Transcripts
1. Introduction: We like it or not, we
waste a lot of time during our workday
trying to do tasks which really have no impact on our overall productivity or
progress towards our goals. And many of these tasks
they could be automated. In this current class,
I'll be teaching you how to use a
very powerful tool, which is power automate to make sure that these activities, which could be
done on autopilot, are out of the way,
giving you the time, the mental capacity to
focus on what truly matters on the activities and the tasks which make
you move forward. Through this current
class, we'll be learning about how to use Power Automate to apply it to various elements
within our workflow, such as responding to emails, updating an excel sheet,
going into a drive, updating folder quantities, numbers, sending notifications, and the list is endless, whether you're using
it for marketing, for branding, for
project management, for your own basic day
to day activities, as simple as updating a
certain word document or updating a newsletter
or releasing a newsletter, sky's the limit. You can get creative,
you can get innovative. The whole purpose is for you
to minimize the number of tasks that you giving you the capacity to focus
on what truly matters. And through Power Automate, we will learn how
to do just that. Automating various
tasks that you might have thought,
there's no way out of it. Just simply you
have to do them by yourself manually
every single time. On the contrary, you
can just simply set it, time it, place it, automate it, and
forget about it. And this is what
we're going to be achieving with this
current class.
2. Your Project: Project for the class
revolves around using Power Automate to create
a very simple workflow, a very simple automation as simple as responding to an email or updating a certain excel sheet or sheets
document on your drive. Simple as that, feel free to
create your own automations. Like I've mentioned, the
applications are endless. You do have a lot of area for
innovation over here that could be mapped for
different industries, for different applications. Feel free to get quite creative with your
automation and workflow. After which you're
going to be sharing your automation results with the rest of the
community for feedback.
3. The Power Automate interface: And let's kick things
off by first of all, understanding the power
automate interface, how everything fits together, and how do we find power
automate in the first place? We have mentioned,
Power Automate revolves around automating key tasks at work or within your business or within your company or
day to day activities. Something that you
would do typically manually and you
waste time on it. Think about Power Automate
to save you time. So simply, you can go to
the interface and just go to poweratomate.com,
make powerautomate.com, and that will get
you to the homepage, which is right in
front of so we do have the autopilot integration
within Power Automate, which is present across
all of the power tools. It's an addition to help you use artificial intelligence
and stick to the no code application because sometimes if you'd like to get advanced with this, you have to get some
coding involved. However, the whole basis of the Power platform is to actually keep it low
code or no code. Then you have the prompt window where you are going
to actually type a prompt in order to generate
what we call as the flow. The sequence of events, the triggers and the actions, where you actually
trigger something and that trigger will
create an action, and that's the basis behind the whole prompt
generation purposes. Keeping in mind,
you need to have some prompt
engineering background in order to be able to use this. And that's why you'll notice
on the tab over here, they have added the AI Hub. The AI Hub is where you learn about prompt engineering basics, and we covered this as well
in one of our courses. Feel free to explore that
where we take a look at prompt engineering and
how to get the best out of artificial intelligence. So this is the main
display window. You're able to search
any item over here. Let's examine the tabs
on the left hand side. First of all, you
got the homepage. Then you have the Create
icon or the Create button. This is where you start to actually create
your automations. Once you click Create, you'll be prompted this window where you have
starting from blank, and you have start
from a template. Now, starting from blank, you do have the
different options for the types of automations, which we will examine
every single one of them. Have an idea which one fits
based on your circumstances. Then you have starting
with a template. These are pre built
templates or automations. You could just simply
click on any of them, and then you will be taken
to the window, let's see, for example, here,
to actually show you the things that you need to utilize as part of
your automations. So keeping in mind, as for any other power tool, you need to, first of all, sign in to a certain account, whether your company's
account or your school account or your
own business account, regardless of the fact, you are going to be
signing into that in order to establish what
we call as connections. If you'd like to connect a certain trigger and
a certain action, you have to get the access
details from somewhere. So that's part of the
integration process. So keep that in mind. When you use any
of the templates, it will prompt you to
create the connections for every single one
of these templates. For example, if you are
using something for Twitter, it will tell you to access your Twitter account and then
to integrate it with this. Very straightforward, we're
going to show you how to do some basic connections
to help you get the idea. Then you transition
to templates. These are ready made templates. For various applications, you can access them
from the create, but here you can get
quite into details. There are various templates
for various cases. These are automations which
have been used by users, and you can see the
number of users. For example, here we got 7,014, here you go we got 230,000
where we have an automation. If you save an Outlook
email attachments to One Drive, this
is very helpful. Whenever you get an email
and then you would like to download the attachment and then save it to your drive, then this is quite
time consuming and waste a lot of time
downloading and uploading. So you can create a work
automation to do so. Then you have the learning for some tutorials or
some handbooks. Then you get my flows. This is where you create a flow. And once you create a flow, it's going to pop over here, approvals is when you have someone in your company
involved in your flow. As when you're creating a flow, you have the ability to
include others for approvals. They could click Approve, which will trigger a
certain action or reject, which will trigger
another action. Then you have solutions. Think about it as a box where
you create your solutions, you create your flows and you do not interfere
with anything else. In case something goes wrong, you are able to just
simply fix it within that box rather than
affecting your whole company. Process mining is a recent
update in which you actually it's an advanced practical approach
to business automation, which utilizes the
power platform to actually mine your
business processes. So basically, when you are
uploading a certain task, or you have recordings the
way you are doing something. You actually record yourself
doing a certain task, or you are going to upload a certain process
