Course Outline
Module 1 – Introduction to Power Automate
What is Power Automate and what can we automate?
- Positioning within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem: relationship with Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, and OneDrive
- Types of flows: Cloud Flows (Automated, Instant, Scheduled) vs. Desktop Flows
- (RPA) – Overview
- Concrete use cases: notifications, approvals, data collection, file processing
- Live demonstration: a functional flow – “if someone adds a document to
- SharePoint, send an automated email”
- Platform limitations: what Power Automate does NOT do well
Navigating the Interface and Initial Setup
- Accessing the make.powerautomate.com portal
- Menu overview: My Flows, Templates, Connectors, Monitor
- Exploring available templates – finding starting points
- Overview of key connectors: SharePoint, Outlook, Teams, Excel, OneDrive
- Guided exercise: each participant activates their account and explores the interface
Module 2 – Anatomy of a Flow: Triggers, Actions, Conditions
Fundamental concepts: trigger → action
- What is a trigger? Types: automated (event), instant (manual), scheduled
- Selecting the right trigger for each scenario
- Actions and connectors: the “operation” concept – Get, Create, Update, Send
- Dynamic Content: how “flows” data from one step to another
- Exercise: create a “Hello World” flow – manual trigger → send email to self
Conditions and Decision Logic
- Control: Condition (If/Yes/No) – basic structure
- Comparison operators: is equal to, contains, is greater than, is empty
- Control: Switch – for scenarios with multiple options
- Nested conditions: conditions within conditions
- Exercise: flow with condition – “if the value in the Status column is ‘Pending’ send a notification, otherwise ignore”
Variables and Basic Expressions
- Initialize Variable, Set Variable, Append to string variable
- Frequent expressions: formatDateTime(), concat(), length(), empty()
- Utility of variables: counters, dynamic texts, data accumulation
Module 3 – Integration with SharePoint and Microsoft Lists
SharePoint Connector – essential operations
- SharePoint Triggers: When an item is created, When an item is modified, When a file is
created - Actions: Get item, Get items (with OData filters), Create item, Update item
- Filtering data with OData: “add filter query” – practical examples
- Working with SharePoint columns: Choice, Person, Date, Lookup – how to access them in a flow
- G guided exercise: when a new item is added to the list, send a notification email with the item’s data
Module 4 – Custom Email and Apply to Each
- Sending custom emails based on document type
- Trigger: When a file is created (SharePoint Document Library)
- Retrieving file properties and metadata (document type, author, date)
- Control: Apply to Each – iterate over lists of people or documents
- Using a “Person or Group” column to extract recipient email addresses
- HTML formatting of emails – how to create professional messages with tables and bold
- Exercise: uploading a file to SharePoint triggers sending emails to a list of persons defined in metadata
Module 5 – Looping Reminder with Escalation
Reminder flow with escalation to the line manager
- Flow architecture: daily/weekly scheduled trigger with SharePoint filter
- Control: Do Until – repeating an action until a condition is met (field filled or max attempts reached)
- Implementing escalation: after N reminders, change the recipient to the line manager
- Delay action: delay between reminders (1 day, 1 hour, etc.)
- Update item on SharePoint: marking the status of sent reminders to avoid duplicates
- Complete exercise: a flow that checks daily if a field in the SharePoint List is empty, sends a reminder, escalates after 3 days to the manager
Error handling and monitoring flows
- Run history: how to interpret runs with errors
- Configure run after: Succeeded / Failed / Timed Out / Skipped
- Sending an alert email to the administrator in case of flow failure
Module 6 – Processing Excel and Word Files
Automating Excel file processing
- Trigger: When a file is created/modified in OneDrive or SharePoint
- Excel Actions (Online Business): List rows present in a table, Add a row into a table, Get a row
- Excel structural requirements: tables must be formatted as “Table” (Insert > Table)
- Scenario: retrieve data from Excel → automatically create items in SharePoint List
- Scenario: when an Excel file is modified, extract values from a column and send a report via e- mail
- G guided exercise: uploading an Excel file to SharePoint triggers a flow that processes rows and sends a notification
Automation with Word files and document generation
- Concept of Word template with variables (placeholders between braces)
- The “Populate a Microsoft Word template” action – automatic population from a SharePoint list
- Saving the generated document to SharePoint and sending it via email
- Scenario: upon approval of an item from the list → generate Word contract → save to
SharePoint → notify via email - Limits of the Word action – what can and cannot be done without Premium
Module 7 – Approvals and Process Flows
Approval Flows with Approvals
- The “Start and wait for an approval” action: types of approval (Approve/Reject, Custom Responses)
- Sending the approval request via Teams or email
- Using the approval response: Outcome, Comments – actions after approval vs. rejection
- Automatic status update in SharePoint after the approver’s decision
- Approval timeout: what happens if the approver does not respond
Exercise: complete approval flow – document uploaded to SharePoint → approval request →
result notification
Best practices and organizing flows
- Clear naming of steps – importance of long-term readability
- Comments in flows: How to add notes
- Grouping steps with Scope for a clear structure
- Shared ownership: how to share a flow with another user/team
- Solutions vs. standalone flows – exporting and importing flows
- Introduction to Connection References – managing credentials
Module 8 – Final Lab and Consolidation
- Independent lab – each participant builds their own flow
- Each participant selects a scenario from their real work activity and starts building the flow
- The trainer assists individually and answers specific questions
- Suggested scenarios (alternatives): notification upon expiration of a deadline in the list / sending a weekly report / collecting confirmation via email
Presentation of built flows – demo and feedback
- Each participant briefly presents their flow: what it does, what trigger it has, what it does in the end
- Constructive feedback from the trainer and the group
- Identifying possible improvements / extensions
Requirements
No specific knowledge or competencies are required before attending the course.
Testimonials (2)
We did quite complex examples, so we could get a feeling of how the real work with Power Automate Desktop can look like in the real world scenario.
Michal Strnad - MicroNova AG
Course - Microsoft Flow/Power Automate
Dynamic, adaptive, and informative