In this webinar, you’ll get an introduction to Power Automate—a powerful tool from Microsoft that helps you automate time-consuming tasks and streamline your workflows.

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Transcript of the webinar on 22 January 2025:

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Do you still spend hours every week copying data, sending standard reports, and updating the system manually? If so, you may be missing out on what could be your organization’s most powerful automation tool. Today, we’ll show you how a single team can save many hours a week through process automation. Imagine no longer having to deal with manual reminders, approvals, and updates.

Everything happens automatically while you work on other, perhaps more creative or strategic tasks. Today, we’ll take a deep dive into Power Automate together. It is Microsoft’s tool for automating tasks across the entire 365 platform and hundreds of other systems. You’ll see practical examples of what can be automated, and whether you’re a beginner or an experienced user, you can learn how to free up time for more important tasks.

Our best tip is to start by automating a simple but time-consuming task that you do often. For example, you could receive notifications when important documents are changed or automatically collect data from multiple sources. Stay tuned, because over the next few minutes, we'll show you exactly how you can save several hours every week—and you can get started today.

Frode Stenstrøm: And with those words, we wish you a very happy New Year after taking a few weeks off from our weekly broadcast here at our studio in Asker for Christmas and New Year. I’ve brought a new and highly skilled colleague into the studio who is passionate about process automation, and I thought it would be great to show you what you can automate and how you can save a lot of time by automating your tasks.

And that brings us to today’s topic: Power Automate, Microsoft’s automation tool.  But before we get started, Ane, who are you?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, I like running. I'm a bit of a skincare nerd. And this summer, I'll have been here for seven years.

Frode Stenstrøm: Seven years at ProsessPilotene.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: It’s a lot of fun. There’s always something new to learn about, and it’s an industry that is constantly evolving.

Frode Stenstrøm: That's right. Skincare and running, then. My name is Frode Stenstrøm, and as usual, I'll be hosting today's broadcast. We'll be streaming live on YouTube, as we always do.

This is an interactive broadcast, so if you have any questions for Ane, just ask them now and we’ll answer them as we go. We’d love to know who you are, and we’ll add subtitles and chapters to the recording so you can skip to the parts of the broadcast that are most relevant to you. Like and share the broadcast with your contacts, turn on notifications, and feel free to listen to ProsessPodden, which you can also find on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Agenda

Frode Stenstrøm: So, a little about today's agenda. First, what is Power Automate?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, we'll talk a little about that. Why use it? We'll talk about who should use it and what should be automated. What are good use cases for automation, and how do you use it? A little about integrations. And of course, we'll have a summary.

Frode Stenstrøm: And we'll get very specific about automation.

I find this very exciting, because in a market where there is currently a lot of talk about artificial intelligence, and especially the emergence of AI agents that will do a lot for us automatically, Power Automate is a crucial tool in the value chain for realizing the value that comes from using those agents.

But to a great many people, Power Automate is just an unfamiliar term. It is probably one of those IT terms that those of us who work in the field know well,

and it is not as well known among the general public.

What is Power Automate?

Frode Stenstrøm: So, Ane, I was wondering if you could briefly tell us: what exactly is Power Automate as a product?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, as you say, it is primarily a tool that can be used to automate processes.

And really ... Getting rid of the tasks that are simply time-consuming and repetitive, and that don't offer employees anything either. And also reducing errors, so it's a very important tool that can do an incredible amount. And it's the primary choice for automation that doesn't need to happen immediately, that is, in real time. Because

Frode Stenstrøm: Those of you who have used the Microsoft Dynamics platform for many, many years will know that the Dynamics platform had various tools for task management or automation,

but hasn't all of that essentially been consolidated into Power Automate?

Yes,

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Microsoft now recommends Power Automate for everything

that isn't real-time. So that's the most important tool.

Frode Stenstrøm: But it’s not for real-time tasks; it’s more for asynchronous things that take time?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: So anything asynchronous, whether it needs to be done at a certain time, or based on a certain action—a trigger—or whether you just need to start it yourself.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly.

Examples of automation

Frode Stenstrøm: Could you tell us, Ane, what can we actually automate with Power Automate?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, everything, but there are some good candidates and examples, such as sending notifications, managing approvals—which can also be integrated with Teams and so on—collecting data from multiple systems, and automating processes, as we have already discussed briefly. Power Automate integrates systems, has hundreds of connectors, and orchestrates across systems.

