Microsoft Power Automate Reviews

Microsoft Power Automate is a part of the Office 365 environment. Currently, 5% to 7% of our 19,000 employees use Microsoft Power Automate. It has already been connected to all the applications that our employees use, such as Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, and the ecosystem of applications that come with Microsoft Office. This is one of the primary reasons for using this solution. We are also using it for workflow approval and automated signature use cases to deploy a digital signature solution for some documents. It is all automated, from the client all the way to signing and storing the documents. 

It is a great solution for simple automation activities or simple automation of simple tasks.

It is also integrated with Office 365. Integration is an absolute breeze with any RPA software.

We expect Microsoft Power Automate to work like any other RPA software, but at present, it is fairly lax, especially in the RPA space. We have a very limited set of use cases today for Microsoft Power Automate. Microsoft should make it a full-featured RPA product like other solutions that we use, such as Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and UiPath. This is predominantly the area that they need to improve on. 

Microsoft Power Automate is quite complex to use as well, especially if you want to do advanced workflows or advanced automation. The regular simple workflows are quite easy and straightforward, but the moment you want to do something complex, it is almost impossible for one of our employees to work on it.

We have been using Microsoft Power Automate for about a year or so now. We are using the latest version.

It is absolutely stable.

It is definitely not scalable because we don't see this kind of use case. Scaling comes with the flexibility to use it everywhere, but we don't see that flexibility today. Therefore, scalability is definitely a question. We hope to see the product improve so that we can scale it, but today, we really can't do so. 

We don't usually call Microsoft for anything. There is absolutely no need for technical support. It is relatively easy. 

There is no installation because it is a part of our size offering purchase from Microsoft Office, so it was relatively straightforward to install. 

Microsoft deployed it for us, and they had a fairly large team. It took a long time, but I don't think it generally takes a long time. We had a very large deployment for around 19,000 employees. When I say deploy, I specifically speak of Office 365, which is the installation of Microsoft Office on these 19,000 end-user computing devices at the same time by using a new Active Directory. If you are specifically talking about deploying in Office 365 or Power Automate alone, it can be done in a matter of hours. You would need only one person to deploy it.

There is zero licensing cost. It comes with our Microsoft Office subscription.

We use both Automation Anywhere and Microsoft Power Automate.

I would recommend this solution for simple automation. We plan to continue using this solution if it gets better in terms of use cases, features, and scalability. It needs a full check-up in terms of functionality to be a fully functional RPA. 

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

The most common use is for digitizing Excel forms or Excel spreadsheets. We use Power Automate to digitalize all Excel-based processes on a SharePoint page and link the libraries with the transactional data from the client.

It is cloud-based. It can be deployed on a public, private, or hybrid cloud. It depends on the client. It is linked with the Microsoft license that a client has. If the license is hybrid, then Automate is hybrid as well.

By digitizing Excel spreadsheets, we reduced the errors in information transactions. We also reduced the time for the internal processes and improved operational efficiency.

The cloud solution on Azure makes it easy for us to take care of the security, which is a big deal for us. We can use the same permissions that we already have in place in Azure Active Directory and just duplicate them for the forms in Power Automate and the SharePoint page, so managing security is very easy for us.

Workflow management is what clients select the most. It is very intuitive and pretty much drag-and-drop, so we can create escalation, decision flows, and if-else conditions pretty much by dragging and dropping boxes. Even someone who is not technical can develop a workflow for the business.

It is very easy to use. It doesn't need a technical resource to create and maintain forms. The UX/UI is very similar throughout the Microsoft platform, including SharePoint and Office 365. 

It integrates with all sorts of databases, such as SQL Server and Oracle Database, which is a plus. 

While working with non-structured data (like logs and user tracking information that usually fits the criteria of big data), all the data sources must pass by a data quality process via any ETL tool before linking and publishing any information to the automation workflows and forms. This process is important to standardize all the content and format types for the columns and fields in the tables that will be used to show data in the front end.

 The ability to read non-structured data and provide insights into how to sanitize and organize data automatically is something that I'd like to be covered in the next releases.

I have been using this solution for two and a half years.

We never had any downtime, so it is pretty good.

It is very scalable. We are working with hundreds of forms at the same time, and some of our clients have thousands of people working simultaneously on the same form, so it is very scalable.

Most of its users are function-based. They are process leads in their companies. We currently have more than 1,000 users.

It is being used a lot. It is currently our most important tool for team efficiency. We plan to increase its usage in the near future. We have lots of other internal applications and processes in the pipeline, especially for functional areas, which can be moved from paper and Excel to a SharePoint form by using Power Automate.

The response time depends on your license level. If you are a gold partner, the response time is in a couple of hours, which is pretty decent. If you are an individual user or a company that doesn't have any L1, L2, or L3 licenses, the response time is up to 48 hours. So, it all depends on your license level with Microsoft, but whatever they say in the contract, they do respect that, which is good.

