Senior Manager - RPA & Transition at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Useful for low and medium complexity work and easy to learn and use, but needs better stability, support, and integration with third-party tools
Pros and Cons
  • "It is very easy to learn and use. It is quite useful for any sort of back-office work. Any kind of work with low and medium complexity is very doable in ProcessRobot. For higher complexity, some refinement is required, but it is doable."
  • "It should be more stable, and their technical support should be faster. It should also have more integration with tools from other vendors, such as SAP and Oracle, and technology partners, such as Salesforce."

What is most valuable?

It is very easy to learn and use. It is quite useful for any sort of back-office work. Any kind of work with low and medium complexity is very doable in ProcessRobot. For higher complexity, some refinement is required, but it is doable.

What needs improvement?

It should be more stable, and their technical support should be faster.

It should also have more integration with tools from other vendors, such as SAP and Oracle, and technology partners, such as Salesforce.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is not very stable. They're working on the refinements. I would rate it a six or seven in terms of stability.

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March 2024
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable but not to an optimum level. It is more scalable than WinAutomation, but it is not as scalable as UiPath or Automation Anywhere where you can scale to 50 bots at a time.

We have 20 to 30 users of this solution. In terms of increasing its usage, it depends on the customers. Customers who already have this solution will keep using it. 

How are customer service and support?

Their technical support should be faster.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We also use WinAutomation. ProcessRobot is any day better than WinAutomation. It is newer and has more capabilities than WinAutomation. ProcessRobot is also better than WinAutomation in terms of scalability.

How was the initial setup?

Its initial setup is easy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Licensing is on an annual basis.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution for small to medium deployments but not for very large-scale deployments.

I would rate ProcessRobot a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Director, Product Management at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
A powerful, scalable, and user-friendly solution with good templates and simple flow
Pros and Cons
  • "Its usability is very valuable because it has a quite simple flow. It is very user-friendly. It provides you templates. I started learning with the help of Teams templates, and then I started providing them. It is always good to start with a template so that you understand how it works. Its branches are quite user-friendly. You can put expressions in it. It allows you to link and test the flow so that you can check whether everything is running properly. From a business standpoint, Power Automate is quite good for a non-tech person. It is not like Java, HTML, or C++, which are very developer-driven. Power Automate is a more business-oriented kind of tool."
  • "They can build more templates and more connectivity with other platforms. They can provide a more user-friendly way to connect with other platforms. They have their own in-built plugins for certain third-party vendors, but there are still a lot of third-party vendors that are not there."

What is our primary use case?

Power Automate is a quite powerful tool. It helps you automate your daily processes. Being an RPA tool, it allows you to define certain logic and execute certain tasks at a scheduled time or for a certain event. I use it in conjunction with our SharePoint site to let our stakeholders know that something has been done or updated, and it kicks off another flow. We use it quite regularly.

What is most valuable?

Its usability is very valuable because it has a quite simple flow. It is very user-friendly. It provides you templates. I started learning with the help of Teams templates, and then I started providing them. It is always good to start with a template so that you understand how it works.

Its branches are quite user-friendly. You can put expressions in it. It allows you to link and test the flow so that you can check whether everything is running properly. From a business standpoint, Power Automate is quite good for a non-tech person. It is not like Java, HTML, or C++, which are very developer-driven. Power Automate is a more business-oriented kind of tool.

What needs improvement?

They can build more templates and more connectivity with other platforms. They can provide a more user-friendly way to connect with other platforms. They have their own in-built plugins for certain third-party vendors, but there are still a lot of third-party vendors that are not there.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for over a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is definitely scalable. If you want to integrate Power Automate with third-party software and other platforms, a technical person is needed. If you just want to connect Power Automate with Microsoft's suite of services, you can easily do it. They also have their own in-built plugins for certain third-party vendors. More and more plugins will come in the future because more and more people want to connect to Power Automate. I can already see Trello and Jira creating the plugins. There are still a lot of third-party vendors that are not there on it, but we can basically go ahead and create our own if needed.

