softomotive and they no longer sell licenses. They only sell monthly subscriptions.

We have to transfer our license to a Microsoft subscription, and though they will give a redemption, the cost will change, so this is also one of the reasons why we didn't change to the new version yet.

We evaluated other solutions: UiPath and Kofax.

You're using an older version. Now, Microsoft has taken over this version and they're calling it Power Automate desktop. I think a lot of improvements have already been done to the newest version, so what I'm going to tell you about the old version will no longer be relevant. We need to upgrade to the new version then check if the problems we were having have been fixed in the new version. Overall, we are satisfied with what we use it for because I think it's quite okay for our use case.

The name ProcessRobot doesn't exist anymore. Softomotive has been taken over by Microsoft so this solution has been rebranded by Microsoft to Power Automate desktop.

It's a robot, so it's operating on a server on its own. There's no real user, but it's trying to replace users. There's only one developer who is creating the tasks on that system. We also don't require anyone for its maintenance.

At the moment, we're using this solution to create a report of 50, so we have 50 data scripts running each night. We're planning to extend its use with a couple of reports, but for now, there's no need to further use it for other tasks.

My advice to others looking into implementing ProcessRobot is to try it first because it's free now, so you can test it. You can test it for free on the Windows 11 version. It's delivered by Microsoft for free. Go ahead and test it. The solution is nice and fast.

I would give this solution a rating of eight or nine. Let's say nine out of ten. I couldn't find any pictures for my use case. I think this was the best choice we could make, and ten is too perfect for rating a solution.

We use it for processing a stream of incoming invoices.

It is a cloud solution, but you install the client on your computer, so it is a hybrid deployment.

I can compare it with the same process on Blue Prism. With Power Automate, we've been able to double the speed. It is more user-friendly. It is faster. It is ten times cheaper. There are quite a few things about it.

Overall, it is a great service at the given price. It is very modern, and it integrates in a great way with pretty much anything. It is also fast. 

They can provide a deeper level of feedback about running processes. When I compare it to Blue Prism, the control room has slightly less information about the running processes and possible errors. I'm not a pro, so I am not entirely sure if this is a core feature of the product or if it is because of the way our partners have developed it or set it up. 

The stability of the UI section in terms of being able to read the visual elements is either at the same level as Blue Prism or better than Blue Prism. 

I don't have experience with scalability, but I don't see any roadblocks for scalability.

We've got plans to increase its usage, but it is about the decision-makers in our company having a good resource strategy. I'm not the main decision-maker, so I don't really know about the plans, but we would definitely want to increase the utilization. It is just a question of how to do it correctly.

We are in touch with a local partner who was a former partner of the Soft MultiTech company that originally developed the tool, which was acquired by Microsoft. They are very responsive. They help us quickly and efficiently with anything we need. We are quite happy with them.

It depends on your technical background. People who've got coding experience don't need to do anything. They can take it and work with it straight away. They don't need any partner or anyone else. They can just develop, but that's not the case for business users. 

Business users apparently need time to adapt and build the knowledge, which is probably the case with any platform, because the background rules need to be followed. In terms of its user-friendliness, it is drag-and-drop from predefined actions. If you know what to do and follow the rules and if you are able to build a strong process, then the product will probably give you everything you need to do that quickly and efficiently.

Its speed of adoption seems faster as compared to Blue Prism. The development and testing take the same amount of time on any platform, but it seems faster in terms of adoption than Blue Prism.

The number of people required for its maintenance depends on the process. It depends on the processes that you automate.

It is quite fresh, but its return on investment would be much better than Blue Prism. The Blue Prism license was somewhere around $10,000 a year, and we're now on $40 a month, which is incomparable, but we're getting the same service.

It is in fact a better product. So, even if you've got some other costs, such as you need some external coding at the beginning, you will get an ROI. We were positive about our return on investment with Blue Prism, and we would be doing much better than that with Power Automate, but I can't give exact numbers. I don't have them.

We've got a subscription package. We are on a monthly package of $40. We've got some discount because we're a big corporate client of Microsoft 365 and other solutions, but the standard price of the package that we use is $40.

For the product, you don't have to pay anything extra. If you're using a partner, you need to pay for their coding, advice, and services, which is a separate cost. The majority of the features are available for free for anyone who is on Microsoft 365.

I would suggest others to go for it. It is definitely a great solution, specifically at the given price. It is really hard for companies that are starting with RPA to justify the costs of some of the competing products, which could be 20, 30, or more times more expensive than Power Automate.