that you follow. Then this will help you find better optimizations
to make it work. Now, this is quite advanced. Why? Because it involves multiple individuals,
first of all, to help you with the process, to share their insights, to actually see what works best. And this is quite advanced. It's beyond the scope of this current course because
this is mainly focused on organizational levels where
you company processes. For example, you got finances, you got supply chain. These are various topics
for different cases within a company that are used
for optimization purposes. You go, for example, show
me a finance process, go through an
accounts receivable process using our guided tour, create a warehouse
material movement process inside Dynamics 365. So these are business
to business cases. And like I've mentioned,
we are dealing with the approach which is related to the majority
of the individuals, of the personnel, of the people. This is something which
is a bit advanced, and we're going to leave
it for a later at a focus or attention because it depends
on a case by case basis. You have Azure integration, you have finance and operations,
you get supply chain. So one business might
find it helpful, while another
company or business might find it quite
helpful at all. Now. That being said, let's
transition to the AI Hub. And in the AI Hub, you'll
learn about how to utilize prompts to find or select prebuilt prompts
if you don't have any idea about
prompt engineering. Then you have the
ability to work with different AI models
and take a look at documentations using
artificial intelligence in order to help you how to use the copilot feature and to integrate it as part of
your flow and automation. You have the automation center, and then you have the
desktop flow activity. Whenever you have a
certain automated task, it has been used. Someone clicked on it, used it, it's running, it's not running. You're able to see the status. Is it working or it's
broken or it's not working? Then the connections,
this is where you go for the sources. So anything that you connect to a power to the
power platform, it could be a table, it
could be an Axl file. It could be a certain account, especially with the
Power Automate. You are creating connections
between different accounts, your Google Drive,
your One Drive, your Twitter account,
your email account. So these are the connections
whenever you create a flow, you're able to find these
connections that have you established over here and you're able to add them or remove them. And this is an advanced update, which is machines
in which you create automations based on
certain equipment, a computer, a tablet, mobile phone, et cetera. And then you have the more tab in which you are able to add shortcuts to your menu for
the ease of navigation. You're able to include the
tables that you're going to be using or you have used in case you're uploading stuff
from the data verse, which is quite essential
within a company structure. And finally, which is
the Power platform tab, which is common to all of the
Power app you click on it, you're able to find all of the Power platform applications, such that you're able to
navigate between them. Keeping in mind
that you're able to have the integration
between Power Automate, power apps, Power BI, power pages to create complex systems based on
your own requirement. So the thing to keep in mind is once you are dealing with the Power platform in general, think about, first of all, the
tools as individual tools. Then think of them from a
holistic point of view, we're able to combine them. So we have learned in this current lecture the layout for the Power Automate tool, the key features,
the key templates, how everything is
aligned and broken down. That way, when we are
building our automations, we're transitioning to
building our automations, we have an idea how to navigate and how to proceed and
move on with the process.
4. The Different Types of Automations: Welcome back. Now we
are going to examine the different types
of automations. We are going to go
to Create over here, click on Create, and we
have the prompt Window. Mainly, this is where you
focus your activities. If you're going to be
building things from scratch and you're going
to use a template. Now, as a beginner, you could use a template, and you're good to go once you establish the
proper connections. But if you're someone
who's trying to build your own
automation from scratch, it's quite important to
know the differences between the types
of automations. And this is the point
of this current lesson you start from
blank and you have to pick which one
that you would like to go for as part of
your process automation. First of all, you have
the automated Cloud flow. What does that mean? So the automated Cloud
flow is once you go about creating a flow that gets
triggered by itself. Keeping in mind, we have two
different terms which are the governing terms in power automate a trigger and action. A trigger is something
that happens, and action is what
happens afterwards. So I'm going to
show you just for brief amount of time.
What are triggers? What are actions for you
to get an idea how to navigate through these because sometimes we've
noticed that students, once we talk about the
different types of automations, they have no idea how
everything think fits together. So let's say we're going to
create an automatic flow. Let's call it test XYZ. Here, it shows you
a list of triggers, things that will happen, which in turn will create a
flow. What does that mean? Let's give this for now.
So now you're going to get prompt to the general layout. We're going to examine this
by details at a later stage. But for the sake of convenience and for you to understand the idea of triggers
and actions, we're going to dive into
this briefly before we go back and learn about the different types of automations. So first thing, first, you're going to have the
display window which says, add a trigger. What
is the trigger? Trigger tells your application
when to start running. Each workflow needs
at least one trigger. So this is something that
needs to happen first. Then the automation
will take place. Click on the At trigger. You have a list of things
that would take place. For example, let's say,
when I receive an email, regardless of but you have
to be careful, by the way, when you have what we
call as connectors, you have to be very careful with this because sometimes they are labeled as trigger only or
action only, and it varies. Office 265, outlook,
Gmail, it's up to you. Now, for the sake of
demonstration purposes, you are going to
add whatever it is. Now, obviously, you need
to create a connection. This is where you sign into your account to
actually connect. So we're going to
bypass this for now. This is our first trigger. So when you get an email, what would you like to happen? Then you add an action. So an action is basically
the end result. What happens when you get triggered or you get a
trigger? So you add an action. For example, when
we get an email, I would like you to actually
create a table, for example, get a table, create a row, run a script, less row presence in a table, whatever it is. Again, let's create a table. Here we go. Again, you
have to integrate this. We're going to go
through that process. So now you have a basic layout. You got yourself a trigger and you got yourself an action. So this is something
to keep in mind. So you have triggers, which are the starting
points and actions, the things that happen
whenever you have a trigger. So now you get the idea.
