Microsoft Power Automate Reviews

We are system integrators so we provide this solution and deal with the automation for our clients. Power Automate is mainly suitable for small and medium size companies. 

Power Automate is good for automation. For example, if a client requires a format for invoices, we set up the module - invoice number, container, quantity, product details. After that, whenever we load bulk invoices, it automatically identifies the invoice format and accepts the data. This is one of the best features of the product.

Power Automate is not suitable for connecting other applications like browsers and third party applications and there are a few features not available on this solution. They are working on improving that. Power Automate cannot handle high end projects and, from a developer's perspective, it's a little difficult for enterprise size companies. 

We are partners with Microsoft and I'm a technology lead.

It's a reasonably stable product but because it's a new tool they need to keep working on it. If you're a small setup, and you need it for Excel or Word or some desktop kind of access, it will be stable. But if you're looking for web automation it's not currently suitable.

This is a scalable solution. 

We have tried to contact technical support many times, but there is no way to contact or reach out to the Microsoft team. We recently had many questions on Power Automate so I tried the Winautomation but there are many activities that are missing and there are bugs in it. We also had an issue with the ongoing live projects. We developed the project in Winautomation and they were later converted into Power Automate. Winautomation isn't working so we need to migrate all the projects which is a complicated process and requires reworking. We can't get any help from them and that's a problem. 

It's very easy to set up because it only requires downloading one xFi file from Power Automate. It then automatically connects with an email account and the solution is automatically synced with that email account. From the customer's perspective, there is no maintenance. As the service provider, whenever new features are included, we update it for our clients.  

Compared to other automation tools, Power Automate is very cheap although the price has increased recently. 

We also integrate UiPath for our clients. This solution offers regular updates and is more mature than Power Automate. Each month they release a new module. Initially, they were only accessing desktop and web applications, Word and Outlook, those kind of things. Nowadays, UiPath has all the features connected to the cloud, whether it's Azure or Google. They are trying to automate everything and they're working on all this because of AI. When choosing a product for our clients, we take numerous variables into account. If you're offering all the features in your tool and the cost is reasonable, we're likely to choose it.

I'm not sure I would recommend this product now, perhaps in a year or two when the solution is more stable. We struggled with a project recently and that was difficult.  

I rate the solution a five out of 10. 

I am the head of RPA solutions at my company where we implement this product for our customers. These are insurance companies that have legacy systems and prefer to keep their RPA off the cloud.

The product allows us to alleviate customer pain points by automating their data entry processes and enhancing archiving capabilities. We are able to minimize the delays of various claims and policies while improving data entry accuracy. We also offer them the ability to archive various communications to a variety of archiving portals such as SharePoint.

The program requires no code, making it very easy to implement various functions.

During their merger, some key functions were eliminated which no longer allows it to run independently from the cloud as a standalone for other companies. For example, options to schedule and trigger have been removed. It would be nice to have these capabilities back.

The flow and the connectivity between databases and so on is a bit complex as well.

We were using Softomotive for approximately three years until they were purchased by Microsoft where it was then merged under the umbrella of Microsoft Power Automate and we have been using this since - it has been about a year and a half since the merger. 

Overall, I would say that it is quite stable, but with the merger, we are not ready to move to the latest version until we can completely replace all of the old functions. I would say the product is 90% stable.

We require five team members to maintain the product and assist our clients.

The product is quite scalable. When considering extending more processes, features, machines, etc. it is a much cheaper and easier option.

We are still communicating with the Softomotive support team that we have been using prior to the merge and they are perfect. Microsoft is supportive as well.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward and easy, especially in comparison with other RPA's such as UiPath or Automation Anywhere.

We are able to see high returns thanks to having few machines with minimal implementation costs. We are able to present our clients with their ROI upon completion of each project and they see ROI's as soon as their first month.

This is the cheapest option among competitors. 

You can choose to have the RPA with attendance at $40/month with add-on's totaling about $190. There are standalone options that require someone to run the process and there are fully automated options that are integrated within the cloud.

We were trying some open source solution, but it was not really reliable so we did not continue with it.

The actions and functions are much easier than other competitors.

I would rate this product an eight out of ten.

We implemented this solution for our clients and the primary aim was to create a chatbot that would provide service answers to customers. If the chatbot wasn't able to help, the query moved to a ticketing tool like ServiceNow, which creates the ticket and assigns it to the appropriate team. For logging purposes, the ticket is logged with ServiceNow and it provides the solution to the end-user through the chatbot. I'm a senior manager and we are Microsoft gold partners. 

