PL-900 Objective 4.1: Identify Power Automate Components

Power Automate Components Overview

Microsoft Power Automate provides comprehensive automation capabilities spanning cloud-based integrations and robotic process automation for desktop applications. The platform enables organizations to automate repetitive tasks, orchestrate complex business processes, and integrate diverse systems without traditional programming. Cloud flows connect modern services through APIs and connectors, while desktop flows interact with legacy applications lacking integration capabilities. This dual approach ensures organizations can automate both contemporary cloud workflows and established processes running on older systems, creating end-to-end automation across their technology landscape.

Power Automate's visual workflow designer makes automation accessible to business users through drag-and-drop interfaces for adding triggers, actions, and control structures. Makers see immediate visual representations of workflow logic, understanding process flow without reading code. Pre-built templates provide starting points for common scenarios, while extensive connector libraries enable integration with hundreds of services. The platform handles complexity including error handling, retry logic, and parallel execution automatically, letting makers focus on business process design rather than technical implementation details.

Cloud Flows vs Desktop Flows Use Cases

Cloud Flows Fundamentals

Cloud flows automate processes that span cloud services, applications, and data sources accessible through APIs and connectors. They execute in Microsoft's cloud infrastructure without requiring local computers or servers, running reliably 24/7 without user intervention. Cloud flows excel at scenarios like monitoring for events and responding automatically, routing information between systems, collecting and processing data, sending notifications, and orchestrating multi-step approval workflows. The flows scale automatically based on execution volume, handling single daily runs or thousands of concurrent executions without capacity planning or infrastructure management.

Three primary cloud flow types serve different triggering patterns. Automated cloud flows run when specific events occur, like new file uploads, incoming emails, or record creations in databases. Instant cloud flows (formerly button flows) execute on-demand when users click buttons in Power Automate mobile app, SharePoint, or Power Apps, enabling manual triggering for processes that shouldn't run automatically. Scheduled cloud flows run at specific times or intervals, handling batch processes, periodic data synchronization, or scheduled reports. Each type serves distinct use cases, with organizations often employing all three patterns across their automation portfolio.

Desktop Flows (RPA) Fundamentals

Desktop flows bring robotic process automation capabilities to Power Automate, automating interactions with desktop applications, websites, and legacy systems by mimicking human actions like mouse clicks, keyboard entry, and screen reading. These flows run on local computers or dedicated RPA machines, interacting with user interfaces as human workers would. Desktop flows excel at scenarios involving applications without APIs, mainframe systems accessed through terminal emulators, data entry into multiple applications, or processes requiring human-like interaction with dynamic interfaces. This capability bridges automation gaps where cloud flows cannot reach, enabling comprehensive automation strategies.

Desktop flow creation happens through recording or manual action configuration. Recording captures user actions as they perform processes, automatically generating flow definitions reproducing those steps. Manual configuration provides precise control over individual actions, useful for complex logic or scenarios requiring specific timing. Desktop flows use UI automation selectors identifying screen elements, enabling flows to find buttons, fields, or data regardless of window position or resolution changes. This selector-based approach provides robustness, with flows adapting to minor interface variations without breaking when applications update visual styling.

Combining Cloud and Desktop Flows

Organizations achieve comprehensive automation by combining cloud and desktop flows in hybrid scenarios. Cloud flows orchestrate overall processes, calling desktop flows when legacy system interaction is needed, then continuing with cloud-based actions after desktop flows complete. A common pattern involves cloud flows monitoring for work items (emails, SharePoint submissions), triggering desktop flows to process those items in legacy applications, then using cloud flow actions to send results to modern systems or notify stakeholders. This orchestration provides end-to-end automation spanning modern and legacy technology stacks.

Attended desktop flows run on user machines with human supervision, useful for processes requiring occasional human judgment or verification. Unattended desktop flows execute on dedicated machines without user presence, ideal for high-volume processing or after-hours batch operations. Cloud flows can trigger either type based on process requirements, with attended flows prompting users for confirmation while unattended flows execute independently. This flexibility enables automation strategies matching organizational readiness, starting with attended flows providing human oversight before progressing to fully autonomous unattended execution as confidence builds.

Cloud Flow Templates

Template Categories and Discovery

Power Automate includes hundreds of pre-built templates addressing common automation scenarios across productivity, business processes, and integration use cases. Template categories include approval workflows (expense approvals, document reviews, time-off requests), data collection (form responses to databases, survey results to spreadsheets), notifications (email alerts for SharePoint changes, Teams messages for calendar events), and social media monitoring (tracking brand mentions, competitor activity). The template gallery enables browsing by service, scenario, or popularity, with search helping users find relevant patterns for specific needs.

