Microsoft Power Automate Reviews

It is currently being used by our customer service department. They're using it for tracking overtime, and they're also using it for reporting and automating their various service quality reports. So, automation of service quality reports and overtime management are basically two major use cases.

The ease of use and the integration with some of the existing products that we have would be its main takeouts.

From an improvement perspective, Microsoft just needs to make sure that they have a real enterprise RPA tool. PowerApps and Power Automate are still not at the level of UiPath and Automation Anywhere. It could be because Automation Anywhere and UiPath have been in the market for quite some time. It's just about Microsoft increasing their focus in terms of product reviews and development and making them competitive products that one can consider at an enterprise level. Right now, their use cases are limited as compared to what one would consider doing with UiPath and Automation Anywhere.

It is a stable solution.

It is scalable, but it is limited in terms of the processes that you can automate. If you have complex processes that you want to automate, it doesn't have that capability yet. So, it is scalable but to a certain extent.

Our organization is working with it actively. Its number of users could be between 100 and 200.

Technical support is given by Microsoft through the support model that they offer for customers. If you have an issue, you can log the issue in with Microsoft, and they would always attend to it. I would rate them a three out of five.

It was straightforward. There was nothing complex.

You don't need much staff for deployment and maintenance of it. You need a very limited number of people.

We used a partner.

Its license is a part of our enterprise agreement. It is a three-year contract, but we pay yearly. So, it is a yearly license. There are no additional costs.

I would rate it a six out of 10.

I'm using it for internal purposes at the moment. We are a consulting company and we are exploring goals with the option of implementing automation for our clients.

Currently, I am assessing Microsoft Power Automate, comparing it with UiPath to see if it's good enough for our clients and for our purpose.

We plan to use this solution for getting information from one application to another, for producing sheets and text files for Power BI, and also for integration and displaying dashboards and business intelligence for the business. It will also be used for invoicing and notifications — mainly business processes in general.

Microsoft Power Automate is very easy to use. It's very complete with a lot of activities available. It's intuitive and it seems very stable. 

I was using this solution when it was called Microsoft Flow. Currently, I've been evaluating it for the last two weeks. 

This solution is very stable. 

I can't comment on the scalability yet as I haven't tried to scale it yet. Still, I know it will be scalable because it's in the DNA of the project. 

I haven't had to contact technical support as of yet. 

The initial setup was very straightforward. It only took five to ten minutes to get it up and running. 

I installed this solution by myself. 

Microsoft Power Automate is expensive. The full license is quite expensive. 

I would absolutely recommend this solution to others. At this point in time, I would give it a rating of eight out of ten. 

We are implementation service providers and this is one of the products that we provide to our clients.

There are several use cases for this solution including automating tender processes, compliance-related processes, and in finance, we have automated some invoicing processes.

The most valuable feature is the ease of automation.

The development time for ProcessRobot is very good compared to other solutions.

There are some limitations when it comes to automation with Excel.

Better support is needed for building custom components on top of ProcessRobot.

We have been working with ProcessRobot for about one year.

The stability is okay. We haven't had any major issues, although there have been some hiccups here and there.

The scalability is good.

We have clients of all sizes, although ProcessRobot is best suited for small and medium-sized business, and not for enterprise-level customers.

Technical support for ProcessRobot is good.

We are working with UiPath and Blue Prism as well. We began with ProcessRobot at the end of last year, but the other two solutions we started with about two years back.

Generally, the development time is less when compared to UiPath and Blue Prism, although Excel automation is better in those solutions.

We have also worked with Automation Anywhere.

ProcessRobot does not support custom components, which is really bad because all of the other solutions do.

The initial setup is easy.

My advice is that this solution is good for small and medium-sized businesses that want to automate processes that do not require much coding. If there is a requirement for building custom components or custom modules then I do not recommend this solution. For an enterprise-level client, this capability needs to be there.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

I use the solution to not only automate processes but also to be an intermediary or a glue among the applications of Azure in the Microsoft universe.