We were already users of other Microsoft solutions such as SharePoint and Teams, so when Power Automate became decent for the market users, we just adopted it naturally. Our experience with their technical support was good. They were able to answer our questions and solve our issues within the response time in our contract.

I used Blue Prism a couple of years ago, and now I'm using Power Automate. Blue Prism is bigger and way more expensive, and they charge by the number of users. Microsoft was cheaper, and they charge by the number of forms. So, it was way cheaper for us to move to Power Automate from Blue Prism.

It was pretty straightforward. Microsoft had two solutions: Microsoft Flow and Power Apps. Microsoft combined these two solutions and called it Microsoft Power Automate. It is pretty seamless because if you're already using Microsoft licenses, everything integrates with Office 365, SharePoint, and Teams. So, it is very seamless.

It took some days to create the front end of all the forms. Creating a whole page takes a couple of hours for a SharePoint administrator or developer or even a functional person, and we have hundreds of those. It took a few weeks to create the entire front end, but the connections were done in minutes. They were very simple.

It was done in-house. In terms of maintenance, once the forms are created, we have just one full-time employee taking care of the maintenance of those 100 forms, and that's enough because it is pretty much adding or deleting fields. It is pretty simple to maintain.

I don't know the exact number. It depends and varies a lot according to the licensing terms.

There is no cost to maintain if we have less than 10 forms. Microsoft only charges if there are more than 10 forms. So, most of the companies can survive without paying anything extra. It is included in the Office 365 licensing.

I would advise others to first look at the process and then the technology. The biggest issue is that people think that whatever they have in the current system can be digitized and automated, but it is better to first do the roadmap, understand the process from A to B, and then design the flow on paper. After the flow on paper seems okay, then go to the tool and create the form.

I would rate Microsoft Power Automate a nine out of 10. Big data support is something that I'd like to be covered a lot. The other piece that my business needs is already taken care of by the solution. Big data support is the only piece that is missing currently.

Microsoft Power Automate has helped one of my clients to update a SharePoint list automatically. There was no need to open the SharePoint list every time and update it. Instead, a flow that runs and updates it.

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it easily integrates with Azure DevOps.

We need to buy a premium license for Microsoft Power Automate because some features are only available for premium licenses. It would be really helpful if Microsoft offered some premium features in the standard version. Instead of bringing everything to the standard version, it would be really helpful if Microsoft classified one or two important things as standard, which are regularly worked upon.

The solution's licensing model is very complex and not straightforward. The licensing model needs to be reviewed and changed. Sometimes, Microsoft Power Automate's portal becomes a little bit slow.

I have been using Microsoft Power Automate for one year.

I rate the solution a six out of ten for stability.

I rate the solution a six out of ten for scalability.

The solution's technical support responds generically, but we would need some issue-specific responses.

Neutral

On a scale from one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the solution's initial setup a five out of ten.

The solution's implementation takes only a few minutes.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing two to three out of ten.

We have benefits with Microsoft Power Automate, like automatically updating records when they pop up. I would recommend Microsoft Power Automate to other users because it easily integrates with other Microsoft products, which is one of the big benefits to us. Microsoft Power Automate is easily acquirable.

The solution's licensing model is very complex. Compared to other RPA tools, Microsoft Power Automate is easy to work with. Other RPA tools are bought at a higher price, but Microsoft Power Automate is not very expensive.

Overall, I rate Microsoft Power Automate a six out of ten.

It's an RPA (Robotic Process Automation), so it's a robot and we use it to automate a lot of financial reports.

This solution improved the reporting in our organization. The financial department was doing a lot of copy-pasting from different sources to create financial reports. Through ProcessRobot, we were able to automate all those copy-pasting and produce all those financial reports overnight. Our financial department was able to free up a lot of their time. They no longer need to invest their time in the work, particularly in creating the report. They can focus their time on analyzing the data more, rather than exerting more time in report creation.

This solution is easy to use. It was one of the easiest to use, plus the price-quality was the reason why we selected this. Its features for its price were the best fit for our company.

As for what could be improved in this solution: I tried to do some automation on Microsoft Dynamics AX and it was not successful. The integration with Dynamics AX was not really a success, but for the rest, I don't have problems with.

Some automation features on some programs did not work smoothly, so that's a negative feature. That might be solved now with the newer version because Microsoft took over Softomotive. I hope they have improved that feature and that it now works better with their own software.

I'm not really missing features I'd like to see on the next release because we only use it for a really small target area. We just use it for reporting. It's not like we're using it extensively on test automation and other similar processes, but I know we can do a lot more with this solution.

We've been using this solution for three years now.

This solution is really stable.