Templates accelerate development by providing tested workflow patterns makers customize rather than designing from scratch. Each template includes pre-configured triggers, actions, and connections that users adapt by selecting their specific data sources, changing recipient email addresses, or adjusting filter criteria. This customization maintains the proven workflow logic while tailoring specifics to organizational requirements. Templates also serve educational purposes, showing makers how to structure workflows, use specific connectors, or implement particular patterns they can apply in future custom flows.

Popular Template Scenarios

Connector Triggers and Actions

Understanding Triggers

Triggers initiate cloud flow execution by monitoring for specific events or conditions, determining when automation runs. Each cloud flow has exactly one trigger, though triggers can evaluate multiple conditions before initiating. Connectors provide triggers matching their service capabilities: SharePoint offers triggers for new or modified items, Outlook triggers on new emails or calendar events, Dataverse triggers on record changes, and Forms triggers on new submissions. Trigger types include polling triggers that periodically check for changes and webhook triggers that receive immediate notifications when events occur, with webhooks providing faster response times.

Trigger configuration includes conditions filtering which events actually start flows. Email triggers can filter by sender, subject keywords, or importance levels, preventing flows from running on every email. SharePoint triggers filter by folder locations, content types, or field values, ensuring flows only process relevant items. Schedule triggers specify exact times, intervals, or complex recurrence patterns like "every weekday at 9 AM" or "first Monday of each month." This conditional triggering ensures flows run only when appropriate, preventing unnecessary executions and improving efficiency.

Working with Actions

Actions perform actual work within flows after triggers initiate them, executing tasks like sending emails, creating records, updating files, or calling external services. Each connector provides actions matching its service capabilities: SharePoint actions create or modify list items, Outlook actions send emails or create calendar events, Excel actions read or write table rows, and HTTP actions call REST APIs. Actions connect together in sequences where one action's output becomes the next action's input, creating data flow pipelines transforming information as it moves through workflows.

Dynamic content enables actions to reference data from previous steps, with makers selecting fields from dropdown lists rather than manually typing values. This dynamic referencing ensures actions use current data values, adapting automatically as workflows process different items. Expression capabilities provide functions for data transformation, date manipulation, string operations, and mathematical calculations within actions. These expressions implement business logic inline without external code, enabling sophisticated data processing purely through visual workflow designers.

Power Automate Use Cases

Approval Automation

Power Automate provides built-in approval actions simplifying approval workflow creation. Flows send approval requests to designated people through email, Teams, or mobile notifications, with requests including relevant details, attachments, and custom questions. Approvers receive actionable notifications enabling approve or reject decisions directly from notification interfaces without navigating to separate systems. Responses trigger subsequent workflow steps, with approved requests continuing to implementation while rejected requests notify requestors and close processes. Approval history maintains complete audit trails recording all decisions, timestamps, and comments automatically.

Approval patterns support various organizational requirements. Single approver workflows route to one person for decision. Sequential approval chains require multiple approvers to approve in order, useful for hierarchical processes where each level reviews before escalating. Parallel approvals send requests to multiple people simultaneously, with flows continuing when first person responds, majority approves, or all approve depending on configuration. Conditional routing sends different requests to different approvers based on values like amount thresholds or department assignments. These flexible patterns match diverse business approval policies without custom coding.

Microsoft Teams Integration

Power Automate integrates deeply with Teams, enabling workflow automation within collaboration contexts. Flows post messages to channels notifying teams about important events, send adaptive cards with interactive buttons for approvals or feedback, create teams or channels automatically for projects, add members to teams based on conditions, and collect responses from Teams forms or polls. This automation brings workflow capabilities into Teams where work already happens, reducing context switching between systems. Flows respond to Teams events like new channel messages, @mentions, or reactions, enabling conversational automation triggering from chat activities.

Approval workflows particularly benefit from Teams integration, with approval requests appearing as adaptive cards in Teams activity feeds or channels. Approvers review details and make decisions without leaving Teams, with cards including relevant context and optional comments. Teams-based approvals increase response rates through familiar interfaces and reduce approval cycle times by meeting approvers where they work. Automation also creates Teams meetings, sends meeting notifications, or posts meeting summaries to channels, streamlining meeting coordination and follow-up processes.

