Microsoft Power Automate Reviews

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.

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.

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. 

We held a hiring event specifically for veterans. All the people who were registering were external to our organization, so we had them fill out a Microsoft form, which then triggered an email, took all their information, and stored it into a SharePoint list. This list fed a Power App, and we were able to:

• Check members in whenever they arrived.
• Capture extra details about them.
• Pass the information onto hiring managers whenever a hiring manager was interested in an individual applicant or somebody who showed up.

In another use case, we used it to track the vaccination status of all employees. There were about 90,000 employees. If they scheduled it, it would trigger reminders whenever an employee's vaccination was coming up.

We set up a process to monitor Twitter so that whenever specific hashtags that we cared about were used, the whole record of what was tweeted out was captured and stored into a SharePoint list because it was free and easy to analyze as well. That has helped. Event triggers, several different connections, and what you can do with the information once you have it have been very helpful.

We also used it as a one-time solution in a scenario where records were captured in a Power App, and oftentimes, those records, which were almost like medical records, would need to go to another team one at a time. We used Power Automate to capture all the information that was stored in Oracle. From the record, it would put the information into a Word document, convert the Word document to a PDF, and then email the PDF off to the team. All that was done behind the scenes with the user clicking one button. It was great.

Different trigger events were most valuable. You could schedule a process on a recurring basis, at a certain time of day or week, or when something happens, which is huge. 

Their connector to Oracle or premium data sets that aren't Microsoft would often fail for me. The information given back about why it failed wasn't always robust to understand how to fix it and why it happened.

Sometimes, Power Automate's flow would turn off when it got fired incorrectly or misfired, but we didn't always get a notification of when it was turned off, and that was a problem.

I have been working with this solution since October of 2019.

It can scale. We used it to track vaccinations for 90,000 employees.

I did deal with their tech support, and they were phenomenal. Their support person taught us the whole process of how to take a record, put it into a Word document template that you can customize, turn it into a PDF, and then send that email off. He was phenomenal.

It was straightforward for the most part. Once you do it a couple of times, it becomes more intuitive. There are so many different YouTube videos or resources on Google to be able to figure out how to do something, what are you doing wrong, or how you can work around an issue.

In terms of maintenance, everything that I did was more of a one-off solution. It was me and one other person who would maintain an individual Power Automate statement.

There are so many different capabilities with it. I would advise mapping out your capability, usage, or whatever it is that you want it to do. After that, start to create and go from there.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

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. 

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.

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.