Even at a corporate level, it would be tough to get to a stage where you would find the product having some inefficiencies or some gaps as compared to its competitors. I don't have an experience where we are utilizing the orchestrator, have unattended bots, or are coordinating 20 or more bots, but according to our partners, it is working in such environments. It is about how you actually utilize the product, how well organized you are, how good are your processes, how you are able to build them in the product, rather than the super hard limitations within the product.

I don't really have a full experience with it, but from what I see and what I've learned, I would rate it a nine out of 10.

I use it for robotic process automation.

It is a low-code platform. It is easy to use and good for automating small tasks such as expense approvals, timesheet approvals, etc.

I would like more integration with other tools. It integrates well with Microsoft products, but there should be more integration with other platforms and tools, such as chatbots.

I have been using this solution for two years.

It is stable.

It depends on the use case. For my use cases, it is scalable.

We have over 10,000 people in my organization. In my branch, we have 100 people, and almost all of us in this branch have Microsoft Office, Microsoft Teams, and other solutions. We have approximately 20 users who use Microsoft Power Automate.

Any increase in its usage would depend on our clients. I work for a consultancy firm, so it depends on what our clients want. For our office work, we will keep using it.

I have not had to ask for technical support because the tasks that I do are easy.

I also use UiPath.

My company has a Microsoft package, and it was a part of the package. I didn't have to do any installation.

They have the community edition that people can use for free, and they also have the enterprise edition. My company uses the enterprise edition, and I don't know how much they pay.

It has been good so far. I would rate it an eight out of 10.

We use Microsoft's Power Automate in two major fields. Our first use case is reducing the time it takes a user to repeat a task, like, for example, rewriting some physical information in our system. We used Power Automate to extract information from physical documents and to digitalize them. We also use it to put these documents in the correct system as soon as we receive them. We are using a robot agent to do that now for our finance department, for example. 

Our other use case with Power Automate is system reconfiguration. Before, users had to manually reconfigure the software to configure our project. When we had a major update, for example, we have to change it manually with the data for the software. Now we have a process for automatically changing that data.

We choose Power Automate because it allows us to monitor our process and know where we can gain some time. We have a cockpit that shows us all the workflow for all automated tasks in place. We have a good overview of our processes now thanks to Power Automate. This is cool because previously we organized our processes on either paper or in a Word document. This was not really an accurate reflection of the tasks taking place. Now, we can have an interactive mapping of our processes.

There is room for improvement in the collaboration between the digital team and the business partners because Power Automate is not an easy tool to use. Our business partner does not have a clue about how to use Power Automate so it would be great to have an easy user interface that business partners can understand.

There are a few limitations to the tool. For example, you can't have 100,000 interactions in an hour. I would like to see that worked out. 

It would also be good if Microsoft contacted customers directly about building their own connectors. 

We have been testing the solution since last summer, I think. We have just two solutions in production.

For now, it has been a good solution for us in terms of stability, but we don't know yet whether we will have mass production and who will use a lot of interactions per hour.

We have not had any direct interactions with their tech support. We use their forum mostly. Microsoft has a good community.

We ran into issues during the setup because our system is not entirely on the cloud or on major solutions. So we had a lot of information in a system we made. The integration of our system into Power Automate was a bit tricky. We had to put a data lake in place before automating anything because we were not very structured in terms of data. Our major issue was cleaning up the data.

We choose 10 premium licenses for our digital team. We do not have a license for everyone in the organization. That's why it would be good to have a free view-only interface for stakeholders. They don't need a premium license because they will never use it to build anything but they needed insight into what is going on to relay the information forward to other stakeholders or clients. 

I am not managing the pricing, but I think it is pretty standard for solutions of that type. However, there is always room for improvement. 

I would not recommend Power Automate to all organizations because whether or not it will work out for them will depend on a number of factors. If the organization is all in one Microsoft environment or well-connected with the cloud, it can be really good. But, the organization will have quite some costs if in a Google or Amazon environment. 

If an organization uses Power Automate, it is best if they use Power Automate's other tools like Power BI and Power Apps. That's why I think the pricing could be lower as you should be able to get several solutions in a bundle. This should be an option during relicensing, for example. 

Someone using Power Automate should also have a basic understanding of databases, Power Apps, Power BI, and Azure. You have to know the full environment to get the most out of this tool. In other words, training is mandatory.

The most common use is for digitizing Excel forms or Excel spreadsheets. We use Power Automate to digitalize all Excel-based processes on a SharePoint page and link the libraries with the transactional data from the client.

It is cloud-based. It can be deployed on a public, private, or hybrid cloud. It depends on the client. It is linked with the Microsoft license that a client has. If the license is hybrid, then Automate is hybrid as well.

By digitizing Excel spreadsheets, we reduced the errors in information transactions. We also reduced the time for the internal processes and improved operational efficiency.