Now let's move backwards. To the general automation flow. I wanted to help
you understand how things look on the canvas, such that everything
here makes sense. So the automated cloud
flow means when you have a trigger which takes
place by itself, let's say you get an email. You have no control
over this, yes. So you're going to go for
an automated cloud flow, such that whenever you get
an email, something happens. Then you have the option
which is triggered manually. Keeping in mind you have
the mobile application. Let's say you get an email, you don't want to automatically upload the email to an Excel
sheet or to your drive. You need to do this manually after reviewing
the email content. So what would you do is, you'll get an email on your phone, then you have the ability to click to trigger
this flow manually. So once you click this
button on the Canvas, you have the ability
actually to start the flow. It will not start by itself. Then the other option
is a scheduled flow. You choose when and
how often it runs. Let's say you would
like the automation to take place one time per week. Where you check your email
one time per week and you add all the new emails
you drive, for example. You don't want to do
this every single day, you'd like to do it once. This is where you have
a scheduled cloud. Then you have the
describe it to design it. This is where you use the
artificial intelligence, prompt engineering in
order to create your flow. Keeping in mind, this has limitations because you're
dealing with AI and you need to fine tune the
process and you make sure to get your prompts
quite in check. But as a pro tip,
it's quite handy. When you are building the
app by yourself, let's say, automated cloud flow,
instant Cloud flow, you're building the
flow by yourself, it gets quite handy
because then you could inject artificial
intelligence to modify this, which makes it even more
accessible and doable. Then you have a desktop flow. This is where you automate processes on your
desktop environment. So what does that mean?
This literally it will record your actions
on your computer. So once you click
on desktop flow, you are going to record the
actions on your computer. That way, these tasks that you
are doing will be tracked, and the tracking will help
generate or create a flow. That way, you're able to see what are you doing
on your computer. Instead of doing it
over and over again, you can just simply do it once, it will get tracked, and a
flow will be built as well. And finally, you have
the process mining, which we have discussed. It evaluates existing
tasks within a company or a
business where you upload a certain
recording of your flow, you upload a document, you upload certain sheets
that you're doing, certain data that
you're following, and you are going
to be uploading this to get some insights. How would you optimize this? Now, this is quite advanced because this is mainly
at a company structure. You have various flows, then the rest of them are quite within your
area of application, whether as an individual, whether as a company,
whether you're working within a company or
school or whatever it is, and you would like
you to optimize your day to day activities, the array of automations
over here is quite handy. So now at this current stage, you have understood
the different types of automations or types of flows that you could create such
as an automated flow, instant Clef flow,
schedule clef flow, describe it to design
it and desktop. Flow. Now, all of them, they share the same application. If you learn how to create
an automated cloud flow, you'll be able to
create any of them. There's not much of
a difference other than the criteria
they fall into. This one starts automatically. However, this one
starts with a trigger. This one starts on a certain
time. Here you use AI. Here you record your
own processes or your own usage on your
desktop. So you get the idea. But keeping in order to
access all of these tools, you need to have a
licensed account. This is very important. So whenever you are
going to use this, you need to have a licensed
account because some of them, they are premium
features, right? So, make sure that you try things out by going
through the free trial provided to you in this
course to help you get up and running and to see how to go about all of these
implementations.
5. Setting the foundation for Power Automation : Walk aback. Going to dive into the interface of
creating our first flow. So we're going to
kick things off by going to an
automated Cloud flow, which is mainly a generic case that's applicable
to the majority of our students when you create a flow and it gets triggered automatically,
let's click on this. Now we're going to
give our flow a name. Let's call it the flow XYZ. Do we need to select a trigger
up to this current point? You don't have to. You
could select it later on. But if you have
something in mind, if you have a clear idea what
you would like to go for, this is where you
search for triggers. For example, you
could say you're able to find things related to Twitter or it's
called X right now. Here we go. So you have to
find when a tweet is posted, this is a trigger.