This product improves the way an organization functions by creating monitoring solutions. One of the things we can do now is to enable the system to inform the service people before end-users log a ticket because the system can be monitored in advance. Those tickets will be created by the system itself so that the service provider can take action before being contacted by the end-users. It improves the quality of the service. 

The value is that the whole platform seamlessly integrates well and that there are enough connectors to the majority of the systems for the SAP connection, or ServiceNow connection, or an email connection, or SharePoint connection. There are a number of connectors already built-in. It doesn't require writing any extra code, it's a low code solution platform so it's easy and faster to create solutions.

Things need to be improved with respect to RPA kinds of solutions and it requires a level of stabilization that is currently lacking. 

I've been using this solution for two years. 

The solution is stable. I haven't found many issues because when we design and implement we have a lot of experience behind us so we plan ahead and know what we're doing. 

This solution is scalable. 

The technical support is there with Microsoft depending on what kind of a subscription and relationship you have with them. Support ranges from standard to premium. Things are not always solved in a single instance and they'll sometimes tell you that what's been implemented is not supported. 

It is a very easy and straightforward deployment process. If you are going to implement a very complex solution, something that's automated with a DevOps process, and many teams are involved, then it may require some extra people. It depends on the complexity of what you plan to build, the number of systems, etc. We have our own internal team that carries out the implementation. 

There are multiple layers of licensing; there is a subscription license and if you want to use any premium connectors, then you need to have a separate license. RPA solutions also require a separate license and if you want to use any AI features, there's a separate license for that too, it depends on your requirements. 

Before implementing this solution, be aware that there may be limitations within the system or within the platform that might not be suitable for your needs.

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

The primary use case for this solution includes automating process work with optical character recognition. Companies can also automate document processing with Microsoft Power Automate.

From my personal experience of using Microsoft Power Automate, I think that the automatic document processing feature is helpful for many organizations in streamlining administrative processes. It is a very good feature. It has helped many enterprises to process documents without spending much time on them.

I would recommend removing the AI Builder feature from the automatic document processing functionality. The tool can serve even better with free automatic document processing features, it shouldn’t only be available in the trial version.

I have been using this solution for a couple of months now.

I have found Microsoft Power Automate to be a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution but I also think that the scalability of this solution depends on the type of organizations that are using it. For instance, public enterprises like government organizations can make very good use of this solution. I plan to propose the tool to my organization. It’s still in the loading phase and I have not got any feedback on it.

I have not felt the need to contact the customer service and support team since most of my doubts were resolved through the tutorials and tech instructions available on the website, which are very helpful.

I have previously used Power BI. I came across Power Automate while looking for other Power platforms. I saw the different features that Power Automate offers and so I chose it.

It was easy to set up. Once you have access to the portal, navigate to the automatic document processing feature where you can see many examples. There are a total of just two or three steps that you need to follow for completing the entire setup process.

The setup took a couple of months. It requires much concentration like when you are training your model to analyze the documents. For example, when you are setting up the automatic process document, the tool will ask you to try with five documents. Also, we will have to look into the different fields from which we are going to extract the information from the documents.

Once the document upload is done and the training is finished, you will need to locate the locations where other documents are located. It’s recommended to use either the OneDrive or Sharepoint locations. Power Automate will locate the schema of the document, connect with it and the document upload will be done. When the upload is done, the AI Builder will apply the OCR. After the completion of the OCR, the information will be extracted and put on other documents like Excel. 

I am not sure about the setup cost, pricing or licensing since I use the trial version.

I would rate this tool a nine out of ten. 

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.

Our use cases are everything from replacing Excel macros to replacing WINAutomate to larger initiatives to use RPAbox to fill in different back-office systems and so on. We have a huge range of solutions.

In terms of the most valuable features, the RPA is really great.

The license cost could be better.

The PMU connectors we can use cost extra, and the RPA also costs extra. So hopefully they can let go of that way of working and allow us to use the entire tool in a better way. That's what we're looking for.

I've been using the solution for approximately three years.

The stability is great. I know we don't have a problem with stability in this case.

To implement the solution or share the solution with others, you can scale it up; but we don't scale in that perspective when it comes to add more functionality. We have other solutions when it comes to larger initiatives. Microsoft platform is used for something happens over here, do this. Or we are using Box, but when it comes to larger initiative, we're using Nintex. It's longer processes and longer workflows. It's easier to use. So when we scale up, we switch to another application actually.

We have talked to Microsoft. We're a large company and we're talking to Microsoft on a regular basis. We have a partner we talk to when it comes to Automate. We are absolutely satisfied with technical support.

The initial setup was quite simple, actually.

We implemented both with help from the vendor and within the company. Some using our own expectation in Office, but we have some vendors we had contact with.