The Outlook on the SQL server has been extremely valuable for us.

The solution is scalable.

The product is very stable.

For the most part, the initial setup is quick.

I would like to see more integration with the desktop application, and on-premise server as well as the SQL database. That would be really nice.

It would be great if you could integrate outside of Microsoft environments.

The initial setup can be a bit tricky if it is a complex environment.

The product needs a clear integration between the UI recorder and the steps that you do and the codes and the qualification that you do on the RPA there.

I've used the solution for about three years. I used it even before it was called Power Automate. It's been a while at this point.

I have very high regard for the stability of this product. There are no surprises. It doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches. It's reliable in terms of performance.

The scalability is good. Basically, I deploy it on one desktop, on a system that consists of only one single desktop computer, and then deploy it on a server. That handles a lot of systems and processes at the same time, without any problem, and without having to invest in any additional resource or any additional time.

Typically our clients are medium to large organizations.

We don't really deal with technical support. We mostly provide documentation to the client and they can deal with technical support if they need to.

However, we barely have any problems as the solution is very intuitive.

I didn't find the initial setup exactly complex. It was more of a common characteristic of Microsoft products. It is easy to learn. As you learn the complexity of the requirements, there seems to be a little bit uphill to climb. 

The length of time it takes to deploy the solution varies. It mostly depends on the complexity of the requirements. If you have a simple implementation that's a matter of no more than one or two days. On the other hand, if you have a complex implementation, you have to invest about two weeks to two and a half weeks to have everything on production.

In terms of the number of people you need for the process, that varies too. For just a simple solution, you could have one solo person that is in charge of the consulting and the implementation of the solution. If you have a complex problem, you have to have a person that is the consultant, a person that is building the solution, and then a person that is making the implementation, and a person who is providing maintenance. You can have a team of about four people if there is a complex deployment.

We are an implementor and consultant. We assist clients in setting up the solution in their organizations.

We did not first evaluate any other options before choosing Microsoft's product.

The main competitors would be UiPath or Automation ANywhere, for the most part. The main difference is likely the pricing. There are other differences as well.

If you want to Automation Anywhere, there's not exactly a good availability for a medium-sized business. For example, Automation Anywhere has something called Community Edition, but it is a bit too small. It's better for smaller organizations. Then, from that, they make a big quantum jump to the Enterprise Edition. That is a little bit expensive. There's no middle ground.

The same thing happened for example, with Blue Prism. It's a little bit expensive. 

UiPath is a little bit more spacious than Power Automate. I still trust that Power Automate is going to close the gap. It works with WinAutomation and as soon as they get all the features and all these technical aspects of the hardware, it is going to create a stronger Power Automate. Soon Power Automate will be able to reach all business segments, and, at that point, it will be very powerful.

I'm not sure of which version of the solution it is. It's in the cloud and therefore constantly updated.

I'm a consultant.

I would advise, in general, around any tool, just be clear with the requirements. No matter what sophisticated tool you were using, if you're not clear about data, then the software is not going to work.

I have customers where we have to make a data governance program or project first before we implement it. You have to be clear with all your data, with all the possible information that's part of your data path. Be clear about how efficient your processes are before you enter into an RPA or process automation project. This is the main thing. 

As for the product itself, it is easy to use. You're not going to have any surprises.

I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We've been happy with the product overall.

We're currently exploring the solution. We're doing some planning and testing. We're looking at data transformation and flows.

There's the potential to save a lot of time by reducing the time it takes to do processes. It may even save us costs.

We're looking to monitor more projects in the future, however, right now, we're mostly in the testing phase. 

The tool is very good at implementing automation within processes. It's saved us from doing a lot of manual processes.

The tool is very effective. 

The features on offer are very good.

The product gives us a lot of very useful metrics that we can use.

The entire solution is extremely user-friendly.

There's good documentation online and I find the solution offers pretty good overall communications.

There are some gaps and a few areas of the solution that are still a bit complicated and confusing.