Frode Stenstrøm: And with that, Ane, I think Microsoft making it a standalone service was a smart move, because as you said earlier, it used to be tied solely to your CRM system, but that is no longer the case.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: No. You can get a lot out of Power Automate without using Dynamics. And as we mentioned, it comes with an incredible number of connectors out of the box.

And even if your target system doesn't have an out-of-the-box connector available, you can also create custom connectors.

Frode Stenstrøm: And on our YouTube channel, exactly one year ago, Oscar and I talked about these very connectors, but in relation to Copilot Studio and creating interactions, conversations, and chatbots.

We also have the same connectors for Power BI, so the clever thing is that if you create a connector for your line-of-business system once, it can be used in quite a few places.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, and Power BI—it's interesting that you mention that too, because Power BI also has triggers you can use. So, for example, if you reach a certain value, or something exceeds a certain value, it can trigger a Power Automate flow, which can then send notifications and perform actions in other systems.

Frode Stenstrøm: And in that respect, I believe Microsoft is in a fairly unique position, because there are quite a few process automation systems on the market, but none of them offer the same breadth of data sources that Microsoft has in its portfolio. And when you also add AI chatbots that can use the same connectors,

then an enormous amount is already open and ready to use. You don't necessarily need a developer to get started.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: No, that's absolutely right.

Why Automate?

Frode Stenstrøm: But what I thought I’d ask you about is why I should automate anything at all. I believe you have some figures you wanted to share.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, these are figures that Microsoft itself has presented on its Learn pages. They show that at least 30% of the activities in 60% of all occupations can be automated, which I would say is a lot.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that's actually before you bring AI agents into the picture; it's based solely on what we have today.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: That's just what we have today, and globally, almost half of all work can be automated using today's technology. So yes, technology we have today...

Frode Stenstrøm: And again, the AI agents, I mean, they are going to—and the leadership of OpenAI said so too—and now, during the course of this year, there will be...

That is, over a million AI agents covering just about everything imaginable, performing tasks both large and small. And you can actually go and try out many of them today.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, so that 50% figure is from before we were given the opportunities that AI agents brought.

Frode Stenstrøm: That's right. And then we have the next one.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, data collection and processing times can be improved by 64% through automation.

And we see that in many of the customer cases we have handled. There will always be errors—we are only human, and we make human mistakes—but with automation, we know that the same thing happens every single time.

and that provides peace of mind.

Frode Stenstrøm: We have a case we're working on now, Ane, where we know that the customer will be manually classifying incoming documents,

and they have also calculated an error margin for the work they do.

It is often said that people do the best job, but when operating at scale, we know that there are deviations in their work too.

And one of our colleagues set up an AI classification chatbot using Power Automate, and it reached a certain level—it wasn't perfect either, but it was still a fairly radical improvement over the manual work in the process.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Because we often think that we need to look at this qualitatively, but as long as we can isolate what drives the decisions we make and structure it, it can be automated.

Frode Stenstrøm: Correct.

How to identify what can be automated?

Frode Stenstrøm: How can we know whether something can be automated at all?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, there are several characteristics you can look for to determine whether this is a good candidate for automation.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: And there are several factors to consider. I think perhaps the most important one is volume. Does this happen a lot, does it happen often? So volume is an important keyword. And as we touched on earlier, it is possible to set some standards here.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, standard process. I’m trying to get it onto your camera. Ha ha.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: So that's important—if we establish some rules for ourselves, we know that if this happens, we need to do something.

A, before we do B, then we can sort of standardize the process. If it happens frequently, and we always know what we want the outcome to be, then there is also the fact that we are human and make mistakes. So if this process is often prone to human error, it is a good candidate, and if there is a high risk of errors and significant impact, then what we can consider—or what we recommend considering—is: What is the cost of not automating this?

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, the opposite question.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, really the opposite question: What is the cost of doing nothing? If we just let this carry on as it is, what does it actually cost? And often, it is quite a lot.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, but it’s a calculation you’d rather not think about

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: No, exactly. But it is an important question for a company to ask itself if it is considering investing in an automation process.

So doing nothing is already costing the company quite a lot. Especially if it is something that happens on a large scale, in high volumes, and perhaps with a high rate of... Of errors, that is, human errors.

