Microsoft Power Automate Intro Training Course

Module 1 – Introduction to Power Automate

What is Power Automate and what can we automate?

• Positioning in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem: relationship with Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, OneDrive
• Flow types: 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 automatic email”
• Platform limitations: what Power Automate does NOT do well

Interface navigation 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 – Flow Anatomy: Triggers, Actions, Conditions

Core concepts: trigger → action

• What is a trigger? Types: automatic (event), instant (manual), scheduled (programmed)
• Selecting the appropriate trigger for each scenario
• Actions and connectors: the concept of “operations” – Get, Create, Update, Send
• Dynamic Content: how data “flows” from one step to another
• Exercise: creating 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 variants
• Nested conditions: conditions within conditions
• Exercise: flow with a 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
• Common expressions: formatDateTime(), concat(), length(), empty()
• Utility of variables: counters, dynamic text, 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
• Guided exercise: when a new item is added to a list, send a notification email with the item's data

Module 4 – Personalized Email and Apply to Each

• Sending personalized 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 – iterating over lists of people or documents
• Using a “Person or Group” type column to extract recipient email addresses
• HTML formatting of emails – creating professional messages with tables and bold
• Exercise: uploading a file to SharePoint triggers the sending of an email to the list of people defined in metadata

Module 5 – Loop Reminders with Escalation

Loop reminder flow with escalation to line manager

• Flow architecture: daily/weekly scheduled trigger with a SharePoint filter
• Control: Do Until – repeating an action until a condition is met (field completed or max number of attempts)
• Implementing escalation: after N reminders, changing the recipient to the line manager
• Delay action: delaying between reminders (1 day, 1 hour, etc.)
• Update item in SharePoint: marking the status of sent reminders to avoid duplicates
• Complete exercise: a flow that checks daily if a field in a SharePoint List is empty, sends a reminder, and escalates to the manager after 3 days

Error handling and flow monitoring

• Run history: how to interpret failed runs
• Configure run after: Succeeded / Failed / Timed Out / Skipped
• Sending an alert email to the administrator in case of flow failure

Module 6 – Excel and Word File Processing

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: pulling data from Excel → automatically creating items in a SharePoint List
• Scenario: when an Excel file is modified, extract values from a column and send a report by email
• 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

• The concept of Word templates with variables (placeholders between braces)
• The “Populate a Microsoft Word template” action – automatic completion from a SharePoint list
• Saving the generated document in SharePoint and sending it via email
• Scenario: when an item in the list is approved → generate Word contract → save to SharePoint → notify via email
• Word action limitations – 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: approval types (Approve/Reject, Custom Responses)
• Sending approval requests via Teams or email
• Using the approval response: Outcome, Comments – actions after approval vs. rejection
• Automatically updating the status 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 flow organization

• Clear naming of steps – the 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 and begins building the flow
• The trainer assists individually and answers specific questions
• Suggested scenarios (alternatives): notification on deadline expiration from list / sending weekly report / collecting confirmations 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 at the end
• Constructive feedback from the trainer and the group
• Identifying improvements / possible extensions