Outlook Automation

Outlook automation streamlines email management and calendar coordination through flows that process incoming messages, send notifications, schedule meetings, and organize communications. Flows trigger on new emails matching specific criteria, extracting information from email bodies or attachments, saving data to databases or SharePoint, and sending automated responses. Email parsing capabilities extract structured data from formatted emails like purchase orders or support requests, eliminating manual data entry from correspondence. Flows also flag important emails, forward messages to appropriate teams, or archive emails based on age or sender.

Calendar automation includes flows that create meetings based on form submissions or database records, send meeting reminders to attendees, reschedule conflicting appointments, or create follow-up tasks for meetings. Room booking workflows check room availability, create calendar entries for conference rooms, and notify meeting organizers of confirmations. Email-to-case automation creates support tickets from incoming emails, assigns cases to appropriate teams, and sends acknowledgment emails to customers. These automations ensure consistent email and calendar handling without manual processing overhead.

SharePoint Automation

SharePoint serves as a common automation trigger and target, with flows responding to document uploads, list item changes, or file modifications. Document approval workflows trigger when files are uploaded to specific libraries, routing documents to reviewers, tracking approval status, and moving approved documents to production locations. Metadata automation extracts information from documents, populates SharePoint columns, and organizes files based on content. Flows also synchronize SharePoint data to other systems, export lists to Excel on schedules, or archive old documents automatically based on retention policies.

Onboarding workflows demonstrate SharePoint automation value, with new employee items triggering flows that create required accounts, assign permissions, provision resources, and track onboarding task completion. Equipment checkout processes record item borrowing in SharePoint, send reminder emails when returns are overdue, and update inventory counts automatically. Compliance workflows monitor document expiration dates, notify owners before documents expire, and archive documents reaching retention limits. These automations transform SharePoint from passive storage into active business process platforms.

Forms and Document Automation

Microsoft Forms integration enables automated data collection workflows where form submissions trigger flows that process responses, store data in databases, send notifications, or initiate approvals. Registration workflows collect attendee information through forms, create SharePoint list items or Dataverse records, send confirmation emails, and add attendees to Teams channels. Feedback collection automates survey distribution, response compilation, sentiment analysis, and results reporting. Quiz and assessment flows grade responses automatically, store results in gradebooks, and email results to participants.

Document automation using AI Builder extracts data from PDFs, images, or scanned documents without manual typing. Invoice processing flows receive invoices via email or SharePoint, extract vendor names, amounts, and line items using AI models, create approval requests for managers, and post approved invoices to accounting systems. Contract processing extracts key terms, expiration dates, and party information from contracts, storing details in databases for tracking and renewal management. Receipt processing extracts expense details from photos, simplifying expense report creation and reducing data entry errors.

Power Automate Applications

Power Automate for Desktop

Power Automate for Desktop is a standalone application enabling desktop flow creation and execution on Windows computers. The recorder captures user actions including mouse movements, clicks, keyboard input, and application interactions, automatically generating flow definitions reproducing those steps. The designer provides detailed control over individual actions, enabling manual addition, modification, or removal of steps. Desktop flows access local files, databases, and applications, interacting with windows applications, web pages in browsers, terminal emulators, or Java applications through various automation technologies.

Desktop-specific capabilities include screen scraping extracting text or data from applications, image recognition finding elements visually when traditional selectors fail, OCR reading text from images or PDFs, mouse and keyboard simulation, window management opening or arranging applications, and Excel automation reading or writing spreadsheet data locally. These capabilities handle scenarios where applications lack APIs, enabling automation of virtually any desktop process humans can perform. The application runs flows attended (with user supervision) or unattended (independently on dedicated machines) based on workflow requirements and organizational automation maturity.

Power Automate Mobile

Power Automate mobile app for iOS and Android provides on-the-go flow management and instant flow execution through button flows. Users receive approval requests, review details including attachments or context, and approve or reject directly from mobile devices regardless of location. The app displays flow run history, showing execution status, success or failure, and detailed run information for troubleshooting. Activity feeds keep users informed of flows awaiting action, recent completions, or failures requiring attention. This mobility ensures approval workflows don't stall when approvers are away from desks.

Button flows (instant flows) enable on-demand automation triggered from mobile app buttons, useful for scenarios like submitting location-based reports, logging work hours, scanning business cards, or requesting assistance. Users customize buttons with input fields collecting information before execution, enabling parameterized flows adapting to current context. The mobile app integrates with device capabilities including camera, GPS, and contacts, making flows more powerful through sensor data and native phone features. Mobile-triggered flows often combine with cloud actions, starting processes from phones that execute across multiple services automatically.