How about mail? All of these are triggers
related to emails from Gmail, Zoho, outlook, whatever it is. You have to be careful
with the trigger. Why? Because some applications, they tend to be very specific. For example, if I
go for one drive, going to use in one of
our demonstrations. One drive just a personal, and you got one
drive for business. So if you use one drive
for business as a trigger, but you're using a
personal account, your flow will not work. So you have to be very
careful with these details. So let's keep it just
generic for the time being. I'm going to skip because
in this current lesson, I'm going to show you how
everything looks like on the canvas that you have, the interface that you
have before we actually start to build our first flow. Now, in front of us, we do have the canvas, the general layout. And the first thing that we have seen is an added trigger. Over here, we have
the ability to use copilot every
step of the way. I'm going to close it for now, and whenever I need copilot, I can always go back over here to select it in order
to use it again. Now, let's explore
our navigation. Here, if you have
commentary or sending feedback in case
something goes wrong, here you check your flow. Once everything is ready, you check it, you can save it. Once you are done, this
will be enable to test it. Now, if you notice over here, we have a new designer. This is the new layout. This is the new design. Let's
click the button over here. Here we go. Now,
I'm going to select the trigger and then this trigger will
prompt this window. And I can just simply go through any trigger that I would like. Now, let's close this for now and switch to the
different designer. This is the old designer. This is how things
looked like before the new designer update. So you got your home, you
create your templates, everything that you
have seen before. Now, it makes sense. Why went through it, right? So you could add your
trigger manually. Here you have a button
for a manual trigger. You could go run a
flow from copilot. You can go for an email. You can just simply go for
a table or power apps, whatever every customization
that you have in mind, you will find something
that gets to be done. But you have to be careful here because this is a
trigger category, and these are actions category. So this is an action. And
this is a trigger, right? So you have to be
careful with this. So you cannot just simply select an action and use it as a
trigger. It doesn't work. So you have to click the
trigger stab to find the right triggers
or action tap to find the right actions. So you have the ability to
navigate back and forth to the new designer and to
the old designer display. I like to switch between them
as I build the flow why? Because sometimes when
I click on a trigger, for example, I like the ease of navigation
on the left side. But sometimes when I'm
clicking on a trigger, in order to sign in directly
into a certain account, the previous designer gives
you that ease of access. Let's go through these
details once we get to the actual hands
on building process. So we're going to add a trigger. Everything is quite
clearly laid out. This is where you add a
trigger and where you're actually going to have mail, for example, if you receive a certain email, this
is your trigger. So I'm going to select this
when an email is flagged, when a new email arrives, let's use this. Here we go. Then this will
prompt over here in which you are going to
sign into your account. Then once you sign
into your account, this will create a
connection with the trigger, such that whenever
you receive an email, this part will work. Then I'm going to add an action. Now, the actions, I have the ability now when an
email, you can get creative. When an email is received, I need you to actually
create a file. Here we go. You create a file,
whatever file it is, or create a task
or create an item or create a share link or
create a file, whatever it is. Create a table as well, by the name of the email.
This sounds handy. But again, be careful
Excel for business or for individual tasks.
Create the table. This will prompt the window
for you in which you need to designate the
location of the file, the document, the file itself, and the table that you are
going to be creating inside this document such that
whenever the trigger happens, you're able to update this. Now I'm walking you just simply through a
generic application, by the way, just simply
for you to get the idea. If I switch back, for example, it will say switch with without saving
or save and switch. Now, let's say Save and switch. Look what happens. We
got operation errors. Why do I have operation errors Because I did not
create a connection? We have locations required,
document libraries. So this is the usefulness
of this flow check. When everything is
quite connected properly and you run
the flow checker, everything will be quite green. You'll see green tick marks. So if I'm going to switch now
to the previous designer, switch without saving, I might lose everything on the
page. That's perfectly fine. So you get the idea. Now I'm going to show you on
this current designer, if I would like to add a mail, let's say, receiving
an email, here we go. Now, we'll tell you what
would you like to do? I'm demonstrating for you the different options
that you have. When an event when
an email arrives, again, you will have
the prompt screen. So then you going to sign in, then you create a new
step, which is what? Your action in this case. What would you
like to do, right? X online for business, and then another
email, updated list. So both of them, they give
you the same end result, but the display is different. Here, it looks like this, but on a new designer,
it looks different. It looks more of a canvas, and you're able to actually
move across the canvas. So whatever display that you are comfortable
with, it's up to you. But all of them, they get
the job done where you have a link of triggers and actions. So now we are ready
actually to get quite hands on and build
our first automation.
6. Your First Power Automation Flow: And welcome back. Now, for the first hands on application, we are going to
keep things quite simple and straightforward,
but at the same time, we need you to learn
how to apply this, how to get some inspiration, how to get some ideas
for your own situations. The further you
advance later on, the more ideas that you'll
have in terms of automations. Now, our hands on application is basically the creation
of an automation flow such that we receive an email or a notification
whenever we receive an email. So we get an email
to our inbox and then we are going to get
an email notification. It could be a mobile phone
notification as well that we have received a certain email. So
we get the idea. So we are going to start things
off by adding a trigger. This is called the email
or let's call it mail. Now, I'm going to
look for a trigger. Now, you have to be careful. This is the Office 365 outlook. You got outlook.com, Power
BI, Gmail, Zoho Mail, so you have to be quite careful which email provider that you're going to be using, right? So I'm going to go for the outlook.com when an
email is flagged, when an email
arrives. Here we go. I'm going to click
when an email arrives, then you're going to be signing in to create
a connection. Okay. Now, once you sign
in to create a connection, So we're signing in to
create a connection. So once that is done, so it shows me on the settings, first of all, everything
is quite fine. Does it include an attachment? This is part of the filter? Which folder I'm
trying to look at? First of all, includes
an attachment, yes or no. Here we go. Let's say if it includes an
attachment, send this detail. A importance level normal
only with attachments, no folder inbox, which folder that you
would like to track, such that whenever you
get a folder inbox or junk or spam, it's up to you. Then you have all of
these parameters to dictate after you
created your connection, that the trigger will initiate. Keeping in mind, you can
take a look at the bottom. Connected to outlook
change connection. This is very important. This means that whenever you
are going to get an email, you are going to be getting a notification. This
is very important. This is something that you
need to keep in mind as you go about this because if the
connection is broken, you are not going to find this. So we have created
our first trigger. What would you like to do? So once we have a new email, I would like to receive
a notification either to another email or an
SMS notification, or you could create an
Excel list, whatever it is. Let's have when a
new email arrives, I would like to receive
an SMS notification. Okay? Now, based
on the providers, you can just simply take a
look at these things and pick the first provider that
you have an account with, or you can just simply get
notifications. Here we go. Click on notifications.