Frode Stenstrøm: I've had quite a few conversations with many different people who think that starting an information process is so burdensome in itself, and that we can't invest in something that may only be needed for a short time. But when you know that you can create something like this in anywhere from minutes to days, I think people simply don't realize how easy it is to tackle some of these processes and do something about them.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: There’s also the fact that people think it costs money to create an automation process. Someone has to get started, and this is going to take some time, or we’re going to spend some time explaining how we do it today. But what people may forget to consider is: Yes, but how much does it actually cost us every day not to automate it?

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, that's right.

So the advice here is actually to look at the opposite question. And perhaps, as you said when we discussed tips earlier, just pick one and start somewhere.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, start somewhere.

Frode Stenstrøm: And don’t be discouraged by thinking it has to be such a huge project. But I know you’ve also created a guide for us.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, more to demonstrate the breadth of what Power Automate can do. So, if you're wondering where to start, Power Automate has hundreds of connectors available out of the box.

Frode Stenstrøm: And just to reiterate, what is a connector?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: A connector is something that allows you to perform actions or operations in another system, such as SharePoint or... Power BI, or, well, it could be any system.

And there are already hundreds of these available. So if the answer to whether connectors are available is yes, then you just need to determine whether this process should run at certain times. For example, things often run overnight so that they are up to date when you come to work the next day.

So if it needs to run at specific times, then the answer is yes. In that case, you use these scheduled triggers. If the answer is no, then perhaps it should run based on an event, meaning as a result of someone taking an action. I click something or forward something. In that case, we use these automated triggers.

I feel like almost 80 percent falls into this category.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, so we're kind of moving into the event-based world

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, that's where we want to go too—for it to happen in response to something. But if it's not going to be event-driven, then ... Then there are these instant triggers that allow someone to actually start the process manually.

Frode Stenstrøm: And for those of you who have watched some of the webinars we have held on Customer Insights, Microsoft's marketing and communications platform, it is worth noting that we have often referred to the reverse scenario there: A customer journey that a customer goes through can trigger a Power Automate flow, so that if you reach a point and simply indicate what you are interested in and something needs to be done, it can become an event that initiates a workflow in the background.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, it’s more like what you mentioned about customer journeys in Customer Journeys, because there are actually Power Automates running in the background.

Frode Stenstrøm: They’re the ones running things technically, you know?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, that's what's behind it. That's the technology that's also used there.

Frode Stenstrøm: And the funny thing about that is, when you look at Microsoft's strategy, as they improve the platform, you also knock out all their products.

That's very clever. But then we've gone through what I call the rabbit hole, from searching based on events down to the automatic instant in the trigger—isn't that what you were talking about?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, it means that someone in the company decides that the process should happen now

Frode Stenstrøm: Now it’s going to start, yes.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Then there’s the case where you can’t find the connector you need among the hundreds of available connectors out there. If the system you want to communicate with has a REST API, you can create a custom connector, provided you have the necessary expertise.

Frode Stenstrøm: And really, I would say that almost all—at least the vast majority of—modern computer systems have some kind of interface or something else that developers can use.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, it would have to be quite a legacy system if there isn't a REST API.

Frode Stenstrøm: There should be plenty of that, yes.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: But if there is no REST API available, you can still use Power Automate, but in that case the desktop version.

Frode Stenstrøm: And you at home can order services from us to create those connectors, and then you can create the flow yourselves afterwards.

And that connector is then used in Power BI and for any other purposes you might want to use it for. But then you use this desktop flow, and that is?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: It’s RPA, if you... Robotic

Frode Stenstrøm: Process Automation?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, that's right.

Frode Stenstrøm: I passed the assignment.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, very good. So basically, you can record what you're doing, like logging in...

It records it, yes, but then I click there and click there and click there, and Power Automate Desktop Flow saves all the steps as stages in its process. You can then choose to run it either locally on your PC while monitoring it yourself, or unattended, so that your PC can be turned off, which is what we usually do.

Frode Stenstrøm: And in the flow Ane is showing here, this is how it works now, and where the product is headed this year is towards these famous AI agents that I keep coming back to. One of the steps will involve an agent that might read one or a hundred web pages looking for certain keywords, compile the information, and then reuse it in a work process.