About the scalability of this solution, we're using the desktop version now, and I know that there's some other version. We can scale it up to use more robots, but we don't have a requirement for it currently.

The technical support for this solution was really okay. Information on the website was documented well e.g. there were nice manuals. I didn't use their technical support, but the website where I could find all the technical documentation was really good. Because it was well-documented, it was self-explanatory and I could start from there.

We used two different solutions, but we switched because they were too expensive for the purpose we wanted to use those solutions for.

Setting up this solution was really straightforward. It just needed a little bit of clicking. It only took a few minutes to install as it's a really simple program. It's not complicated.

Implementing this solution was self-explanatory. I did the implementation myself.

We saw a significant return on investment because we were able to save a lot of time from our financial and human resources staff, so this saves a lot of money and the return on investment on that 1,000 euros is quickly felt.

We paid for one license for this solution. It was a lifetime license for this version (version 8), and we paid around 1,000 euros. At the moment, as long as we use this version, there is no additional cost, but when we upgrade to the new version, it will be a monthly subscription.

We bought the license from Softomotive, so we had one license and that license was restricted to version eight. When we upgrade to the newest version, we would need to buy that upgrade, because Microsoft has taken over Softomotive and they no longer sell licenses. They only sell monthly subscriptions.

We have to transfer our license to a Microsoft subscription, and though they will give a redemption, the cost will change, so this is also one of the reasons why we didn't change to the new version yet.

We evaluated other solutions: UiPath and Kofax.

You're using an older version. Now, Microsoft has taken over this version and they're calling it Power Automate desktop. I think a lot of improvements have already been done to the newest version, so what I'm going to tell you about the old version will no longer be relevant. We need to upgrade to the new version then check if the problems we were having have been fixed in the new version. Overall, we are satisfied with what we use it for because I think it's quite okay for our use case.

The name ProcessRobot doesn't exist anymore. Softomotive has been taken over by Microsoft so this solution has been rebranded by Microsoft to Power Automate desktop.

It's a robot, so it's operating on a server on its own. There's no real user, but it's trying to replace users. There's only one developer who is creating the tasks on that system. We also don't require anyone for its maintenance.

At the moment, we're using this solution to create a report of 50, so we have 50 data scripts running each night. We're planning to extend its use with a couple of reports, but for now, there's no need to further use it for other tasks.

My advice to others looking into implementing ProcessRobot is to try it first because it's free now, so you can test it. You can test it for free on the Windows 11 version. It's delivered by Microsoft for free. Go ahead and test it. The solution is nice and fast.

I would give this solution a rating of eight or nine. Let's say nine out of ten. I couldn't find any pictures for my use case. I think this was the best choice we could make, and ten is too perfect for rating a solution.

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.

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.

I was in an insurance company prior to joining this new company, and I developed complex robots for claims processing and policy insurance. I also worked on several other processes such as interacting with APIs and downloading SharePoint reports. It was difficult to download the SharePoint report, but I did an integration in SharePoint to download the data and upload it into the local database system. So, I have created complex robots with WinAutomation.

WinAutomation is very handy to use, and it has the power to interact with multiple systems, such as SAP, Oracle, or .NET systems. It's very useful for API integration. We can also interact with the data by using wildcards and other patterns. So, there are plenty of things that are good.

There should be a comprehensive or enterprise level of application to provide the cognitive AI, and there should be orchestration so that I can control all the robots on one station. The other tools are currently providing these features. So, hyper-automation integration should be done, and it should have cognitive AI.

One drawback of WinAutomation is that it doesn't work properly on the Internet Explorer or Edge browser. On the older version of Internet Explorer or Edge, it sometimes doesn't give proper selectors while selecting the fields. I had a lot of difficulty in that area, and I want them to improve that in WinAutomation.

They should have a comprehensive platform to help the community. They should have blogs. They had a community before, but they discontinued that. Microsoft has developed a community for any support required for its product. WinAutomation should also have that.

I've been using this solution since 2015, so it has been about eight years.

It's stable. It's very good. We had been running this product for seven years, and we had developed around 300 and more processes within one organization. So, there was stability. 

Initially, in 2016 or 2017, when WinAutomation was not yet acquired by Microsoft, we were having some technical issues for which I sought support from their technical team. Later on, we didn't require any support from them. We used to handle any technical problems with it from our side. I'd rate their support an eight out of ten. They were good.

Positive

It was very good. It has been very handy, and it didn't take much time for the setup. It was very easy to set up various things.

The deployment duration completely depends on the process. It depends on how long a process is. When we were developing robots in production, it didn't take much time for us to deploy them. It was very easy for us.

We had around four people at the time, and the number kept increasing. We were providing comprehensive services, so we were managing the development and engineering jobs all together at once.

