Microsoft Power Automate Reviews

We were a partner with Softomotive before they were acquired by Microsoft, and now, we are a partner with Microsoft. We have quite a bit of expertise in WinAutomation. Microsoft has depreciated it, and it's now a part of Power Automate, but we still help out clients with it even though it's deprecated.

Its use cases were the same as any other RPA product. It was basically used for automating any repetitive process, which could be anything from filings to transferring data between software to triggering different processes via email or databases and so on and so forth.

Triggering and scheduling were pretty good. There was no real commitment with WinAutomation because the licensing was very fair and you could trigger bots very easily. 

They've already improved it, but I guess a testing suite would be nice to be able to test your automations in real time.

It's pretty stable.

They had a second piece of software called ProcessRobot, which was kind of WinAutomation's big brother. That was a scalable solution, but all that is depreciated now.

At the time, the tech support was excellent.

Deployment was very easy. You just installed the software, and then you installed a couple of plug-ins and browsers, and you were ready to go.

The number of people required for maintenance depends on the size of the deployment. You can have one bot, you can have ten bots, or you can have a thousand bots. 

It provided an extremely high return on investment. When you automate processes, you're oftentimes being able to scale very easily, and you have a very high ROI.

It had by far the fairest licensing on the market. For the money, you got a very good value.

If you're planning on implementing the product, start off with simple automations and take your time to learn, understand best practices, and understand error handling. A lot of issues come out of improper error handling and no best practices. Start simple and don't be afraid to ask questions.

There are a lot of different products out there that are competitors to this. Microsoft now has Power Automate, which is basically WinAutomation with a lot more web connectivity and a much larger ecosystem. It's extremely powerful, and you have lots of UIs, front ends, chatbots, AI, and so on and so forth. I highly recommend it, and then you have UiPath, which is geared toward enterprises. The licensing structure is much more expensive, and they have some powerful tools over there. You have Automation Anywhere, which seemed to have been a direct competitor. It was more expensive, but it was also very powerful. You have Blue Prism. You have Robocorp. There are a lot of them.

Back in the day, I would rate it a 9 out of 10. For the money, it was an excellent deal. It was very low cost compared to the competitors, and it performed 75% of what the competitors did. If your use case could fit within its capabilities, it was an excellent deal.

We mainly use it in connection with our drug inventories. We use Power Automate to import the files we get from various wholesalers. We also check the prices in our back office.

We are a pharmaceutical compounds organization and also get prescriptions. We have a portal where GPs and doctors can prescribe patients. At the moment, we are looking to put more data into the database so that we can see some statistics from Power BI.

The solution has saved us hours of work. The solution does the work instead of employees.

We are looking for more data integration with various resources. Our plan is to have a deeper look at it in November when we are in Seattle for the two conferences. We would like to consolidate the data from various sources and extract it in order to analyze it. We used an RPA tool and looked at the ML part of it as well. 

I would like to see better data integration with different sources. 

I have using Microsoft Automate for a year and a half. 

It is a stable solution. I rate the stability an eight out of ten. 

It is a scalable solution. Presently, three to four hundred users use the solution and all our clients are small organizations. I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

The technical support team is good. 

Positive

The initial setup is moderately straightforward. The deployment takes a week's time. I would rate the initial setup a seven out of ten. 

The deployment is done by consultants. 

The solution's price is reasonable. I rate the pricing a five out of ten. 

I recommend the solution but I would advise people to get a consultant even if they know someone who has knowledge of Microsoft Power Automate, as it is the fastest way to automate it. I would rate the overall solution a seven out of ten. 

We can automate cloud flows using the product. We can use desktop flows in the product as an RPA tool. If we are working on any enterprise application like SAP, we can automate it using the tool. Power Automate Desktop is a relatively newer solution compared to UiPath.

The solution helps us save money and time. We automate the rule-based and repeated tasks that we do on a daily basis.

Every organization uses Microsoft products. Daily tasks and other basic Excel-based tasks can be easily done using the tool. AI Builder is a good add-on. We can very easily do some AI automation using it.

The tool must be more stable. It should also provide more integration with other applications.