So really, our imagination is the only limit to what we can achieve.

But you can also keep it super simple, since you're only going to demonstrate a short, simple flow.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, a little teaser.

Frode Stenstrøm: A little teaser afterwards, and then we can revisit some more detailed workflows in future webinars that you might want to challenge us with.

So, with that, that was the second one. Did you have anything else to say about your flowchart, or should we move on?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: We can move on.

Benefits and gains from automation

Frode Stenstrøm: So, a little about the benefits and gains.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, there are so many benefits, and it depends somewhat on what characteristics you are looking for. First, there is what we talked about: given that half of all work tasks can be automated, if you free up that time for employees to actually do what they are good at and what they can apply their creativity and imagination to, it goes without saying that this will lead to increased productivity in

the company.

That way, you can focus on more strategic activities. It is also about reducing the risk of errors, because one of the reasons for automating is knowing that the workflow or pilot meeting does the same thing every time.

Frode Stenstrøm: It never gets tired.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Never tired, and never short on sleep.

Frode Stenstrøm: Never slept too little, and processes things the same way every time.

And then there’s one more point, which I know from the operations side: you can monitor whether they’re doing what they’re supposed to or not.

So, from an IT operations perspective, you can see how things are going. Fortunately, there are no IT operations tools that monitor whether I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do all the time.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: And then there’s the fact that it’s a Microsoft tool on the Microsoft platform. It’s easy to use, it’s scalable, and if a process runs hundreds of thousands of times a day, that’s entirely possible too. You simply allocate that process specifically, and you can also allocate more resources to it.

Frode Stenstrøm: And then there’s the matter of cost, Ane. The products aren’t very expensive, are they?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: No, it’s not very expensive, and if you already have other Microsoft licenses, it may well already be included.

Frode Stenstrøm: You may already have it. And that's something worth noting: you don't need to be a major Dynamics customer or anything like that.

You can even use it privately to organize RSVPs for a party.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: And Microsoft is also good when it comes to Pay As You Go—when you’re just getting started, it isn’t expensive. It’s only when you realize that this needs to run 100,000 times around the clock that you can, of course, pay for better licenses that give you more power.

Frode Stenstrøm: And then there’s the scalability, which is great. Yes, so it’s easy to use, and we’re just going to demonstrate that.

Practical demonstration

Frode Stenstrøm: So I thought we could continue working on a little case study that you've prepared for us.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, you may already be familiar with Miljøpilotene AS from previous webinars.

There's a website and...

Frode Stenstrøm: A full installation of all of that. We set it up to showcase everything we have here from the process pilots, and it contains our demo data in Norwegian and a fictitious company that does not exist.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: No

Frode Stenstrøm: But now, thanks to a little use of AI, we've created both images and a cast of characters and things like that

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Absolutely.

Frode Stenstrøm: And you're using that company as your starting point now, Ane.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes. So our case here is that Miljøpilotene AS receives a carbon footprint request from the company Diamant AS.

Frode Stenstrøm: You've been creative here! Especially considering what diamonds are made of?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes.

Frode Stenstrøm: Carbon, yes.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, so the case here is basically that we have a form on Miljøpilotene's website that prospective customers can fill out and indicate that they want help from Miljøpilotene, and then they enter some figures and so on before submitting it to Miljøpilotene.

Today, a case is created and assigned to an Environmental Pilot. As for how things worked before—I think we should start with that—they used to work in various Excel spreadsheets and do the calculations themselves. Not all the Environmental Pilots were equally diligent about using up-to-date figures, because these average carbon emissions figures change from year to year.

It is important to retrieve them consistently from the same source and ensure they are up to date. The environmental pilots then had to transfer these figures from Excel spreadsheets themselves. Not everyone used the same templates, and when converting them to PDFs, people did it in different ways and were not always good at saving them in the right place. As a result, information could be lost because people saved it locally, and then they had to send the PDF with the carbon emissions figures by email.

The calculations are sent by email, perhaps from their personal email accounts, and they forget to log them in the case, so that traceability is lost, and so on. Also, when you need to go back and see what the basis was for calculating the carbon emissions, it is difficult to find the figures used, because they may have forgotten to upload the Excel spreadsheet they were working with to the case.