I've had issues with reordering columns. When I tried to do it, it seemed to take a long time, and then, later, it gave me some kind of error. 

We've only been using the solution for the last two months or so. 

The solution is quite stable. We haven't had any issues in that sense. It's reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's not buggy. It's been good.

I'd say the solution can scale. We haven't had any issues in that sense. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so.

In our case, right now the users are minimal. We have maybe five users in total. Some are in IT and a few are in other departments.

We likely need support at this time. Mostly we've been dealing with online assistance and documentation. We're testing the product. To get it up and running, we'll likely need some help and may need to reach out to technical support to get asssitance.

The initial setup isn't as straightforward as we hoped it would be. We had some issues specifically with the initial configuration. It was a bit difficult.

Deployment times vary. For us, it might have taken about four weeks or so.

We handled the implementation ourselves. We did a bit of research and tried to tackle it internally. It was just to get started. When we do a bit more of a complicated setup, we will get some consultants to help us with the process.

I'm not sure of the cost of this solution. Licensing and billing are not aspects of the product I deal with at this time.

While we know there are other tools on the market, currently, we're just playing with this particular tool to see what we can do.

We have looked at UiPath, however, we haven't tried implementing it yet. We just know it is an option.

We have a partnership with Azure. 

I'm using the platform from the desktop version coming with Microsoft 365. I assume it's the latest version of the solution.

Based on our preliminary usage, I do recommend the solution. It is easy to start with and to try out. It's pretty user-friendly and, and there's so much documentation on how to use it. There is other information about use cases as well and some pretty good videos on how to do certain things. The community seems to be pretty strong, which is helpful for when you are starting out.

In general, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

We are a solution provider and one of the services that we perform is to build automations for our clients. Softomotive is a product that we use to automate multiple processes for use by our customers on their data, based on their needs.

The interface is user-friendly.

This product is cost-effective, which is the main reason we are using it.

We are looking to see more features implemented there are already available in UiPath or Automation Anywhere. This is one of the main drawbacks.

We have been using Softomotive for between three and four years.

It is stable, and we don't have any issues with this particular product as of today. We plan to continue using it in the future.

We have more than 600 customers who use this product.

We get very good support from Softomotive.

We have used Softomotive for the past four to five years, although in the interim we tested Blue Prism. The cost of that product is too high.

The installation is straightforward and we haven't seen any complexity. It will take 15 minutes, maximum, to deploy.

This is a product that I can easily deploy on my own. We have less than 15 people on-site who are responsible for deployment and maintenance.

This is a cost-effective product and now that it has been acquired by Microsoft, we don't expect the cost to increase with the next release.

Considering the kind of experience that we have had with Softomotive, we would always recommend this product.

Since this product was acquired by Microsoft, naturally the expectation has gone up. We are not expecting too much of an architectural change, but rather, a few of the small features should be added. The reason is that you like to stay competitive in terms of cost. We have already deployed it to more than 600 customers and if we are going to charge them more, then they'll be inclined to use another product.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The solution has drag and drop features, and a development console that's in simple English, so even a non-tech can understand what the code means.

It has controls in boxes, just like Automation Anywhere, which helps alert the developer to take care of the smaller-level details which reduce errors. It's a very good feature.

The solution is comparatively quick to deploy for making smaller automation processes.

The solution's recommendation feature needs improvement. So many times it fails, which tells us that although the hardware configuration and software configuration and the environment stay the same, we should expect the automation tool to recognize images correctly, but it does not. There have been issues in which it has failed, and it remains a concern. At times, it crashes, for some unknown reason. We avoid automating any complex automation processes. 

We find the solution to be not that user-friendly, and might be using the older version, which really did not have a lot of features, so my review is mostly based on the older version.

WinAutomation could work on a simpler process of providing a development of something that proactively tells us what is wrong in the code, because what is happening right now is that we make the scripting code in some other place and some other control, and we identify errors over there. We simply copy it to this control, which is not even providing any color-coding, or any other assistance to the developers. Copying it from elsewhere is necessary to pick up any errors with ease.