The cloud solution on Azure makes it easy for us to take care of the security, which is a big deal for us. We can use the same permissions that we already have in place in Azure Active Directory and just duplicate them for the forms in Power Automate and the SharePoint page, so managing security is very easy for us.

Workflow management is what clients select the most. It is very intuitive and pretty much drag-and-drop, so we can create escalation, decision flows, and if-else conditions pretty much by dragging and dropping boxes. Even someone who is not technical can develop a workflow for the business.

It is very easy to use. It doesn't need a technical resource to create and maintain forms. The UX/UI is very similar throughout the Microsoft platform, including SharePoint and Office 365. 

It integrates with all sorts of databases, such as SQL Server and Oracle Database, which is a plus. 

While working with non-structured data (like logs and user tracking information that usually fits the criteria of big data), all the data sources must pass by a data quality process via any ETL tool before linking and publishing any information to the automation workflows and forms. This process is important to standardize all the content and format types for the columns and fields in the tables that will be used to show data in the front end.

 The ability to read non-structured data and provide insights into how to sanitize and organize data automatically is something that I'd like to be covered in the next releases.

I have been using this solution for two and a half years.

We never had any downtime, so it is pretty good.

It is very scalable. We are working with hundreds of forms at the same time, and some of our clients have thousands of people working simultaneously on the same form, so it is very scalable.

Most of its users are function-based. They are process leads in their companies. We currently have more than 1,000 users.

It is being used a lot. It is currently our most important tool for team efficiency. We plan to increase its usage in the near future. We have lots of other internal applications and processes in the pipeline, especially for functional areas, which can be moved from paper and Excel to a SharePoint form by using Power Automate.

The response time depends on your license level. If you are a gold partner, the response time is in a couple of hours, which is pretty decent. If you are an individual user or a company that doesn't have any L1, L2, or L3 licenses, the response time is up to 48 hours. So, it all depends on your license level with Microsoft, but whatever they say in the contract, they do respect that, which is good.

We were already users of other Microsoft solutions such as SharePoint and Teams, so when Power Automate became decent for the market users, we just adopted it naturally. Our experience with their technical support was good. They were able to answer our questions and solve our issues within the response time in our contract.

I used Blue Prism a couple of years ago, and now I'm using Power Automate. Blue Prism is bigger and way more expensive, and they charge by the number of users. Microsoft was cheaper, and they charge by the number of forms. So, it was way cheaper for us to move to Power Automate from Blue Prism.

It was pretty straightforward. Microsoft had two solutions: Microsoft Flow and Power Apps. Microsoft combined these two solutions and called it Microsoft Power Automate. It is pretty seamless because if you're already using Microsoft licenses, everything integrates with Office 365, SharePoint, and Teams. So, it is very seamless.

It took some days to create the front end of all the forms. Creating a whole page takes a couple of hours for a SharePoint administrator or developer or even a functional person, and we have hundreds of those. It took a few weeks to create the entire front end, but the connections were done in minutes. They were very simple.

It was done in-house. In terms of maintenance, once the forms are created, we have just one full-time employee taking care of the maintenance of those 100 forms, and that's enough because it is pretty much adding or deleting fields. It is pretty simple to maintain.

I don't know the exact number. It depends and varies a lot according to the licensing terms.

There is no cost to maintain if we have less than 10 forms. Microsoft only charges if there are more than 10 forms. So, most of the companies can survive without paying anything extra. It is included in the Office 365 licensing.

I would advise others to first look at the process and then the technology. The biggest issue is that people think that whatever they have in the current system can be digitized and automated, but it is better to first do the roadmap, understand the process from A to B, and then design the flow on paper. After the flow on paper seems okay, then go to the tool and create the form.

I would rate Microsoft Power Automate a nine out of 10. Big data support is something that I'd like to be covered a lot. The other piece that my business needs is already taken care of by the solution. Big data support is the only piece that is missing currently.

We have been using Power Automate specifically for the COVID situation. The use case is mainly to automatically fire an e-mail every Monday morning requesting the employees of our firm to provide a response regarding their well-being. After the data is captured by using an MS form, the subsequent workflows get triggered through Power Automate. If somebody has mentioned that they have a fever or shortness of breath, we send this person's entry to our health and safety officer and our plan manager. All this is automated.

We also have another use case related to procurement where an automated flow was required for invoice processing for an external vendor.

We have been able to automate the form filling, form dispatch, and data collection activities, specifically for the COVID situation, across all offices within our firm. It is a global process covering all zones such as Europe, India, and Australia. We have also been able to define workflows for particular use cases, such as when there is a high volume of cases in a specific zone, such as India. We have created workflows so that our emergency team is directly able to connect with the R3 team that directly connects with the employee to provide the required support.