Power Automate is a connectivity tool, so it has the ability to connect to other platforms. If they're able to do that, other platforms start making more money because I can get a flow that directly connects to another vendor and helps me achieve what I want to do, rather than having a tech person give me estimates and getting that done, which takes a longer time.

In terms of the number of users, we are a big organization with around 15,000 people globally. I don't know how many people use it, but the awareness is coming slowly within the organization and more and more people are becoming aware. I will continue using this solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't actually reached out to technical support, which speaks for the usability of it. It is quite user-friendly, so I didn't really have to reach out to technical support.

I did attend a one-day workshop for Power Apps, which was great. For Power Automate, we actually have regular IT sessions. Our IT team has set up regular training sessions for learning different services from Microsoft, and one of them was Power Automate. That's where we got the awareness of Power Automate. That was a year and a half ago, and that was when we basically said, "Oh, wow, this is great!" At that time, it was called Flow. Now, it is called Automate.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We have it on our system. I don't really know if we need a separate license.

What other advice do I have?

I would highly recommend Power Automate to anyone who is quite keen on RPAs and wants to automate certain processes from a business standpoint.

Microsoft is doing really well in this space. There are very few RPA tools, and Microsoft has been successful in penetrating the market. There are very few of them who are on every single PC. Any business, bank, or enterprise that has Microsoft on their PCs and has subscribed to this at an enterprise level are given Power Automate. The market penetration of Power Automate is really good. As more and more users start using it, they will obviously come up with issues. I definitely found a few challenges, but nothing with which Google Search couldn't help. More and more people are using Power Automate, and I can easily find answers on the web. It is already great, and it is going to go quite well if Microsoft goes ahead and starts building more of these tools.

I would rate Power Automate a nine out of ten. It is a great product.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Power Automate
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Power Automate. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Digital Innovation Manager at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Low-code, easy to use with simple use cases, but should be a centrally-governed system
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are that it is low-code and simple."
  • "It doesn't have any OCR capabilities."

What is our primary use case?

We use Microsoft Power Automate for various personal initiatives of people to automate their own work.

It is used in a laboratory environment to connect the laboratory systems and to automate the connections between them.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are that it is low-code and simple.

What needs improvement?

For simple use cases, it is easy to use but as soon as it becomes complex then it doesn't fulfill the requirements.

It doesn't have any OCR capabilities. It doesn't really work with our ERP system, where we can log into the ERP system and have a robot updating it directly.

Microsoft is early on in this game and not really very far yet. They just need to mature their solutions.

In the next release, I would like to see a centrally-governed system, where you can access fully automated processes. This would include the ability to connect to other systems and log into them.

I would like to see it as a centrally managed solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Power Automate for six months.

How are customer service and technical support?

We are using a local partner of Microsoft in the Netherlands, and it's going quite well.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

At the moment, we're using both Microsoft Power Automate and Microsoft Power Apps. We also use Kofax.

How was the initial setup?

If you are using it as a user, I'm not aware of how complex it is for setting up central governance on it. But with proper RPA, you very much need the central-governance to ensure that things are conforming to standards. 

As soon as it starts being involved in business-critical use, then governance is very important.

I haven't seen that the central governing of it to be easy.

What about the implementation team?

We use a local partner to help with the implementation and it's going quite well.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I am not aware of the pricing, but the problem is something we run into often. As soon as you want to use a data service, all of a sudden the license cost goes up. 

It's more fragmented licensing, where every little thing that you add, you get an extra license cost.

What other advice do I have?

Microsoft is gradually becoming better, but for RPA, it's not fully there yet.

If you are looking for a low-code, simple to deal with email and extract a spreadsheet, then Microsoft is a good option. However, if you have a complex RPA use case where optical character recognition or PDF ingestion is needed then Kofax is a better choice.

I'm responsible for the center of excellence running Kofax as an RPA solution, and not for the Microsoft Power Apps.

I would rate Microsoft Power Automate a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
Manjula Mahesh - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Learning and Development at Acronotics
Real User
Cross-platform, stable, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution helps automate manual tasks and interacts with multiple applications."
  • "The initial setup is complex and has room for improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to reduce costs by automating repeat processes.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution helps automate manual tasks and interacts with multiple applications.

