Increasing productivity in the workplace is made a whole lot easier when using Microsoft 365 Power Automate. With the opportunity to automate various tasks that would otherwise be boring, given that they are repetitive and time consuming, staff can turn their attention to more important aspects of the business, and this increase in productivity means your business can continue to grow at a steady pace.
Everyone loves the benefits of automation, especially because it not only reduces workloads but it can also reduce error. Microsoft 365 Power Automate is filled with standout features and hidden gems that work perfectly in businesses of all shapes and sizes, and if you have not yet set up this powerful productivity tool in your business, now is a great time to consider it.
What is Microsoft Power Automate?
For those not already familiar with Microsoft Power Automate, this is what it is all about.
Power Automate, as described by Microsoft, is a service that enables you to automate your workflows between various apps and services. It allows you to synchronise files, to get notifications and to even collect data that will later on help you to improve various aspects of your business.
The programme comes with ready to use templates to get you started and it also includes a few non-Microsoft related products, such as Twitter, Google, Dropbox and Google Drive, which when accessed across platforms will make staff even more efficient.
Power Automate is so easy to get to grips with that you don’t actually need IT skills or any advanced developer skills to integrate it into your current business set up and once you are ready to go, the amount of work that you will manually have to do, will be a whole lot less than usual.
Before we get into how it will benefit your business, you need to know that Power Automate is not a free service and will require a license. This can be bought through your IT company or directly from Microsoft.
No matter what your goal is with this programme, you should start your approach by having a realistic and honest look at the problems facing your business or holding you back from achieving your business’s full potential. Once you see where day to day tasks can be improved, you can branch out and think a little bit more about which typse of business automation can be introduced.
How does Power Automate Make Business Easier?
There are a variety of things you can do with Power Automate, and this is why there are various ways you can improve your company’s overall productivity.
- Create flows
Work flows are nothing new to businesses, but being able to automate various flows is. The most basic process that you can create with Power Automate is personalized, business centric flows. The most common flows available, and the most easy to use if you are new to Power Automate, include:
- Instant cloud flow
- Desktop flow
- Business process flow
- Templates are included
Taking the time to create and then perfect a work template is a lot of effort. But having a template ready-made, and which only needs a few tweaks, can increase work productivity. Templates are especially helpful if you are managing remote workers.
- Instant sharing
Having a number of staff working on a single template or document, which can be updated in real time, with notifications of changes being instantly sent to team members, is a great way to improve business productivity as it can ensure that the work flow continues even if everyone is not in the same building.
- Calendars
Much like the shared documents, a shared calendar can be incredibly beneficial in that everyone can be kept on the same page all the time. This way, with tasks and times available to everyone, no one can say they were not informed of an important deadline, and the team will also be able to better plan their tasks.
- Better organised e-mail attachments
If yours is the kind of company receiving plenty of emails each day, you are probably looking for a way to better organise your mail and whatever comes with it. With a specific kind of automated flow, you can automatically save any important email attachments.
