Is your organization ready for modern process automation? Are you looking for Power Automate to help solve some of your business challenges? Let’s review some key considerations to keep in mind as you move towards the low or no code Power Automate service, formerly known as Microsoft Flow. Pricing: Users with an active Office 365 account have a free license for Power Automate, allowing a limited number of processes to be run on a monthly basis. In most cases, the free license will suffice but, it’s important to understand where the limits are to a free account, so you aren’t caught by surprise. Basically, you have to consider things from the perspective of the user. As an organization, is it beneficial that users need to create Flows on their own or will management provide Flows for teams, departments and the whole company to use? Also consider the complexity and type of interactions your flows are intended to make. Flow Plan 1 – Per User: The first cost plan available is $15 dollars per user per month and opens the door to premium connectors. Premium connectors enable users to use actions that may belong to a service which also requires additional cost to use. The good news is that Flows run on behalf of the user but utilize the permissions of the Flow owner or owners to complete processes which means not everyone needs to be licensed for premium connectors, only the owners do. Flow Plan 2 – Per Flow: Plan 2 enables organizations to add flows to serve full teams, departments or the entire organization without having to license each user who needs it. This plan starts at $500 dollars per month for a maximum of 5 flows. Next steps: As an Office 365 account holder, you are free to test the limits of the free account first then learn more about the paid accounts, which is what we recommend. Rather than tackle the licensing and costs as a first task, familiarize yourself with Power Automate and define the following:
There are also new opportunities within Power Automate for Robotic Process Automation which work hand in hand with workflows to drive innovation across your entire organization. Let’s explore what these are in greater detail. Robotic Process Automation
Robotic Process Automation is in preview mode for Power Automate in the form of UI flows. Many companies have a mixture of technology with the latest and greatest, to dust gathering legacy systems which have yet to be upgraded running on-prem or in the cloud. This unique scenario presents a challenge for companies looking to scale and UI flows are a potential solution to this issue since they provide the opportunity to automate across apps and services that don’t have API’s. While UI Flows are 100% cloud-based solutions, organizations can use UI flows to automate repetitive manual tasks performed via browser or Windows applications. UI flows record your every step and translate those steps into noted actions for the workflow to perform in the future. Application of UI flows may allow your workers to focus on more valuable tasks for the organization rather than be dragged down by smaller every-day tasks. Pivotal Consulting can help you determine what plan of Power Automate is best for your organizations needs by providing you with an in-depth analysis of your business processes. |
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