Power Automate Maker Portal

The Power Automate maker portal (make.powerautomate.com) serves as the primary web interface for creating, managing, and monitoring flows. The portal provides flow design canvases for building cloud flows visually, template galleries for discovering pre-built patterns, connection management for authenticating to services, and comprehensive run history showing execution details. Makers switch between environments, browse their created flows, share flows with others, and access learning resources. The portal enables both citizen developers building personal productivity automations and professional developers creating enterprise workflows.

Analytics dashboards show flow usage, performance metrics, and failure rates, helping identify opportunities for optimization or flows requiring maintenance. Makers troubleshoot failures through detailed run history displaying inputs, outputs, and error messages for each action. Solution management capabilities package flows with dependencies for deployment across environments, supporting application lifecycle management practices. The portal also provides access to desktop flow management, Process Mining capabilities, and administrative features for organizations managing automation at scale.

Desktop Flow Actions

User Interface Automation Actions

Desktop flows interact with application interfaces through actions clicking buttons, entering text into fields, selecting dropdown options, or checking boxes. These UI actions use selectors identifying specific screen elements by properties like name, type, or position. Flows wait for windows to load before interacting, ensuring applications are ready before attempting actions. Multiple selector strategies provide fallback options if preferred methods fail, increasing flow reliability when applications update. UI automation enables interaction with any application displaying visual interfaces, regardless of underlying technology or API availability.

Screen scraping actions extract text or data displayed in applications, reading values without copying to clipboard or requiring human observation. Structured data scraping extracts tables or lists into variables for processing, enabling flows to read application data programmatically. Image recognition finds elements visually by comparing screenshots, useful when applications lack accessibility features supporting traditional selectors. These data extraction capabilities enable flows to read information from applications, make decisions based on displayed data, and transfer information between systems without manual copying.

File and Folder Actions

Desktop flows manipulate files and folders through actions that copy, move, rename, or delete files programmatically. Flows monitor folders for new files, triggering processing when documents arrive. File reading actions extract content from text files, CSVs, or PDFs for data processing. Excel actions specifically handle spreadsheet operations including reading ranges, writing values, running macros, or performing calculations. These file operations enable batch processing, document organization, or data extraction from local files as part of broader automation workflows.

Compression actions zip or unzip files for archival or transfer. File existence checks verify files are present before attempting operations. File property actions read or modify creation dates, attributes, or permissions. These capabilities enable sophisticated file management automation implementing organizational policies for document retention, archival, or compliance. Flows can organize thousands of files based on content, dates, or other criteria far faster than manual sorting, with consistent application of organizational standards.

System and Application Control

Desktop flows control computer systems through actions that launch applications, close programs, run command-line tools, or execute scripts. Process management actions start or stop Windows services, enabling flows to manage background applications. Registry actions read or modify Windows registry values for system configuration. These system-level capabilities enable flows to configure environments, ensure proper application states before processing, or clean up after completion. Flows can restart applications that hung, close unnecessary programs to free resources, or verify required services are running before attempting automation.

Email actions in desktop flows handle local Outlook operations beyond cloud connector capabilities, interacting with desktop Outlook client for scenarios requiring local access. Database actions connect to local SQL Server, Access, or other databases, executing queries or stored procedures. FTP actions upload or download files from servers. These diverse actions enable desktop flows to integrate with virtually any local resource or system, providing comprehensive automation covering all desktop scenarios.

Process Mining

Understanding Process Mining

Process Mining analyzes event logs from business applications to visualize actual process execution, revealing how work truly flows through organizations versus how leaders assume processes work. The technology imports timestamped event data showing when activities occurred, who performed them, and what order they followed. Process Mining algorithms reconstruct process maps displaying all execution paths, frequency of each path, time spent in each step, and variations across different cases. These visualizations expose process reality including deviations, workarounds, rework loops, and bottlenecks limiting throughput.

Organizations discover automation opportunities by identifying repetitive manual tasks, frequent handoffs between systems, or processes showing high variation indicating lack of standardization. Process Mining quantifies automation benefits by calculating time savings, error reduction, or resource reallocation potential. The data-driven approach ensures automation investments target areas with demonstrable impact rather than processes that seem repetitive but actually vary significantly. Process Mining also validates automation results by comparing process performance before and after automation implementation, proving return on investment.

