Purpose
The article explains the best use of the Power automate – an online tool to save valuable time and automate repetitive and mundane daily tasks. It helps you streamline, connect two applications, and set a flow to recurring tasks on schedule.
Video Tutorial
Terminology
Power Automate requires you to acquaint yourself with a few terminologies such as:
- Flow: An action that requires completion of an automated process
- My flows: Flows or templates that you design customized to your needs
- Action: Manage approvals and business process flows
- Templates: Using designed templates for some common workflows among departments to use efficiently
- Trigger: Initiation or the start action for the flow to take place
- Connectors: Connecting one service to another. Power Automate allows you to use as many connectors as necessary for complex processes. The example discussed below connects YouTube to Twitter as an automatic process
Create a Flow
- Navigate to office.com and sign in with your UTD credentials (Net ID and password).
- Select the nine-dots symbol on the top-left corner of the screen and choose All Apps as shown below.
- Type Power Automate on the search bar and open the application by double-clicking.
- Navigate to Templates by using the options on the left side of the screen, as shown below.
- Enter "Twitter" on the search bar to locate all the Twitter service flows.
- Scroll down until you find a tile with YouTube and Twitter icons stating Share YouTube on Twitter by Microsoft.
- Then Open template > Log in and allow Microsoft Power Platform access to your personal or business account by selecting the Sign-in button.
- You will see the small green tick marks once you have signed in (highlighted in yellow).
- The three dots symbol next to the green tick marks will allow you to add more connectors and customize the flow according to your needs.
- For example, suppose you want the YouTube content on Twitter and another application. In that case, you can add that application as a connector by selecting the ‘Add new connection’ option through the three-dots button.
- Your screen will display the process as it occurs.
- For this example, we would like to customize the tweet. Therefore, select the tweet text, and you will see a drop-down menu for dynamic content. Select the Video List Video Video Summary Title option.
- Edit the Tweet Text that you would want to be published on Twitter. Refer to the image below for example. Select Save.
Note: You can go back to the homepage, select flows, and edit your flows when necessary.
Editing the Flow
- Navigate to My Flow and select the Edit Icon.
- The small ribbon on top allows you to perform many functions. The important ones are:
- Edit – Amend/Update the flow
- Share – This allows you to add members from your team to edit and track the flow
- Turn off – The presence of this button is a sign that the flow is active. You can click the button to stop the flow manually