I have been using the solution for one year. I am using both the on-premises and the cloud version of the solution.

Power Automate is not that well-established and stable.

UiPath is more scalable than Power Automate. We have a good team developing flows on Power Automate. The product is available for everyone in our organization. More than 2000 or 3000 people might be using the tool in our organization.

It is relatively easy to deploy the solution when it is part of the license we buy for the organization.

The product’s maintenance is handled by a separate support team in our company. Maintenance is needed only when an application does not work or if there is any movement in the cloud.

The product is cost-effective if we utilize the complete Microsoft package. Power Automate is comparatively less costly than UiPath.

UiPath is more stable than Power Automate. UiPath has Orchestrator from where all the processes are monitored, triggered, or scheduled. This feature in UiPath is far better than Power Automate. Power Automate does not have a very good orchestrator or control room to see all the processes which are running. If an organization needs a long-term solution, it might choose UiPath.

Power Automate is improving, and it can be a good solution in the future. Power Automate is a good tool. An organization should definitely leverage the tool if they use Microsoft’s environment. It is a good add-on. We are using many Microsoft products like Power BI. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

I have different use cases for Microsoft Power Automate. I was automating one of the refund processes in my previous company. This involved getting data from an Excel spreadsheet and iterating all its entries. For each entry, the solution checked a particular website to verify values and released payments to the client if everything was okay. This eliminated the need for me to perform the same task repeatedly.

Microsoft Power Automate allowed us to save about eight hours daily, which gave people time to focus on more complicated tasks. Instead of manually triggering payments through the website, everything was done through robotic process automation (RPA), saving us a lot of time.

In our use case, we used a lot of website scraping, so I think that's probably the feature I like the most. The solution provided the possibility to check the website's content and navigate through it, which was very useful for me at the time.

There is room for improvement in web scraping. Specifically, automatic selectors that allow me to select parts of a website could be more adaptable. Currently, if you select one element, it only takes some parameters that might change in the future. This can cause issues because the bot may stop running without fine manual tuning, especially if the website also has active tags loaded.

In the next release, it could be useful to integrate data tables directly into the spreadsheet without having to go through a loop. Integrated databases could be a good addition.

I have been using Microsoft Power Automate for one year.  

Scalability was not really a use case here for us because we only ran it on a local PC.

In case of problems, I would go to the forum directly to check for any other solutions.

I switched to Microsoft Power Automate because it's free. In many cases, it's installed on the PC, I think, on the Windows server, and you can have the screen installed on your PC or download it for free while authorized. UiPath usually costs quite a lot. I think it's the most expensive one.

For the initial setup, I would rate it somewhere in the middle, so around seven out of ten. It's not too difficult, and with some tutorials and testing, it can be achieved quite easily.

The whole deployment process took around three weeks, end-to-end. It starts with gathering the requirements. I asked the ops team to give me their exact steps and techniques. Then, based on that, we build the documentation for the step-by-step process. We mirror this process and try to replicate those steps from the RPA. Then we move on to the UET cases and go through them. If everything goes well, we will provide a sign-off and release it into production.

I would rate it as a low price. While a paid version with a subscription allows you to run it on the cloud, I think the free version is quite good, even compared to the paid version.

I was using UiPath and Automate Anywhere (AA). 

It's important to experiment with the tool and not give up. Always remember that any problem you have has likely been solved before and can be found on the internet.

Overall, I would give it an eight. It's not difficult to develop with this tool and doesn't require a lot of knowledge to get started. However, the selectors on web scraping aren't perfect, so that's where it loses some points. But this may change in the future, and I might change my rating accordingly.

We are using Microsoft Power Automate for RPA.

We assessed the functionality of Microsoft Power Automate in streamlining repetitive processes that required human effort. Specifically, we discovered that the process of completing online loan applications for our customers was a prime candidate for automation. With Microsoft Power Automate, we were able to automate this process, enabling a single individual to log in to up to twenty loan applications. However, if we needed to scale up to two hundred applications per day, we would have required ten individuals to manage this process manually. With this solution, we were able to achieve this with only two people, as the software facilitated logging into the application master and extracting data directly into an Excel file, which could then be easily uploaded and processed within minutes. It has improved our organization's efficiency.