What is most valuable?

Automation is the most valuable feature. We can do so if we want to automate the gateway process, such as tracking data from SharePoint, Outlook, or Excel.

What needs improvement?

The initial setup is complex and has room for improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex. I give the initial setup an eight out of ten.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

When accompanying customers, we discuss the license requirements. Based on these requirements, we suggest whether a per-user plan or multiple platforms per-user plan would be best.

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

The solution is easy to maintain.

Microsoft Power Automate is a cross-platform solution and I recommend it to others.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
PeerSpot user
Co-Founder at Beta Edge Technology Limited
Real User
Integrates well with Microsoft products, includes pre-build templates that are easy to use, and the support is good
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is that it easily integrates with other Microsoft products, so it has multiple connectors. You can create solutions that connect to Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive."
  • "There are some bugs or intermittent behavior in the Excel activities that require using workarounds."

What is our primary use case?

I am a solution provider and I implement RPA products and automate processes for my clients.

With this product, you create your workflows on the cloud. We've used this product for integrating with Microsoft solutions. For example, one of them is a document approval solution, where documents are sent to SharePoint and then pushed to different users within Active Directory for approval. This is done according to rules set by the client.

There is also a COVID application that was built around Power Automate and the Power Platform, where users within the organization can raise a request for a test and this would be pushed to managers for approval.

We are also looking at financial processes around bank reconciliations and interbank transfers.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is that it easily integrates with other Microsoft products, so it has multiple connectors. You can create solutions that connect to Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive.

There are templates available for you to create your own flow, and it is easy to start creating a flow and automating a solution.

What needs improvement?

There are some bugs or intermittent behavior in the Excel activities that require using workarounds. For example, there is an Excel activity called Collect that fails once in a while. When you want to choose or select a particular cell, once in a while, it fails to do so. It doesn't happen all of the time and I don't know if it's a bug, but it's something that they can look into.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Microsoft Power Automate for approximately one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a very stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is amazing. This is a cloud-based resource, and there is no limitation in terms of scale or size. You can easily increase the scope of processes being handled.

The COVID use case is available for all of the employees, which is approximately 2,500. The documentation approval use case is used by managers and people making requests, which is approximately 2,000 people. The use case involving financial reconciliation is only for a small team that consists of about five people.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good. They are available and you can just call them. We have Microsoft Office online support, as well. This means that you can call them, or instead go to the forum and search for activities and resources. They have a lot of resources available online.

There are good tooltips available within the product itself. You can look at something and the tooltip will explain how it works and what you should do.

Overall, the support resources are good and I would rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I also work with UiPath and WorkFusion.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. Power Automate is a cloud-based tool, although I downloaded the Studio to my local machine.

The deployment takes one day. You just switch environments from UAT to production. You can easily export your solution and import it into the production environment.

What about the implementation team?

We were working with another company to implement the solution but we completed the implementation and deployment ourselves.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing model is flexible in that you can pay per automation or per user. My client receives a discount because of the large number of users and pays approximately $15 for each one.

There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees unless other resources are being used. For example, Office resources are available on Azure, but that is a different product. It is related to Azure, rather than Power Automate.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Our client chose this solution. They already had Microsoft enterprise licenses, and they felt it was better to use a Microsoft product for their automation solution.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, this is a good solution and I like it. It's very scalable and easy to do so. Also, there are many connectors and they are quite useful. This is a product that I recommend.

My advice for anybody who is implementing Power Automate is to be cautious about how they distribute their flows, just to manage the licensing cost. Because it is cloud-based, it is an easy-to-use tool for both small and enterprise-wide solutions. There are no complications when integrating with Active Directory or the cloud platform, and this is good, in particular, because everybody is moving to the cloud. This product makes it easy to integrate things that people are already working with, such as Teams and Outlook.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Solutions Architect at Alfapeople A/S
Real User
Stable, Scalable, easy to install and deploy, and good support
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features of this solution are the automation interface and the RPA automation."
  • "The BPM component needs improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We are resellers and sometimes we implement solutions.