You have two options. Send me a mobile notification
or an email notification, and both of them
require an integration. Let's say you have a
separate email. Here we go. So you could create
this. Then you have whenever you
got an update over here and you are going to track these updates
from the trigger, and you need to send it
to a different email. This is where you
change the connection. So let's say this is
your own company email, and then you would
like to receive a personal notification, or you would like to send a notification to
your colleague. So whenever someone
in your email inbox, you have a folder for
sales, for example, you need to send a notification to the sales representative. And this is where you change the connection and connect it to their email or to
your company's email regardless of the application. And you're going to say, hello. And then let's call
it, for example, Hello sales department then a
new related email received. So this email is
not related to you, it's related to a
certain department and such that whenever you get
that email in your inbox, they will be notified. Excellent. This is applicable to many cases. And here we go. You have yourself your
first automation. Now, I'm going to click at
the top over here to save it. So now it's saved, it's saving. But before we test
this automation, to check if it's working fine, Okay, to make sure everything
is perfectly okay. We are going to here you go. Your flow is ready to go. We recommend testing
it and you click on test manually or automatically. Let's go for manual, and we're going to test it out. Now, this will see if
it's working or not. You're going to see the
results straight as is. Whenever we'll be getting
an email to one account, the different email account
will get a notification, and the process is actually
currently loading, and we are going to see the
end result based on that. And here we go. So
as you can see, basically, the flow
is quite successful. So it means our flow is
working perfectly fine. When we have received a
new email, by default, we're getting an
email notification confirming that we got an email. Now, keeping in
mind when you are setting up the Power
Automate or Power platform, the email that you
use in the setup will be the default email that you will get
a notification. For example, you have
your own work email, and then you're using it to
log into Power Automate, or you have your own
different email, and then you're going to
use it to receive an email, then send it to
your company email. So you have to be careful
with this because once you receive an email over here
through directly signing in, the email notification by default will be based on the
connection that you have. So whenever you
have a connection, you need to make
sure that you are actually creating the
proper connection where you have the email
that you would like to receive as part
of that connection. So this is something very
important to keep in mind. If you made a mistake and you
did not connect the email, simply you can click
over here or y click and you can just
simply delete the tab. You can delete this part
over here. Here we go. Let me show you how. You can, first of all, before you
delete, you have to stop this. First of all, you create edit. Now you're able to delete this. Here you go because it's still running because
once you have the automation inflow,
you cannot modify it. You need to stop
it, then modify. So I'm going to delete
this or you can change that connection over
here when it's not running. That way you're getting
to the right email. So here you go. You have
yourself your first automation. Feel free to try this out and see for yourself
how it works out.
7. Checking the Status of Your Automations: Come back. So after creating
your first automation, you need to check the usage. You go to simply my
flows over here, and we have created
our first automation. When a new email arrives, send me an email auto audification
to a different email. These are the connections
which have been made. You can see the owners, you can see the flow details. You can see the process mining, how long it took to
do this process. And this is the very
important part where you take a look at the 28 day history, it shows you if the automation
failed or succeeded. So you're able to see that
whenever an automation runs, you're able to see if it worked
well or it did not work. That way, you have the
ability to modify.
8. Second Hands On Automation Application: Welcome back. Now in this
hands on application, I'm going to show you another
flow that you could use, which will help you
with the process. In this current flow,
we are going to create an automated flow. When we upload a file
to a certain drive, we are going to get an
email notification. This is very
powerful, especially if you are working in
an organization and you have many individuals
sharing folders to a drive. You would like to receive an update whenever this happens. So let's see how does
this work. Add a trigger. Then we're going to go for
Fils upload, for example. Now, you have to be careful
when you are selecting. Are you going for one drive
for business or OneDrive, which is your personal
or whatever it is? Because this trigger
will make a difference. So let's go for
the basic approach for the majority of our users. When a file is created, here we go. So I'm
going to click this. When a file is created, now you have to make
sure that you have created the right
connection such that when you are uploading
to the drive that you have, you need to create the
connection with that drive. So first of all, it
will prompt for me, which folder are going to be
focusing on in your drive? So let's say the root folder. Okay? Now, include subfolders, yes or no, inferred
type of content. Let's say if you want to include any subfolder within
your root folder, that will be quite helpful. Then that's me lit. You're not going to
tinker with the settings, you're not going to tinker
with the code, nothing at all. Like I've mentioned,
we're going for zero code applications. So now, this is our connection. It's quite set. Now,
make sure that you have a drive account
in order to test this. So I've already established a test drive account that
you're able to see this. So this is just any
one drive account that we could use for our
demonstration purposes, then we are going
to create our flow. So when a file is
created, here we go. Add an action, which is
basically an email notification. So that way, whenever anyone sends an update on the
file, you create a file. And this is very
helpful if you are managing a certain department
with a shared folder. If in case someone
tinkers with the files, creates a file, you're able
to get a notification. You can just simply type in new upload a member
added a new file. Here we go. This
is very helpful. The connection is
already established. If this is not working,
you need to change your connection and make sure it runs perfectly, and
we are good to go. So we're going to
be saving this. This is one. Then we
need to test it out. So I'm going to click
on the flow checker, no errors, no warnings.
