Why Automation ?
The most anticipated day for an Online Business is the launch day.
We build up expectations and raise the bar with regards to our Initial offer.
Eager customers are brimming with expectation.
The Launch day comes up, the festivities commence.
You get the initial batch of welcome customers. They start consuming your products/services.
Managing customers and serving them becomes part and parcel of life.
And, then suddenly your energy level goes down.
You find out that repetitive tasks are consuming time and energy.
You are distracted away from productive tasks.
Now the first batch of complaining customers knocks at your contact channels.
More follow later. You wonder what has gone wrong.
The few become many !! [[ EYES OPEN ]]
Lack of Automation
Take a glass of water and relax. It was a bad dream.
I agree.
You got overwhelmed doing repeatable tasks that were non-productive.
In an Online Business, it is essential to give excellent customer service.
While starting, you cannot be firefighting every day.
There should be forward progress along with the acquisition of new customers.
Multiple aspects of your Knowledge Business are programmable.
Microsoft Power Automate helps you achieve limited automation within a Microsoft 365 Business Account.
Types of WorkFlow
Power Automate divides its flows into three main types:
- Automated Flow – Response to a happening.
E.g. :- On posting a tweet with a hashtag, admin gets notified on email - Scheduled Flow – a flow that occurs at a specified time.
E.g. An alert telling everyone a day before an upcoming event. - Button Flow – a flow triggered by the press of a button.
E.g. Adding to an email list when a visitor opts-in
Benefits of Microsoft Power Automate
Power Automate comes in every Microsoft Office 365 package. It shines brightly being a business process management platform.
Here are some of it’s main benefits
Easily Integrate with other applications (connectors)
A connector is needed to links two or more external applications together. Now it is possible to connect your MailChimp to Slack, SharePoint, or other supported apps.
Once connected you can automate processes between them and simplify your daily menial tasks.
Non-tech people can setup workflows easily.
Non-tech-savvy people need only a Microsoft account to access the application. Please note that some connectors are available only for premium/enterprise users.
Power Automate is trigger-based tool that allows you to integrate workflows directly into different apps that you’re using with the help of connectors.
Easy to share and access business data
Connect your apps and create a flow between them.
E.g. :- Copy data from one app to another automatically through Power Automate. This makes sharing and access to data simplified.
Let’s connect Microsoft Sharepoint to your Outlook. Now any file received on email by a team member gets shared on your SharePoint.
Power Automate is from “Microsoft”.
With the extensive pool and resources allocated by an Industry Giant such as Microsoft. An entrepreneur need not worry about lack of support.
Microsoft has a cherished tradition of giving importance to customer opinion when refining products. We can continue to expect Microsoft to revise Power Automate making our online existence simpler.
16 ways to Power Automate your Knowledge Business
We will go over 16 automation available under Power Automate for Four main categories
There are many more templates available in their repository.
A. Remote Work
Power Automate templates that are useful for businesses that maintain virtual teams.
B. Approval
Power Automate templates for businesses that require virtual approval to move documents from department to department.
C. Social Media
Power Automate templates that are useful for brands with a growing social media presence
D. Sync
Templates that back up data of businesses that operate virtually into a central server or hub.
-
1 Create Planner tasks for important Office 365 emails
All Important email from your inbox is copied into Microsoft Planner and segregated accordingly. At the end of the automation, a conversion is done to fill all relevant fields as well.
-
2 Create a daily summary of Planner Tasks
Connects that native Microsoft Planner with your email { Office 365 Outlook } to send you a reminder email at the beginning of every day.
-
3 Send a digest email of all outstanding Planner tasks
During the middle of a day, an email is sent through Microsoft 365 Outlook highlighting the tasks to be done for the day.
-
4 Post message in Teams when a Planner task is completed
Microsoft Teams is the collaboration app that Office 365 uses. Once a dedicated planner task is completed, the corresponding team is updated.
-
5 Start an approval process once the form is submitted
Useful for Application submission with a lengthy evaluation process. Once a Microsoft Form is submitted you can commence Approvals and send an email with the result once done.
-
6 New Planner Task for Microsoft Forms Submission
For every submitted form, a Planner task is created. Once done, an email can be sent to the intended persons using Automations 4 and 2.
-
7 Move an Approved file to a different folder
After Approval transfer the original file to the relevant folder automatically.
-
8 Request approval for new document uploads and notify once verified
Once a new document is uploaded to SharePoint, everyone in the team may not follow up. To make sure all team members get notified this automation can be used. On approval, the status of the document is also notified accordingly.
-
9 Tweet Alerts on Email
Hello Tweeters, This automation is just for you. In case you are following a certain keyword, an email alert is sent to you. When a tweet containing the keyword has been posted.
Get Ready with an Enterprise Microsoft 365 plan if your business is having a highly active twitter profile.
-
10 Create a Wordpress post for every Youtube Video
Once you have uploaded a YouTube video, a WordPress post is created. Need to connect Youtube and WordPress through Power Automate and activate both channels.
-
11
Collect all the engagement that you get on Instagram for easy reference.
Great to have Power Automate around to collate everything into one Spreadsheet!
-
12 Search all Languages on Twitter and find related content
Armed with Microsoft Translator you can find content on any language that is talking about your brand. This is highly valuable in Online Reputation Management.
You can collect all related tweets into a single spreadsheet for the weekly review.
-
13 Backup Windows Desktop files into Sharepoint everyday
An additional add-on is needed to be called Gateway. With the internet on, the backup can be scheduled to run just before the workday ends. You can comfortably turn off the PC before leaving the workstation.
-
14 Microsoft Outlook contacts into Google Contacts
Make your Outlook 365 Contacts up to date with your Google Contacts as well to ease communication.
-
15 Upload photos from your phone to Sharepoint
Are you an active snapper on phone? Plenty of photos to back upright. Why not use the massive 1TB space that a Microsoft 365 Business plan gives you.
Upload your photos in high quality and keep them for future use.
-
16 Save Email attachments on Sharepoint
When an email is received with an attachment, save the attachment to a SharePoint document library, and receive a push notification.
A filter may also be used to retrieve attachments from emails that are sent only by a specific person.
Inside the filter, set the variable “IsFromFilterApplied” to “true” and adding an Email ID to the “From” field in the condition.
MPTY hemanth.
@HEMANTH Very well drafted and explained.
Very Informative
Good ideas
Very well explained
great to share this automation concept
Awesome Hemanth! Lots to learn from this.
More power to you ….
well written very useful
Very helpful tips to do stuff in GOD mode. Kudos to Hemu
very important ideas for automation
Really an Eye Opener for many on the AUtomation Tools and Techniques we should make use of.. Also, the Things which we consider cannot be made automated were turned to be false..