It's a component of Microsoft 365.

We use this solution to match some documents or spreadsheets, to match data from one spreadsheet with another, and to download and load invoices.

We also use it for an approval flow.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of this solution are the automation interface and the RPA automation.

What needs improvement?

The BPM component needs improvement.

Microsoft doesn't have certification training for Microsoft Power Automate, like other solutions such as UiPath, Kofax, and Automation Anywhere. All of these products have certification training available.

Power Automate is part of a suite called Power Platform.

Power Automate can integrate into a business intelligence component like Power BI, a flow component like Flow, and a bot component like Virtual Agents. 

Power Automate can make that cross to these components for better results of all the data that the client wants to see, and wants to automate.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with this solution for almost two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable, it doesn't have any crashes. 

The only issue is when we don't have an internet connection, it crashed because it's a cloud solution and not on-premises.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It has many connectors to other vendors or other components or other programs that make the solution scalable.

It is very easy to deploy with other vendors like Power Automate versus SAP. You can connect SAP with Power Automate very easily and extract information from the SAP environment.

It's a scalable solution.

Our clients are medium-sized companies. We have anywhere from 16 to 100 users.

How are customer service and technical support?

Microsoft has the team to analyze every incident. In my experience, they have teams that can process incidents for my clients.

I am satisfied with technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was easy and it took a week or two weeks to deploy.

We have a team of two or three people to deploy and maintain this solution.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Our clients also evaluated UiPath and Automation Anywhere.

UiPath and Automation Anywhere are leaders in Gartner Magic Quadrant. Microsoft is the challenger. 

Our clients are aware of these evaluations.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others, but first, they should evaluate it. Do a PoC of the tool and evaluate the business purpose. Review the results before making the purchase.

In the beginning, Power Automate was called Flow, and it was very basic to easy to manage. During the last year, there have been many improvements from Microsoft that have taken it to the next level and can compete with UiPath and Automation Anywhere.

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

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Consultant
Stable, easy to use and deploy, but needs a desktop version and better error descriptions and scalability
Pros and Cons
  • "I like Power Automate because it is very easy to use for users who don't have IT knowledge."
  • "They can improve the description of errors and provide more details. Sometimes, when I receive an error, I can't understand what is wrong. It would be useful to have a desktop version to modify or edit workflows. Its scalability can also be better."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Power Automate to send notifications when working with items in SharePoint. It is used to send notifications when a document is moved or needs to be approved. When a document needs to be approved in SharePoint, we send a notification to the user who needs to approve that document. I also use Power Automate to create a work item in another system, such as Azure DevOps.

What is most valuable?

I like Power Automate because it is very easy to use for users who don't have IT knowledge.

What needs improvement?

They can improve the description of errors and provide more details. Sometimes, when I receive an error, I can't understand what is wrong.

It would be useful to have a desktop version to modify or edit workflows. Its scalability can also be better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for five months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable, but its scalability can be better. We have 10 to 20 users of this solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have a contract with Microsoft for premium support. We have support all the time, and they are good.

How was the initial setup?

Its initial setup is easy. The deployment duration depends on the complexity of the deployment. It can take a week or a month.

What other advice do I have?

To know about the best practices for this solution and how to make it more secure, I would advise others to read the information on the web.

I would rate Microsoft Power Automate a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Digital and E-Business Analyst at a construction company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Stable solution and easy to setup
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a stable solution."
  • "Sometimes it can be difficult to share flows for multiple users to edit."

What is most valuable?

I really like the built-in integrations with other applications like Teams. The product is also straightforward and easy to use.

What needs improvement?

Sometimes it can be difficult to share flows for multiple users to edit. So, it is a potential area of improvement.

For additional features, it would be helpful to have a more collaborative building of flows.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

How are customer service and support?

I never needed customer support for this product. It is easy to use.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, Microsoft Power Automate is an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Power Automate Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Power Automate Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.