That's perfectly fine. So what I'm going
to do right now, I'm going to click on Test. We have manual or automatic. Let's go for a manual approach for you to see how
things work out. So I'm going to click on Test. Now the automation is
running, and it says, to see it work, add a file to one drive
that you have selected. So I'm going to the drive new. Let's call it an Excel workbook. I'm going to just simply
random characters, one, two, three, whatever it is, then that's mainly it. I'm going to go back
to the automation. The file has been created. It's called a book. Then I'm going to go backwards. And here you go. As
you can see now, we have our automation in check. So when we've added a file, what happened is even though
this could take some time, by the way, for the first
time when you run it to test things out,
but now it's deployed. So when a file is created, send an email notification. It took 1 second to do so
and another second to do so, and the flow is
running successfully. And when the file
is actually added, I've received an email
notification that a new file has been
created in the drive. So this runs on by default. So you're able now to whenever
you have a file upload, you're able to actually
get a notification. And these are very
nice basic examples that could help you with
your day to day activities.
9. Exporting Your Automation Flow: Back. Now we have
created our flow, and let's say I would like
to share it or export it. So how would I go
about the process? So in order to do
so, first of all, you need to navigate
to my flows, right? So after we're done
creating the app, you simply go back after
saving it for sure. Go to MFlows and then you
have the following display. You can see the details
of the application. You can see the run history. You can see the types
of the connections, and you can see the owners and you can see
how long it took. Take a look at the
navigation at the top. You have the ability to turn
it off if you don't want to run the flow anymore
instead of deleting it, you have the flow
checker analytics to see how often
it has been run. Process mining, it's a preview
because you have to go for a premium account to actually see if this process
could be optimized. You could send another
copy for the flow. You could delete the
whole thing, save us or share it within
your organization. If you can click on this, then you could just simply
send an email or write an email to the individuals
using their email ID. To receive the flow, then you have the edit option if you'd like to go
back and do some edits. And finally, which is
the most important part, which is the export settings. You could export this
either by a package, which is a ZIP file, simply
click on package dot ZIP, and you're able to
take it with you, put it on a flash
Disk, whatever it is, and then you can go back on the Power platform and
to upload it and use it. If you're going to a different company, a
different organization, you can actually take
your flows with and the flow identifier is
basically when you're trying to integrate this with
another application, you have a key identifier
key that you could use, simply copy it and paste
it into the application to actually communicate with the
flow that you have created. So at this current stage, you have managed
to actually create your flow to actually
modify your flow, test it, implement it, and dispatch it, and
actually export it.
10. Using AI in Automation: Back. So now we're going to
see how could we incorporate artificial intelligence as part of the flow creation process. Like I've mentioned,
we're aiming for zero code or very
minimal code approach, which is achievable by the
majority of the individuals, saving us time,
saving us effort, and we need to be
quite strategic in order to make sure that it actually gets accomplished
in the way that's intended. So we're going to navigate to copilot at the top
over here in order to prompt the artificial
intelligence to be present as part of
the creation process. That's what we have
over here. It says, connected to One Drive,
connected to notifications. It means both of the connections are
working perfectly fine. If something is wrong,
this will be a red cross. Now, this shows you how
could you incorporate the prompts in the prompt
window to get some actions. Either add an action
that sends an email, explain what an action does, add a condition, so
all of these things. Now, we could see that we have all of these parameters
present in front of us. We could add it manually, but I would like it to be added through artificial
intelligence, where I'm going to ask it to add another email notification. So I'm going to
say add an action. Add a parallel action just to be on the safe side,
a parallel action. When a file is created to send an email notification.
Here we go. Now, if you take a look at this, it's going to actually
try to build it for me. Notice what happens over here. I removed these two icons. It did not get my
prompt properly. So this is where you
have to be careful. I remove the send an
email notification, send me a mobile notification
because I typed at a parallel action when a file is created to send an
email notification. So it removed the action completely and tried to
build it from scratch, which is not what
I'm looking for. So I'm going to click
Undo, revert it back. So this is part of the
iteration process. You have to be
careful with that. I'm going to ask it again, add an action for an email notification parallel to the current
mobile notification. Look how specific I got. So you have to be
careful with this. I got quite specific. I told it to add a notification after when I have a
mobile notification. Here we go. So now it should get
it quit properly. This is part of prompt
engineering when you incorporate the artificial
intelligence prompt structure to do the job. It said, updated this action because I already have
an email notification, so it's not getting the fact
that I need to add one more. So let me try by
actually removing this. This is what I'm going
to do. I'm going to actually delete this here we go. And then I'm going to copy and paste the
same action again. Here we go. Add an action for an email notification to the current mobile notification.