So, as we can hear, there are many potential sources of error, and this is a major part of the environmental pilots’ work. Many people do it, so there is a high volume and plenty of room for error. This therefore made a good automation use case for the environmental pilots. What happens now is that they process the case and collect the required figures. Then they simply click a button in the case to complete the job, and the carbon emissions are automatically calculated based on the figures collected in the case. The updated averages are retrieved from the same source and refreshed each time. The case card is automatically updated with the calculated carbon emissions, and a PDF is created and added to the case card based on both case data and customer data. It is saved as a document and uploaded to the case card.

And another important point here is the template... There may be different templates for different types of customers or different industries, for example. This gives the company a very consistent and uniform look when sending documents.... The PDF looks professional, with the correct fonts and formatting. An email is then sent from the case card, from Miljøpiloten to the customer, with everything fully traceable.

Frode Stenstrøm: It’s quite a process.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, but that is often the case with many of the clients and industries I have worked with. There are often a lot of these small, repetitive tasks that make the employees’ day feel a bit like boring assembly-line work: I always have to click there, and click there, and click there, and click there.

And those are good use cases for automation.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes,

but that was what I thought the point was, because I’ve encountered this so many times: “No, we just have to get it done, so we don’t have time to automate it. We’ll just do it. It doesn’t take that many minutes.” The problem is that it scales up to perhaps two, three, or four times half an hour for one person, then up to ten employees, and so on.

And perhaps even more importantly, it causes tremendous frustration among those who have to do it.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, there’s something to be said for wanting to retain good employees and let them do what they’re good at.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, and what you're showing is how you can create this kind of case that eliminates that noise, and it doesn't cost a fortune to do it.

Questions from webinar participants: Which tasks are most commonly automated?

Frode Stenstrøm: We’ll take a quick look in the tool at what a flow like this might look like. But Mathias asks: What types of tasks would you say usually offer the greatest potential for automation, Ane? What would you say your customers focus on most?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: It’s often those small, repetitive tasks, as you mentioned—things you don’t necessarily think of as particularly fancy or exciting, but that involve a high volume and

Yes, and I’m also very familiar with document assembly, because that’s something that

Frode Stenstrøm: production archiving

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: and templates and things like that are generally something many different industries have, but employees find it difficult to know which template to use now. They store a lot locally, so the way they present themselves... To their customers, in turn, ends up being, well, not as good as it could be.

Frode Stenstrøm: No, that's exactly it. I don't think I've ever worked anywhere where people haven't asked questions like, well, which template is the current one, or where are our templates? Even at our company, where we have a dedicated area containing all the templates, employees still come and ask, where are the templates? Have you tried going in and clicking New Document?

It's there, but people still ask, and that's common.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: And then, from an automation perspective, the question again is why employees should have to go in and use these templates manually if the content to be entered and sent out can be taken directly from the employees’ work platform.

Frode Stenstrøm: But thinking about it, as Mathias asks, what do customers focus on most? Are they primarily concerned with saving time, or what is their actual focus and approach to the topic?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Well, I often feel that the need arises on the customer's side when they see that there are a lot of errors

And that they may have encountered some data quality challenges

and see that, for example, for something to be correct, you may be expected to remember both to check a box there and to update that system. And you have to fill in the information there to keep everything in sync.

Frode Stenstrøm: So it almost comes from a pain point?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, I often feel that way. And the more you develop the customer, and the more mature they become, the more you can see them develop

Frode Stenstrøm: That they have also understood that it is possible to do

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, the realm of possibilities, and that comes after you've worked together for a while, and then they may also be prompted to say, yes, perhaps we should have automated that.

In a way, it’s something a lot of people do that’s simply tedious, and where we always know what’s going to happen.

Frode Stenstrøm: And then perhaps it’s also that the processes aren’t always so clearly defined, so it’s easy to let yourself... Define?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, that's another thing ... When we start working with a client, they often have to do a bit of soul-searching, like, “Yes, maybe we do have a process?”

But it may not be written down anywhere either; it's more like ...

Frode Stenstrøm: Are the informal processes what drive this?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, there are many informal processes out there, and they become more visible as people collaborate. Then you start to see opportunities to automate those processes as well. But initially, as you say, I think it stems from the pain of seeing errors.

And then maybe it’s not such a good idea for seven different people to do this in different ways.