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Power Automate is the many functionalities, and ease of use. We had summer interns from college in their second year of engineering and they were able to start the building process quickly within a day.

More OCR and AI capabilities are needed to improve the solution. Other solutions have better features, such as Blue Prism and UiPath.

In a future release, they should add the running of multiple clients on a single machine. This is a critical feature. If not it requires multiple machines to run operations.

I have been using Microsoft Power Automate for approximately a year and a half.

I rate the stability of Microsoft Power Automate an eight out of ten.

We are not a large organization. We have approximately 10 clients using the solution.

The people who use the solution are back-end processing engineers.

We are considering increasing usage in terms of processes rather than personnel. Specifically, we are exploring automation for certain quick and simple processes, such as transferring data between Excel spreadsheets and performing calculations.

The solution has been scalable in our usage.

I rate the scalability of Microsoft Power Automate an eight out of ten.

We have standard support and it has been decent.

I rate the support of Microsoft Power Automate an eight out of ten.

Positive

It took us about fifteen days of training for our people to have the solution up and running. It was simple.

I rate the initial setup of Microsoft Power Automate a nine out of ten.

Initially, we relied on a third party for the proof of concept and comparisons. However, we eventually transitioned to completing the implementation in-house.

Our process or not complex and we used three people for the implementation.

Initially, we had a Microsoft account for Office 365. Later, we discovered that our license included access to Power Automate at no additional cost. There was a small fee for additional features, but it was negligible compared to the benefits. There are not any additional fees required to use the solution.

If we had purchased a UIPath or Blue Prism, it would have cost us a minimum of $10,000.

I rate the price of Microsoft Power Automate an eight out of ten.

We evaluated Blue Prism but we choose Microsoft Power Automate because it best suited our needs.

It is important to follow the typical software implementation methodology for Microsoft Power Automate. If .NET resources are available, you don't need to look outside. They can learn the software quickly and deliver it.

I rate Microsoft Power Automate an eight out of ten.

We have been very happy with the solution it is not costing us a lot and we can do the implementation in-house.

My client used it for very basic Excel file manipulation. The data was sent through the API to an ERP system. For that purpose, it worked fine, but I don't think it's the right type of solution for those things. It comes as a part of the Microsoft suite, which makes it an easy sell.

On the governance side, there isn't enough documentation on how to govern Power Automate. People just build bespoke automation, which then becomes a problem point for different companies. You might have heard lots of horror stories about Power Automate where people didn't develop according to the standards, and then it came back and gave them grief. There should be more documentation on governance and how to control it at the enterprise level. 

I've been using it for a couple of years. I last worked with it about six months ago.

I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of stability.

I'd rate it a six out of ten in terms of scalability. I find other tools easier.

It suits small, medium, and enterprise customers. It's a part of your Microsoft suite anyway.

I didn't have to call anyone.

It's simple.

It comes with the Microsoft suite. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of pricing.

It's more suited for localized automation rather than enterprise automation. It doesn't have the right governance to do enterprise automation. It's more suited for individuals, not for groups.

Overall, I'd rate it a seven out of ten.

We use the solution to automate our daily workflows. We generate customer invoicing and payroll with its help. We can automate the pre-defined steps for repetitive tasks using it. In other words, it works like a digital employee for us. We need to design the tasks and schedule them. Based on the preset time, the solution directly triggers and performs those tasks.

The solution's valuable feature is its compatibility with all Microsoft products like SharePoint, Azure, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Teams. We can incorporate all necessary Microsoft products in Power Automate Desktop. It helps us streamline the workflows of various applications. 

They should provide the connectors in Power Automate Desktop like Power Automate Cloud. Microsoft is already working on it. They released a SharePoint connector in Power Automate Desktop as a preview. So like that, we have hundreds of connectors in Power Automate Cloud required to be incorporated into Power Automate Desktop. For example, we need an exchange server to connect to an email account in Power Automate Desktop. It isn't easy to create a connection. It is simple with Outlook, but it is challenging with IMAP or POP-related settings. While using Power Automate Cloud, we log in to create the connection. But, while using Power Automate Desktop, we have to provide the server details instead of just logging in.