We were really fortunate to use the version which has extended the EXEs, so once we make a development in the studio and we compile it, and make an EXE out of it, that EXE can be used on any number of systems. When it comes to identifying images and creating logic based on those images, or moving the mouse to an image, the image recognition randomly fails for unknown reasons, although we've had a lot of assistance around it, and the developers have put a lot of effort to make a way around it, but when the image recognitions fail, it just stays on the system. 

It definitely is a scalable solution. The components that we use enable us to deploy as many  EXEs on the system as we would like. 

We have about four people working on the solution. In terms of execution, so the development team develops robots and creates and compiles EXEs, and the execution team actually executes manually. It is an assisted automation, it's not fully automated, so the trigger has to be done manually.

In terms of technical support, response times were not that great, and the technical documentation provided was very limited. There is no forum where one could read other experiences or share advice.

There was a community when WinAutomation formed, but eventually, when the older versions ended support it went away. 

We're pretty much left on our own to find solutions to problems at this point. They should at least provide documentation.

The initial setup is very straightforward.

It was easy to wait for the deployment of the mission tasks. It's a quick implementation. When it comes to complex processes, there's a lot of handoffs required, and that's when it becomes a little bit difficult to manage. I'm sure with the new version they have improved this feature.

How long deployment takes depends on the complexity of the processes and the amount of testing planned. It takes a couple of days for a smaller process, and possibly up to two weeks for complex ones.

We've used versions 4.0, 5.1, and 6.0 as well. We use the on-premises deployment model.

In terms of advice I'd give to others, I'd say, first of all, they should make sure they are implementing the most recent version, not the old version that I have used.

However, I'd suggest having a limited scope and to plan to work meticulously because if there is a bigger project, instead of making something wherein you're not able to reuse the components which you have already done for one project, and reuse it for the other project, a lot of time is wasted in copy-pasting code.  

I'd rate the solution six out of ten.

The use cases for the solution would be banking related, typically, and specifically surrounding BFS, Banking Financial Services.

The sequencer programming mode's ease of use is its most valuable aspect. The ease of calling out the functions in a sequence, basically from the functional side, is great.

The solution lacks certain items.

I'm not really qualified for judging the solution. A developer could give better pros and cons. 

We would not miss Microsoft Power Automation that much. As still has a long way to cover tasks when it comes to the ease of use like UiPath, which is pretty user-centric.

The solution needs to improve its integration with SAP and Oracle models.

The solution's automation is still evolving and still has a way to go.

The solution could benefit from mirroring Oracle's use of videos and community forums to help users get acquainted with the product. It could use better online training and/or documentation.

We've been using the solution (as Softomotive) for four years now. It's only recently become Microsoft Power Automate. Previously, Microsoft didn't have a similar solution.

The solution is pretty stable.

The solution is scalable, but there are issues. It's not perfect.

We have about 100 users on the solution currently.

We do plan to increase the usage of the product in the future. However, we do have our own internal tool we also plan on using more often.

I myself have not contacted technical support. It's the development team that does any outreach, so I cannot answer on their behalf.

The initial setup was not complex. It was pretty straightforward.

In terms of deployment, how long it takes varies. It depends upon the nature of the use case. Usually, it ranges between six weeks to 12 weeks. We used ten to 12 people for the deployment process.

We handled the implementation internally with our own team members. We didn't need the assistance of integrators, or consultants.

There are licensing costs, however, I do not know the exact pricing. It's not part of my scope of work.

We're simply customers. We don't have a business relationship with the solution.

We use the solution, however, not in its full capacity. It's just there as and when there is a need. The product earlier was in Softomotive. Microsoft just took over Softomotive, which has WinAutomation, so yes, technically, it is now Microsoft.

We're using an earlier version of the solution, not necessarily the latest.

I'd recommend the solution. We don't have very complex use cases to compare it to, however, for small to medium complexity projects, it would work well.

Overall, I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.