Who should use Power Automate

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly. But who would you say it’s for ... Power Automate—the name and all the marketing make it sound very much like an IT tool. Power Automate and Power Flow and PowerPoint and so on. But who is it really for? Could you give this to a sales manager or an IT department, or would they need to call you for help?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes and no; it depends on what you want to do. The tool itself is very easy to use, so if you want to automate something involving your inbox and sending emails, and perhaps also update something in Dynamics or other tools, you can get quite far as an individual or a manager in a company. Perhaps you want to receive a report at regular intervals and have it sent to you.

You can probably manage that yourself. Then there are the somewhat larger projects, where we actually use Power Automate as an integration tool. In those cases, you may want some help, especially when it comes to custom connectors. But you can get quite far on your own, because the tool itself is intuitive.

Frode Stenstrøm: And because I know that a great many accountants are used to using Power BI to create their own charts, I would argue that Power Automate follows many of the same principles. You can get very far without writing code, but you need a conceptual understanding of what you are trying to achieve. At the very least, you need to be able to write down, “This is the process I want to do something about.”

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, and now Power Automate can also take input, so you can start with just a prompt, a copilot, and say, “This is what I want it to do,” and then Power Automate will suggest a trigger and actions. And you can test your flow many times, so if you’re new to the tool, it will be a matter of trial and error, testing it thoroughly and trying things out.

How to use Power Automate

Frode Stenstrøm: Could you just quickly show us what it looks like, Ane?

So far, we’ve talked a little about what it is, who it’s for, what you can use, and value creation and benefits.

It would be nice to get a little glimpse of what this tool actually looks like.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, we do. I’m now in the Power Automate tool, in the editor itself, so we can see that the Power Automate itself has a name and a status

and here you can see the workflow itself.

The first box is the trigger itself, and it looks different if it is scheduled. For example, in that case there is a separate time-based scheduling trigger, but here it is based on an automated action.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, for example, "completed a case." And that case could just as easily have been in Dynamics or Salesforce, or it could have been a case in an Excel spreadsheet, for that matter.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Absolutely. And then you can add new ... All of this is called actions. And you can also have branches and continuous checks here, so in large automation jobs that we have created, you very often check whether it is this case or that case, because if we are in H1, then this should happen, but if we are in H2, then something completely different should happen.

And retrieve data and, yes, we often check, and we often find that, well, if we have a form on the website and they have written a lot, and that text contains... this, then we may want it to be sent for manual processing, for example. We can then terminate the flow and not continue running it.

Frode Stenstrøm: No further.

And for those of you who remember the webinar we did with Jørgen, where we looked at customer journeys—the Custom Insights Data webinar—you can find it on our channel. We actually demonstrated a very realistic scenario: for example, a customer visits your online store, starts filling their shopping cart, and then leaves.

Then you have what we call the abandoned cart trigger, which allows us to say within two days: Hey, you forgot your order. Would you like to complete it before we delete it? It’s exactly the same setup, just with slightly different actions included in the steps, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see that it’s the same

Connectors and integrations

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, so we can take a look—if you click here, for example, you have...

That you need to add an action. And here you can see lots of the out-of-the-box ones. Just look at how long this list is. But there are hundreds of...

Frode Stenstrøm: Outlook, it's there. ...

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: connectors.

Frode Stenstrøm: Salesforce, Adobe, DocuSign—there are a few signatures there, as we know.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes. And we use XperiFlow a lot as well. Yes, which is, well, the old XpertDoc.

Yes, to...

Frode Stenstrøm: For creating documents

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, to generate... Documents from templates.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly. And then you had AI images at the top there, and you can see what we're seeing now with the AI agent: that you can use machine learning, and it's now technically possible to receive an email from a customer asking for a quote, generate a draft quote in response using AI, and then have it reviewed.

So for those who don't want an online store, there's still quite a lot you can do.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, and these approvals can also be used in approval workflows. So depending on the type of request, it can be sent to different people for approval.

Frode Stenstrøm: That's correct

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: And these are the checks I mentioned earlier, where we very often do things based on something that has happened, and also to a certain...

Condition, or sort of depending on

Frode Stenstrøm: depending on?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, it depends—if it’s Monday or Thursday, or if it’s June or January, then we’ll do different things.

Frode Stenstrøm: Cool, yes, I see the deadline and then the end as well, if that was it

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, and then we use a switch case if you have—yes, let's say we use the months, knowing that we're going to do completely different things depending on which month we're in.