They should include a custom plugin feature so that we can add our custom connections. 

We have been using the solution since August 2020.

It could have been more stable initially, say in 2020. Since its new release in 2023, the stability has improved. Moreover, adding multiple actions takes it into not responding mode very frequently. In this case, communicating with the cloud environment consumes a lot of time. They need to work on these areas to improve stability. I rate the solution's stability as an eight.

It is a scalable product.

I have contacted the Microsoft community for a few issues. They respond within an hour. There are a lot of Microsoft users and everyone contributes to the community.

We switched to Microsoft Power Automate as it's very economical. I worked with Intellibot; they charged us $1,000 per annum. In comparison, the charges for Power Automate are $190 per month. Microsoft Power Automate has its benefits. As it is cloud-based automation, there is no need for any physical machine. Within the cloud environment, automation could be performed, reducing the expenses of additional resources like a machine. Also, if a big company acquires other products, they change the licensing model. It has already happened a couple of times with ProcessRobot and Intellibot. Since Microsoft is a big brand, it won't sell its products to other vendors. Due to our experiences, we decided to go with the bigger brand in the market. So we chose Microsoft.

The setup process is easy. You just have to log in, get the desktop.exe file, double click, and install.

The licensing model of the solution includes cross-selling. That means Microsoft provides Power Automate as an add-on product with other products. Also, it offers other add-on products with Power Automate. In this way, we can increase the credits with the provided options.

I advise others to go for Microsoft Power Automate. It's the best tool to my knowledge in the RPA industry. I rate it as a nine.

It is easy to migrate from other tools to Power Automate. We had more than 30+ in-house automations, and estimated a year for migration. Instead, it just took three months. We finished every automation in a short span. It helped us quicken the process of picking up new automation projects.

Microsoft Power Automate is deployed in the Azure cloud. Microsoft has a version of Power Automate Desktop to develop desktop flows and that's also saved in the cloud. We use Microsoft Power Automate on the project site. We have done a few projects on the site and the solution is used for video processing automation.

The most advantageous aspect of the solution is its cloud capabilities. With an E3 license, we can access Microsoft Power Automate at a reduced cost. If we are only using the application, we need the Microsoft Power Automate attended mode add-on. Other than that, the solution is free, since all customers are using a Microsoft-based license for their communication and an E3 license for the add-ons.

When it comes to cloud computing, there are many limitations when dealing with large amounts of data. For example, if we are managing more than 10,000 or 1 million records, the API layer has some redundancies. These limitations take a lot of time to process. For example, if we have 10,000 records, our cloud workflow will take more than three hours to complete. Clearly, there is room for improvement in the workflow process.

I have been using the solution for two years.

The solution is highly stable due to its use of Azure cloud services, boasting a 99.9 percent stability rate.

The solution is scalable; we can introduce multiple bots and a multiple-bot architecture is available. Therefore, scalability is possible with Microsoft Power Automate. We need to develop our own architecture to handle the multiple bots, share records, and share the workload with the bots.

We created a few tickets with Microsoft technical support regarding a time issue. We then created a workflow that initiated cloud workflow and handed it over to the Microsoft Power Automate desktop, which took some time. The flow worked, but after an hour and a half, it automatically disconnected due to either a lack of available sessions or an error. We created a ticket and Microsoft resolved it quickly, taking only one day. The issue was caused by the group policy, which had enabled a session timeout of between 30 minutes and an hour, resulting in the issue.

Positive

The initial setup is quite straightforward. We can create a production environment and a development box. We can then move our solution to the UID environment and then to production. The deployment process takes two to three days.

The solution is $150 per month for the unattended add-on, and the normal Power Automate comes with an E3 license.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

The solution is more cost-effective. We were initially going to convert the customer's automation because they already use the Microsoft Platform.

Microsoft Power Automate has plenty of examples and templates. It is easy for new users to start development. I recommend the solution.