Microsoft Power Automate Reviews

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.

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've primarily used it to update some legacy systems for our client, as well as government compliance systems and web-based reporting systems that don't have APIs.

With the desktop version, we can automate many things. The ability to do a lot of things is one of the most valuable features.  

For our clients with web-based reporting systems that don't have APIs. There was no other way to get the data into the systems than to manually enter it. We were able to automate that process entirely. We now collect information on a front-end power app, store it in a cloud database, and then push it into these external systems. 

The fact that we can do that for them is probably the most powerful piece for the people. 

We have removed an entire repetitive business process that didn't add any real value to the business but was required for compliance reasons.

There is a lot that could be done to improve the product. With debugging, sometimes things don't work because of timing, and just learning how to do that.

We were able to use a lot of JavaScript in that product using the desktop version, which was a huge help in terms of speed. 

The debugging tools require improvement as well as the monitoring which goes along with it. 

When things don't work as they should, it's usually because you're dealing with third-party websites. The importance of timing cannot be overstated. These are the areas that need to be improved.

One of the issues was that there wasn't a lot of documentation when we first started because Microsoft had purchased the product and began integrating it.

We started when Microsoft's product still used Selenium, and then they bought this product and switched over to it, which is a much better product. However, it is a third-party product. It has not yet been fully integrated.

We are using the most up-to-date version of Microsoft Power Automate.

We use Microsoft Power Automate both on the cloud and the desktop. We have done a lot more with the desktop than with the cloud.

Stability, it's fairly stable. They released a large number of fixes.

Scalability is the biggest challenge from my perspective because it is literally designed as a single-user product, at least the RPA piece of it is.

When you are trying to do what we are doing and running flows on behalf of people, trying to make it enterprise-ready and hardened is probably the most difficult challenge right now. 

Instead of running it on the client's desktop, we are running it on virtual gateway machines on their behalf, and they have support for that. We're doing it now for some other clients, and so far, we have done some pure RPA power automation.

Getting it enterprise-ready, and running it in the background on behalf of the users is probably the most difficult challenge.

I haven't used technical support at all.  have used mostly the web or we have figured it out ourselves.

I don't have a direct support contract with Microsoft. I've been doing the majority of this.

It's been a couple of years or so since it was set up, but I would say that it was pretty straightforward. It didn't take much to get it set up and running.

We believe it is a solid product that will continue to improve, and it is well integrated. It is integrated with the cloud, the database data verse, and power apps, with which we have a lot of experience and really like using power apps for doing things quickly. 

It's the first RBA product that I've really used. I've looked at it for a long time. We have done a lot of RPA work over the years, probably for the last six or seven years, just doing pure JavaScript, literally just writing JavaScript to automate these types of things. From our perspective, this is a huge step forward because we took a lot of pretty complex JavaScript code and logic and were able to put it in a format that we believe may make the code more maintainable and not just sort of stuck in the heads of one or two programmers.

We have completed a few projects, and just finished another one in which we were able to fill out 10,000 forms for a client who needed to do it as quickly as possible when a system went down. We reduced a process that would have taken weeks to four hours. We believe that the product has a lot of merits when used in the right places,  and I suppose we are still figuring out when it's the right tool.

I haven't used the UI path or some of the "higher-end" components. I believe one of the advantages of this device is its low cost. It's now built into Windows 11, it's a part of it.

When they say low code, no code, I would say the downside is that, while this is partially true, you still need to think like a programmer when trying to debug it or set up an enterprise-wide system.

I think it's functional, but I think it's got a way to go and it's hard for me to wait because I really haven't used those other products, We've been doing it mostly by hand for quite some time. I would rate Microsoft Power Automate a seven out of ten.

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.

Our company uses the solution to process insurance claims and related activity. We have around 80 developers and three administrators. Depending on clients' needs, we might scale in the future. 

The solution is really easy to use compared to other tools. 

The western license is fantastic.

The solution integrates more easily and with more tools than Automation Anywhere. 

There are frequent version updates and that impacts different algorithms so we have to adjust our code. 

The solution should include connectors and DevOps capabilities with its standard package. 

I have been using the solution for three years. 

The stability is good so is rated a nine out of ten. 

The scalability is good with no doubts. 

We have been developing on Microsoft's data products from beta release onwards. They bought and merged an automation company into their product so we know the different methods. We diagnose things and that feedback ends up inserted within very big containers. 

Technical support is good but their response times are slow. 

The setup is straightforward. 

We implement the solution in-house. 

Our typical use cases can be handled by two or three developers and take about six to eight weeks to implement. 

First, we create the DDS. Then, we create software flows, standards, and login processes. We add efforts, exceptions, vendors, record reviews, and testing. Finally, we perform UAT and production. 

The pricing is reasonable and the western license is fantastic. 

They have a premium service that includes connectors and the SQL server sanitizer team. If they change this service to be standard, then pricing will be even better. 

We also use Automation Anywhere but there is some maintenance involved. 

The solution integrates with other tools better than Automation Anywhere. 

The solution is a good product. It integrates well with apps, virtual agents, and other tools. It has all the capabilities of Microsoft and Windows. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.