So then we might use a switch on the month, and then have January, February, March, and April, and set it up like that.

Frode Stenstrøm: For those with a development background, it’s really the same things, just presented in a way that’s a little easier for people to understand.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, it's quite intuitive, and there is a vast array of connectors out there that you can use.

Copilot and AI

Frode Stenstrøm: If you click Copilot, what happens then, Ane?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, here it is.

Here you can get help explaining the flow or ask for input on ... the flow, as well as help actually creating new parts of the flow, explaining what is happening now, and explaining what my flow is currently doing.

Frode Stenstrøm: It is very important to be aware of what you are showing now, because around the New Year Microsoft carried out a fairly major reorganization, bringing together its resources for artificial intelligence and developer tools,

Because they want ordinary people to be able to create a Power Automate flow or applications without the help of developers.

So that means Copilot isn't just about summarizing text, as it were; you can actually build entire applications, or at least get a long way toward doing so.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, add a step that does this, and then review it and perhaps make some adjustments.

Frode Stenstrøm: But it got incredibly far based on the initial intent alone.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Yes, and it was launched—it's been a while since it was launched, so I feel that it has become much better than it was at the beginning, so it's constantly evolving.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, and these underlying models—the large language models—have also become much, much better.

And as I’m answering today, OpenAI has begun rolling out the O3 Mini model. I’ve seen some statistics on it, and what it’s capable of is absolutely incredible.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Exciting times lie ahead.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, I think it’s incredibly, incredibly fun. But I’m a bit of an AI nerd, so there’s that.

But I think that for our... Today, we're just going to give you an idea of what the interface might look like. We could do another webinar where we walk you through and show you specifically how you can use a flow through Teams chat, for example, or directly from your Outlook, or directly in Dynamics, so you can take a look at some use-case scenarios.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: We’d like to explore this in a little more depth than we have today. So that’s what we’ll do.

Frode Stenstrøm: But we always explain what it is and why before we reveal the names of all the use cases. So just keep an eye on our channel—it’s coming. I thought we could move on to the final point, Ane, because we’ve covered a great deal by now, and that is to talk a little about integrations and AI agents.

We've touched on this a little before, but yes, it's a Microsoft service. You don't have your own server; you only purchase it in the cloud.

But you can connect it to quite a lot of things.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: And as we've discussed before, this works both ways: you can use AI and chatbots, which in turn use Power Automate to perform actions for people who contact you via chat, and conversely, you can use AI agents in Power Automate.

Frode Stenstrøm: So that's exactly it.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: It's an interplay.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that means that even if you weren't a major Microsoft customer, but perhaps had Salesforce, and maybe used it in Slack, and had things like that, Power Automate still serves that function in your organization. I feel confident saying that.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: Absolutely.

Frode Stenstrøm: And when you may already be paying for it, it doesn't really make sense to pay for something else.

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: That's right.

Summary and conclusion

Frode Stenstrøm: I think it's time to sum up this broadcast. So, what have we covered—what have we talked about?

Ane Garborg Tronsaune: We have talked about what Power Automate is and why we should use it. We have also discussed good use cases for what should be automated and who should use it. And we have also taken a brief look at how to use it.

We will return to that in future webinars.

And briefly about integrations.

Frode Stenstrøm: That's absolutely right. And with those words, I'd like to thank Ane for her contribution to today's broadcast. If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section below. If you found this useful, share the video with anyone you think might benefit from it. If you'd like more professional content, subscribe to our channel and follow us on LinkedIn.

You can find the broadcast on YouTube and on the website prosesspilotene.no. The broadcast is produced by Prosesspilotene. We increase the value of your customers through the use of Microsoft technology, and we work with processes in marketing, sales, service, and project management. Our analytics team can create artificial intelligence models, insights and analyses, and a data and analytics platform for you, while our collaboration team can help you create new websites, customer portals, and customer clubs.

Stay tuned, because over the next few weeks we'll be bringing you even more broadcasts. We'll be covering field service, Power Automate, insights and analytics, so there's plenty more to come in the days ahead. I, Frode Stenstrøm, have been responsible for this episode, with Oddbjørg Berge as project manager. Here's to better work processes for everyone! See you again soon...

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