We have also gone a bit far with respect to the access part. The Power Automate flow also connects with the physical gates of our offices. Last year, we were able to control our physical gates with the data generated by the Power Automated workflow. We were prohibiting or allowing the entry of the people based on their responses that they had put in the Monday morning form. It was quite a complex use case, but we were able to roll it out globally, and it has helped a lot with the COVID situation.

The best part is the automated workflow, which is quite good and easy. It is just drag-and-drop. We are able to create workflows quite quickly. 

We are able to directly integrate the data that it generates with Power BI dashboards. Its integration is quite good with other Microsoft tools, such as Power BI. The visualization of the data has become helpful for us.

Microsoft shouldn't charge extra for the database license if you want to store the data in the database during the trial. We wanted to have a historical trend of the data, and we started with the trial version of the tool. The database license is not included with the trial version, and you have to purchase it separately. Because we had a budget constraint, we had to pull all the information manually from the system, massage it, and push it to the dashboard. About two months ago, we have upgraded to the full-fledged version in which the database is integrated. The database license should be there in the trial version, but they have totally decoupled it. They should have provided a bundle, at least for the trial version, so that once a person or a firm gets a sense of it, they can start building. It might be because they wanted to sell additional licenses or premium licenses, and that's why they have added it in the premium version.

It should have more cognitive features. Automation Anywhere and UiPath are different because they have cognitive functionality plus intelligent automation. The cognitive functionality is currently not there in Microsoft Power Automate. It is just for workflow automation and basic bot-level tasks. It should have more cognitive features, which probably will be launched in a couple of years.

I have been using this solution for the past one and a half years.

It is quite a stable product.

It is scalable. There is no doubt about Microsoft products in terms of scalability. Because of its scalability, we are able to have use cases that require a higher load.

From the build perspective, only our team builds it. We have around 10 to 12 developers who create and support Power Automate solutions. In terms of its usage, we are currently using it only for two use cases. We also have other tools, but we are using Power Automate for the use cases with less budget. Its license cost is comparatively less as compared to Automation Anywhere.

We have annual support, and there is also a community. My team connected with the community forums, and most of the things got resolved there. They connected with the support once for an issue, which got resolved. Their support is good.

We are also using Automation Anywhere, but we needed a tool that is cheaper than Automation Anywhere. Power Automate fits there well.

Its deployment was quite easy. We already have Microsoft suite across our company. Our complete ecosystem is Microsoft-based, so it was not a challenge. It took one or two days to get things in place. For complete documentation and implementation, it hardly took two weeks.

As per our current agreement, Microsoft is supposed to provide support. So, we had an external consultant who helped us out.

Its licensing cost is comparatively less as compared to Automation Anywhere. We have bought a two-year license agreement.

I would recommend this solution to others. It is one of the powerful tools. The best part is that it fits very well with the Microsoft ecosystem. It is not at the same level as Automation Anywhere and UiPath, but being a Microsoft product, I see a bright future for this. In one and a half years, it will be one of the key players in the RPA industry.

I would rate Microsoft Power Automate an eight out of ten.

We have various use cases because it is used at an enterprise scale. It is mainly used for document workflow management. It is used for validating and publishing documents. It is also used for validating the SharePoint page publishing, financial approvals, and investments approvals. It is a SaaS solution, so we have its latest version.

Its integration with the Office 365 ecosystem is most valuable. We use a lot of ready-to-use templates.

Its licensing model should be improved. The pricing should be more visible and transparent. When you consume services, there are too many criteria to figure out how much it is going to cost you to use the product to its full extent.

It should also support visual process editing, which is a standard feature for BPMN 2.0 compliance. They should improve the visual designer.

I have been using this solution for three years.

It is globally stable.

We haven't scaled it up. We have between 1,000 to 2,000 users. On paper, it is easy to scale, but it is under the condition of license purchase. It scales within the limits of what has been imposed by the licensing model.

I have been more in touch with their pre-sales people than technical support. We are a large enterprise, so we have direct access to their premium support team with SLAs. Their support is very responsive and efficient.

It is simple. It is a ready-to-use product, and there is no setup. It also doesn't require maintenance from our side.

It costs us nothing because we use it on the built-in cost that is a part of our existing license for 365. To use it more extensively, there are different pricing models.

Its licensing is complex. It is complex to evaluate the cost in advance. As a result, people don't use it because they don't know what overall cost they are going to incur. There are too many criteria to figure out how much it is going to cost you to use the product to its full extent. Its licensing model should be improved, and the pricing should be more visible and transparent. 

I would recommend this solution to others. I would rate Microsoft Power Automate a seven out of ten.