We need to keep track that we are compliant regarding the license, but other than that, it's quite easy to maintain and govern. We have approximately 50 users in different countries in Europe.

Microsoft is connected very well with Microsoft products. Everything in the master suite is really easy to connect to, and the Blue Prism is for large initiatives. What I heard from the developers using Blue Prism is it's easier to overview quite complex scenarios actually. Power Automate is a little harder to have the overlook of what you have done in the script.

I'd rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Start using the solution at a small scale, and create some smaller script of your own. Then you can see what can be done and easily grow with a task and try features for the department you're working in to share with your colleagues. You'll have an understanding of how to automate, and you can see the business from the other's perspective. That's what we have done. Start small and go big.

I use Microsoft Power Automate as part of my job as an RPA developer. The solution is part of everyone's Office 365 account at our organization. 

The solution is used as a primary tool for providing RPA solutions. We've created an automated desktop flow for the whole process. It includes three platforms.

We use the solution as an extension of Power Apps. We create files and SharePoint using flow by converting HTML code into PDF.

The authentication provided by Microsoft is very robust.

We have automated a process for our HR team that handles a lot of immigration-related activities. Rather than this individual having to ask others for information, we created a solution running different flows that centralized the whole system.

Another impactful project was where we used power apps to create office visitation. This solution helped manage the allowable workforce limitation placed by the government during the pandemic. We created an application where users submitted a request which prompted the validation of vaccinations and determine parking availability and sitting capacity. The headcount is provided to the departments that are impacted, such as the canteen, or bus monitors.

By creating in-house solutions, we had a high impact on the organization. Using an out-of-the-box solution would have been very expensive.

Microsoft Power Automate is easy to use. There are lots of libraries and connectors to browse from.

The users are very happy with the processes that we have automated completely end to end.

The solution is difficult to customize. I would like to see more flexibility when it comes to using different kinds of activities, particularly the kind of interaction they can have with Excel. This is also limited to the number of activities, making extension not possible.

Other areas of improvement include Microsoft Power Automate's ability to work on power desktops. It would be helpful if we could access external activities. 

I have been using Microsoft Power Automate for one year.

The solution is scalable. You can create a flow, and it can be shared across different environments. 

Technical support could improve. I am not sure that they exist. I would like to be provided with more awareness regarding the tech support that is available from the platform.

There is ample documentation available for the solution and all the different components.

Positive

Prior to adding Microsoft Power Automate, we used UI robotic process automation. We now use both solutions in parallel. Power Automate is used for office-related apps and UI is used for all other platforms.

Microsoft Power Automate is part of our Office 365 package, there are no additional licensing costs.

I would recommend other large-scale enterprises to look into Microsoft Power Automate as a solution for their organization.

I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Repetitive interactions between legacy systems and Excel managed by human resource. By collecting small tasks, there would be tons of time/effort we can replace with RPA. However, my challenge was major RPA solutions are not so much cheap to be applied to these small tasks. I believe Power Automate would be sufficient and cheap enough as Microsoft announced it will be free for Win 10 users (with basic functionalities).

It is still a persona trial phase so not much change has been brought. However, I have convinced Power Automate Desktop can be enough for many use cases where much investments are difficult.

Interaction with Microsoft Excel is good and will be more better in the future.

More detailed explanatory manuals are desired. As new features are introduced every month, I would like to know what is new and what is changed recently.

I have been using this solution for a couple of months. 

I'm not sure whether the desktop version is stable. It is relatively new. It was launched in May. I haven't really tried it. But the trial version I'm using has been stable so far. 

I haven't tried to scale it, so I'm not quite sure. 

So far, the tech support has provided me with good enough support and knowledge. 

Power Automate has two versions. The initial setup of the trial version is really easy. All you have to do is just activate the environment and you can start working on it. However, for desktop version, you need to install the software. It should be as easy to download and install as the Office 365 environment. 

How long it takes to deploy will depend on how confident you are with your development. The development itself is not easy. 

I live in Japan and there are not very many consultants available for the latest Power Automate yet as Microsoft is investing quite a lot and new versions are released every month.

Should be high, as unattended RPA capabilities are available at almost free as I can utilize it under o365 license. No extra costs to start small and you can pay extra if you need premium services.

I would recommend Power Automate. Those will small use cases can use a free license. 

We evaluated Blue Prism and Pega. However, Pega was a bit difficult to use for citizen developers. It requires some support from consultants or engineers, so it's a bit of an investment. They're small and if we introduced consultants or engineers, then it wouldn't pay off. So for that use-cases, yeah, users lost interest.