Process Mining Capabilities

Process Mining tools provide multiple analysis capabilities beyond basic process discovery. Conformance checking compares actual process execution against intended processes defined in documentation or policy, identifying instances where procedures aren't followed. This capability highlights training needs, policy enforcement gaps, or unrealistic procedures requiring revision. Performance analysis measures cycle times for complete processes and individual activities, identifying slowest steps constraining overall throughput. Queue analysis shows where work accumulates, indicating capacity constraints or resource allocation issues.

Variant analysis reveals different paths through processes, showing which variants are most common, fastest, or most compliant. Organizations standardize on best-performing variants, eliminating inefficient paths and reducing process complexity. Root cause analysis correlates process performance with attributes like time of day, operator, product type, or geography, identifying factors causing delays or errors. These insights inform process redesign ensuring automation addresses underlying causes rather than automating broken processes that perpetuate inefficiency.

Loops and Branching in Cloud Flows

Conditional Logic and Branching

Condition actions implement decision logic in cloud flows, evaluating expressions and executing different actions based on whether conditions are true or false. Flows branch into "if yes" and "if no" paths, with each branch containing specific actions for that scenario. Common conditions include comparing values (amount greater than 1000), checking field contents (status equals "approved"), or evaluating multiple criteria with AND/OR logic. Conditions enable flows to adapt behavior based on data, implementing business rules without separate flows for each scenario.

Switch actions provide multi-way branching based on single value evaluation, acting like programming switch statements. Rather than nested if-then-else conditions, switch actions cleanly handle scenarios with many possible values like routing requests based on department, processing orders differently by product category, or handling cases by priority levels. Each case contains appropriate actions, with default cases handling unexpected values. This structured branching creates more maintainable workflows than deeply nested conditions, particularly for processes with numerous distinct paths.

Loops for Repetition

Apply to each loops process every item in arrays or collections, repeating contained actions for each element. These loops enable batch processing like sending emails to multiple recipients, creating records for each form response, or processing all files in a folder. The current item is available to actions within loops, enabling operations referencing specific data for each iteration. Loops handle variable-length collections without knowing item counts in advance, processing whether collections contain one item or thousands. Actions within loops can reference the current item's properties using dynamic content.

Do until loops repeat actions until specified conditions become true, useful for polling external systems or waiting for processes to complete. These loops check conditions after each iteration, continuing until conditions are satisfied. Configuration includes maximum iteration counts and timeout durations preventing infinite loops if conditions never satisfy. Do until loops enable flows to wait for external processes completing at unknown times, like waiting for file processing, approval completions, or system status changes. The iterative checking continues until desired states are reached or safeguards trigger.

Nested Control Structures

Flows combine loops and conditions in nested structures creating sophisticated logic matching complex business processes. Conditions inside loops evaluate each item individually, executing different actions per item based on that item's properties. Loops inside conditions process collections only when certain conditions are met. This nesting enables patterns like "if status is pending, then for each related record, update the status" or "for each customer, if balance exceeds limit, send notification." These composite structures implement real-world business logic through visual workflow composition without traditional programming.

Parallel branching executes multiple action sequences simultaneously, improving flow performance for independent operations. While condition branches execute one or another path, parallel branches run all paths concurrently. This parallelism enables scenarios like sending notifications through multiple channels simultaneously, processing different data subsets in parallel, or calling multiple services concurrently without waiting for each to complete sequentially. Parallel execution significantly reduces total flow runtime when operations don't depend on each other.

Real-World Power Automate Scenarios

Scenario 1: Invoice Processing Automation

Scenario 2: Employee Onboarding Workflow

Scenario 3: Customer Service Request Routing

Exam Preparation Tips

Key Concepts to Master

• Cloud vs desktop flows: Cloud flows integrate services via APIs; desktop flows automate legacy applications via RPA
• Templates: Pre-built workflow patterns makers customize for specific scenarios
• Triggers: Events initiating flow execution; each flow has exactly one trigger
• Actions: Tasks executed within flows after triggers fire
• Approvals: Built-in capability for routing approval requests with tracking and notifications
• Process Mining: Analyzes event logs to discover actual process flows and automation opportunities
• Conditions and loops: Control structures enabling decision logic and repetition

Practice Questions

Hands-On Practice Lab

Lab Activities

Lab Outcomes

After completing this lab, you'll have practical experience creating flows from templates, building approval workflows, implementing conditional logic and loops, and troubleshooting through run history. This hands-on knowledge demonstrates core Power Automate capabilities tested in the PL-900 exam and provides foundation for building automation solutions.

Frequently Asked Questions