So now it should get it. Look what it did. It did not
put it as a parallel action. I put it as an action
why afterwards. This is part of the
limitations that you might be facing when you're going with the
prompt engineering. That's why we have the
AI segment to show you what structure that you could use specifically for copilot. It helps you place
the elements are actually incorporate
them in your flow, but it doesn't always
get the job done. This is where you have
to have some sort of manual involvement
in order to make sure that you're
getting the flow that you need or intended. Specifically, when
you take a look at the flow creation from scratch
using prompt engineering, which we are going to
be covering up next to help you see how it
could be used to build the application of our a flow from scratch simply by properly crafting prompts. But as you build your
own application, if you're using
copilot directly, you have to be quite solid with the way you're building your
prompts in order to make sure it actually gets
the desired results without the continuous need for back and forth alteration.
11. Creating Multiple Automations: Welcome back. So we
have seen how to create basic workflow automation
where in the previous lesson, we have created a
file and we got an email notification once we have added a
file to the drive. Now we are going to take a one
level further in which you are going to learn how to
create parallel actions. So what does that mean? Let's
go back to our example. If you take a look at
the plus bar over here, plus icon, you click on
it. You have two options. Add an action, add
a parallel action. So what does the word
parallel action mean? Let's click on it. It means I'm going to have the trigger create multiple
actions simultaneously. So once the trigger
is initiated, multiple things are going
to happen at the same time, which is very powerful and
gives you room for creativity. So what we have in mind is
I'm going to create a file. When a file is created,
I'm going to have an email notification to be sent plus an SMS notification. So that way, if you are not getting the
email notification, you could have a mobile phone
notification. Here we go. Let's modify the text, and new file upload.
And that's madly it. Now, you have the ability to actually integrate this
at two different levels, getting an email and getting
a mobile phone notification. Keep in mind that when
you are modifying this, that you have to
fix the connection. For example, let's say you
would like to send an email, a drive for your company and your colleagues
uploaded the file. You got an email and you would like to get an SMS notification. Going to add the connection
details over here. Let's say you would
like to have the SMS go to someone else,
like your manager. You're going to create a connection with your
manager's account. So you have to be careful in terms of the
connections because this actually could make
or break your connections. So let's check our flows. First of all, let's save it. Check our flows. There are no errors, and that's mainly it. We're good to go. So your
flow is ready to go. We recommend testing it. I'm going to run
the previous test to make sure everything is fine. Automatically with
recent triggers, which we have done
like 30 minutes ago, for example, when we
created a first file, so we are going to run the
test, and here you go. Our flow is running.
First check file has been created
the previous files. Excellent. And we got
an email notification, which is the email
that's going to be responsible for
your environment. You have to be careful
and the email that you have used in the Power
automation tools. Then you get an
SMS notification, and there we go. We actually got an
SMS notification to confirm that a file
has been created. This is a very, very powerful application which
saves you a lot of time. Think
about it this way. Let's say you are working
with your colleagues and your colleagues,
they create a file, and once they create a file, you are going to be getting an email notification and
you're going to be getting an SMS notification
in order for you to actually get some tasks done. That way, you're
able to actually allocate multiple actions
for the same trigger. If I would like to add
something else, another action, you could add one more action and another action
on another action, you keep repeating
the same cycle. How about we add, for example, an L file, get a row
or get a worksheet. You can just simply
add this, again, you have to go through
the connection and integration process
where you go through the entire flow chart or the entire process flow based
on your own requirements. So in this current
case, for example, we create a file, send
an email notification, send a mobile notification, and then update or
get a worksheet, A DRO, or get a worksheet
based on the new updates. So all of these things
that you could think of, feel free to experiment with these tasks based on the lessons taught
in these lectures.
12. Exploring Manual Trigger Automations: Welcome back. So
we've learned how to use the auto workflow. Now, let's navigate
to something else. We got the automated
Cloud flow and check. How about instant cloud flow? In this current lesson, we are going to learn how to actually create flows which
require a manual trigger, something that you
do by yourself as a user in order to get it done. Take a look at this.
How about manual test? And let's add the first thing
that we have over here, which is the manual trigger
flow. So what does that mean? It means we need to
add an input from our side in order
to start the flow. Okay? So what kind of input? Let's say you have access to a mobile phone and you have downloaded Power Automate
on your mobile phone. Then you have the ability, since wherever you are to create some tasks which might affect
the work at your company. Let me give you a
specific case scenario. So here, manually
trigger a flow. We have different
types of inputs. What kind of input
will trigger the flow? We have a text, yes or no, file, email, number, or date. You could just simply write a certain text and the flow will start or select yes or no
or the flow will start. File, select an image or a file. Once you upload this,
from your phone, for example, or
tablet or computer, a flow will start or
a certain number, a flow will start, a
date, a flow will start. So these are the different types of inputs that you could have. Now, to keep things simple, I'm going to go for
a yes or no trigger. Let's say I get an
email or a call, if I got a call from a
customer, for example, and I would like to send an email notification
to my email, that way I don't forget
that I got a new customer, and I missed all
of these details. So what I'm going to do now, I'm going to manual the trigger, then add an action,
email notification. Here we go. Email notification. Make sure that your
connections are in check. A new customer reminder, body email, make sure to
call the customer back. Maybe you're on the go,
you're outside your company, and then you would like to get a reminder once you go back to the office that
basically you have actually got a call and you
need to get back to someone, which is a typical case at work. Someone gives you a call,
you're outside the office, you forget by the time you
go back to the office. So the trigger is it's yes or no to send
the notification. So what I'm going
to do right now, I'm going to save this, and
I'm going to check the flow. Everything is fine.