Comparatively, WinAutomation is cheaper than the other automation tools. When we purchased the license, it was around $50 or $60 per user most probably per month.

I'd definitely recommend using WinAutomation. It's very affordable, and it's durable. It gives the long-term usage scope in the organization.

Overall, I'd rate WinAutomation a seven out of ten. They have to work hard on this one. Right now, there is no competition for WinAutomation in the market. They should work on the product more.

The reason why we are using this product is that we like to use it where we have automation projects specifically for Microsoft products. We can automate to improve productivity and for those applications and simple tasks, it is easy to use.  

For example, suppose I get my email with Outlook. There are certain times I will get specific Excel files from a pre-determined output which I have to always place into a particular SharePoint folder. From there, some other automation gets triggered and the file is processed in a certain way. Those are the sort of things we can automate with Power Automate. It is very good at working with those simple Microsoft-product-related processes.  

We use it wherever we have workflow processes in which Microsoft products are interacting. Before using this solution, people would get those emails and the recipient had to download the file and then manually put it into SharePoint. Now, as soon as it comes into the inbox, Power Automate gets triggered and it automatically copies the file to the correct SharePoint. There is no reason that a repetitive task of this sort needs to be done manually.  

It offers a different option than using UiPath which is much more complicated and more expensive for simple tasks that Power Automate can do more easily.  

It is very hard to say what the most valuable features are in Power Automate because we are still exploring the product and utility. I like the simplicity of how we can create those automated activities quickly. For now, the most valuable feature is that it is very easy to use.  

There is definitely a lot of enhancement that Microsoft can incorporate into Power Automate. For example, we have quite a lot of .NET applications that we created. These are custom applications that we created using something like VB.NET or C#.NET. These are obviously applications that are not published by Microsoft. I would like it if Microsoft could enhance the capabilities of Power Automate to allow users to connect to other tools and applications in some way. That will help us create better processes without making them more complicated or having to use another automation tool. Right now, we have to use UiPath to help us make processes such as the one described. I have not seen any way that Power Automate can do that type of integration. So if we could get better integration with non-Microsoft solutions as a feature for Power Automate, that will be very useful.  

We have been using Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Flows) for the last three months.  

We have not created anything complex, so we have not faced any issues in the form of glitches or any bugs to this point. When we start doing more sophisticated workflows, that may end up being a different story.  

I have not really had much of an opportunity to test the scalability of the solution yet. If we find a particular workflow that requires a change or something, it is easy to drop that version and recreate something new from scratch. It does not take much time. Scaling the number of processes up or down at this point does not seem to be an issue.  

The number of users in our company right now remains pretty small. I think there are only around 15 to 20 of us are actually exploring the capabilities. Eventually, that group should be much larger.  

We have not had any reason to work with the technical support team at this point. One of my colleagues did drop them a note asking if there is a way we can use Power Automate to connect to any of the custom tools that we created. I do not believe that we have got an answer to that question yet, so it is taking some time.  

The initial setup was quite good and went smoothly. It was not complex at all. It is good that it was relatively easy because we understood that it would mostly be used for easy processes to do some small tasks. We went that way and are using the tool only for working with simple automation processes. We did spend some time trying to automate more complex processes, but as the processes became more complex the tool became more complex to use. It is much easier to use it to do non-complex things. The setup for the processes themselves is fairly easy to do.   

This solution can save money when used for simple tasks specifically using only Microsoft products.  

We are currently working on evaluations of various products. The thing is, we have just started to embark on our journey into RPA (Robotic Process Automation) and we have brought in UiPath to act in that capacity. We are very much, at a nascent stage of the discovery of what we can do and what the product is capable of. We are identifying processes that can be automated and we are planning to work mostly with UiPath on those solutions. We have already engaged in a contract with UiPath for use of their product at this point in time.  

Most of our work is going towards UiPath currently but we also have this Microsoft Enterprise licensing. There seems to be no reason we should not use that as well if there are ways it can provide an advantage. We are also exploring if the enhancements we would need to tie in other applications and processes to Power Automate are something that we could do internally. At this time we are working with a combination of solutions that falls somewhere between our existing processes and new capabilities with automation tools.  

I have a few comments and advice for people considering the addition of RPA in their workflows. I would suggest that they do as much streamlining of their processes as possible. If they can get smaller things up and running by creating the process with a simple tool it may help their efficiency as well as their bottom line. When you go for big tools like UiPath and all the other robust RPA solutions, the cost of creating those smaller processes will be higher than they need to be. If people have a Microsoft Enterprise license, they could actually use the Power Automate tool to make their processes much more lean and efficient. Doing the same thing by employing any of the RPA-related solutions and tools might be a lot more effort.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Power Automate, overall as a product as a six-of-ten at this point. It has got a lot of room for improvement.