Let's go for a test. There we go. Manual test. Look at the details now. Notifications are in check. We're going to go for
start the flow, yes or no. This will be found on your
mobile phone if you have the application or
if you're running the flow on a tablet
or your computer. Simply once you go to
the power automate, this needs to be done by you. So let's click
Yes. Run the flow. Excellent. Your flow
runs successfully. To monitor this, you go
to the flows page. Done. Let's take a look at
this. So basically, checkmark and checkmark. So now, when I take
a look at my email, I'm getting a notification which says the reminder to
actually contact. As you can see, this
is the input and the output would be in
the code over here. And like I've
mentioned, we're not going to take a look at coding details just simply for the sake of convenience
to have an idea. Here we go. A new
customer reminder Make sure to call
the customer back. This is the email that I've gotten based on the
manual trigger. And the case is as follows. You have this on
your mobile phone, you install the Power Automate. If you do so you
have the ability to actually place a
button on your screen. You click the button, you select yes, and the
flow starts. Here we go. So now you get an idea
about how could you use the manual power automate tasks
to create your own flows, and it's up to you to try
to apply these tactics for your own cases and to draw some inspiration
from these lessons.
13. Creating a Scheduled Automation: This current lesson, we
are going to take a look at the scheduled cloud flow. Compared to the automated, which starts by itself
upon a trigger, instant where you do this by yourself manually
inputting the trigger. Scheduled is based on
a set period of time. Let's click on this.
This is where we have this current prompt
window testing. Scheduled. So run this flow. It has a starting time
and an ending time. Repeat every single minute. This flow will run every minute. This is very powerful.
Let's say you would like to send
email reminders, yes, to your colleagues or to your friends
before a meeting. Let's say starting
at 10:00 A.M. Repeat every 120 minutes, like 2 hours. Let's change it 2 hours
to make it work or days. Repeat every two days about
the upcoming meeting. So we are going to
click on Create. So this is what we
call as recurrence. Here we go. You start off
by having a recurrence. It means your flow is going to be repeated
every two days, starting from a certain time. This is the preview
runs every two days. So instead of you remembering to send a reminder to your
friends or to your colleagues, every two days, we're going
to have this on autopilot. So recurrence, add an action. Send email, right? Now, this is an
email notification. We're going to select, for
example, send an email. Here we go. Then
you have to sign in. And once you sign in, And once you sign
in, you are going to have a prompt which tells you what is the body of the email and the
email recipients. And that's mainly
it. Now, we could not have a connection
simply for the fact that it requires to have a
premium account in order to get it active
or get it running. I'm going to have this
through a different approach. How about we can add an action. And let's go for email, let's take a look
at what options could we have export,
forward an email. How about send an email? Send an email notification. Send me a mobile notification. How about an email notification?
This will be helpful. Create new. Excellent. Now, we try to make sure that you got
your connectors in check. You have connections in check. This is very helpful
because sometimes if you're using a personal account
or a business account, these connections, they
tend to have limitations. So send an email to. You're going to pick
different people. You can going to type
all of the emails, and then subject reminder
Make sure to attend on time. Here we go. So we go, let's say, one, two, three@gmail.com, wherever
it is, and that's Marlyt. Now we are ready to
test our flow, save it. Now, it says you have
broken a connection for send an email notification. Please fix the connection
or here we go. Let's try to fix the connection. So once we have made
such a modification, because the connection
was already broken and we had to
change the connection, it means shifting from one email to the other
to get the task done. Now, there's nothing
to be concerned about. Like I've mentioned, since you
are using a trial version, you're going to be running
into these limitations, especially if you don't have a certain a company
email or school email. But if you do, all of these
things will not take place. So simply what you
need to do right now just simply you save, and this will simply release an email notification
every two days to the recipients over here
with the body of the email, making sure that you have your company connection or your email connection
already placed, and that will get the
job done for you. Instead of trying
to send an email every two days to your customers
or to your colleagues, or as a form of a reminder, you could do this on autopilot.
14. Wrapping Up: You think? I truly hope that
you found it quite helpful, that you found some benefit in this current
class and give you some inspiration to automate various activities within
your day to day workflow, which take a lot of time. I have witnessed this myself. There are certain
tasks that you tend to do every single day, which are frankly speaking,
they are mundane. No positive impact whatsoever, but you have to do them as
simple as simply responding to emails or releasing
certain timely documents, which could happen on autopilot, which could save you the
whole mental capacity to focus on what truly matters. And this is the whole purpose
from this current class, I truly hope that you
found it quite helpful, and I look forward to
receiving your feedback, and make sure that
you follow my profile for the latest
releases and updates, and I'll see you
in the next class.
Engr. Hussein Attié, Entrepreneur I Engineer I Educator
