Microsoft Energy Automate: The way to get began

Once you obtain an electronic mail with an bill, wouldn’t it’s good if it mechanically saved the file to your finance folder, logged the quantity in your monitoring spreadsheet, and notified your supervisor? That’s precisely what Microsoft Energy Automate can do, together with a number of different automated actions.

Like its rivals IFTTT and Zapier, Energy Automate permits enterprise professionals of all stripes to create automated workflows involving a collection of duties throughout sure purposes or companies — even these from totally different distributors — that ship notifications, ask for and supply approvals, and deal with rote duties mechanically, with no coding required. The automation instrument is a part of what Microsoft calls its Energy Platform, a collection of AI-enabled and AI-enhanced course of automation instruments.

Energy Automate faucets into enterprise apps and companies through parts known as “connectors.” Microsoft provides greater than 1,000 prebuilt, licensed connectors, and you’ll construct customized connectors to different apps.

Whereas anybody with a Microsoft account can use Energy Automate without cost on a restricted foundation, enterprise customers will want a paid subscription to entry key connectors and instruments. Energy Automate is included with most Microsoft 365 enterprise plans, so you could properly have already got entry to it; if not, separate Energy Automate plans begin at $15 per consumer per 30 days.

Right here’s what you have to know to stand up and operating with Energy Automate.

On this article:

• Understanding the fundamentals
• Getting began
• Your first automation: E mail submitting
• Including AI energy: Copilot and AI Builder
• Making your flows dependable
• The final phrase

Understanding the fundamentals

Usually with a service like Energy Automate, you get a little bit of the author’s “observing a clean web page” syndrome, the place you don’t even know the place to start. What’s even doable? Happily, Microsoft provides templates that present a bunch of a special prospects: surf over to its templates gallery to get a way of what you are able to do, from saving electronic mail attachments in a SharePoint library to recording type responses from a Google Sheet (sure, actually!).

However the templates are simply a place to begin. You’ll need to write one thing custom-made in your personal workflows, I’m positive. Earlier than we dive into constructing automations (or “flows” as they’re known as in Energy Automate), let’s get snug with what we’re working with.

Consider Energy Automate as your private digital assistant that may work throughout your purposes. There are three essential varieties of automation you possibly can create:

• Cloud flows are like having an assistant within the cloud, consistently looking ahead to issues to occur in your on-line apps like Outlook, SharePoint, or Groups. There are literally three varieties of these cloud flows: automated, instantaneous, and scheduled, which do about what you assume they’d do.
• Desktop flows are like having somebody sit at your laptop, clicking and typing for you in desktop purposes like Excel or specialised enterprise software program.
• Enterprise course of flows are extra like having a information that walks you thru advanced procedures step-by-step, guaranteeing nothing will get missed.

Every kind serves a special goal, and also you’ll probably use a mix of them as you develop into extra snug with automation.

Getting began

Let me stroll you thru establishing Energy Automate for the primary time. The method is simple, however there are just a few necessary particulars to concentrate to.

First, open your internet browser and go to microsoft365.com. If you happen to’re not already signed in, use your work electronic mail and password. You’ll know you’re in the suitable place while you see the Microsoft 365 app launcher (a sq. icon with 9 dots) within the high left nook.

Click on the app launcher; this opens a panel displaying all of your obtainable Microsoft 365 apps. Don’t fear for those who don’t see Energy Automate straight away — scroll down and search for it. The icon appears to be like like a multicolored proper arrow. If you happen to don’t see it, use the search bar on the high of the app launcher pane.

Click on on Energy Automate to open it. The primary time you open it, you may see a quick tutorial. Be at liberty to undergo it or click on Skip for those who desire to dive proper in. When the entire app opens, you’ll see a welcome display screen with templates and solutions.

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Take a second to have a look at the left navigation bar: that is the place you’ll discover your flows, templates, and connections later.

Your first automation: E mail submitting

You in all probability seen within the earlier screenshot that Copilot, Microsoft’s generative AI instrument, is now built-in with Energy Automate. Which means you possibly can describe an automation you’d prefer to create in pure language, and Energy Automate will generate a circulation based mostly in your immediate. However Copilot isn’t obtainable to all Energy Automate customers, and it’s useful for everybody to know tips on how to construct a circulation from scratch; that’ll make it simpler to regulate and enhance any AI-generated flows.

So, let’s begin with one thing everybody wants: mechanically organizing emails. Let’s assume you’re accountable for receiving purposes for one thing at work — perhaps it’s an internship, or maybe you’re operating a scholarship program and you might be managing the entries. I’ll present you tips on how to create a circulation that shops information hooked up to emails in SharePoint and tracks them in a neat, centralized record. This can be a excellent first circulation as a result of it’s each helpful and teaches a number of necessary ideas.

From the Energy Automate dwelling web page, search for the button within the left navigation bar labeled Create and click on it. (You’ll be able to alternatively click on My flows first, then search for the New circulation button up high.)

You’ll see a number of choices. For this circulation, we wish the entire automation to run with out us having to begin it, so choose Automated cloud circulation.

Jonathan Hassell / Foundry

This opens the circulation creation wizard. Title your circulation Scholarship Functions.

Subsequent, you select a set off, which is the occasion that can begin your circulation. Within the set off search field, kind Outlook new electronic mail and choose When a brand new electronic mail arrives. It is possible for you to so as to add situations to make it extra particular later.

Jonathan Hassell / Foundry

Click on Create to proceed. The set off seems in the midst of a clean canvas in Energy Automate.

Subsequent, we add steps. The circulation executes one step at a time, and every step is an motion that the circulation will carry out as soon as triggered. However first we have to configure the beginning of our sequence and add a few parameters so we will nail down which varieties of emails we’re in search of and what about them we wish Energy Automate to do.

Click on the When a brand new electronic mail arrives set off and take a look at the parameters tab. You’ll need to add 4 necessary superior parameters, which you’ll be capable of see within the window by clicking Present all.

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You need to add the next:

• Embody Attachments: set to Sure
• Topic Filter: kind in Scholarship utility
• Folder: set to Inbox (click on the folder icon and choose Inbox from the pop-up menu)

Then simply click on again over on the canvas space to avoid wasting these modifications.

Let’s maintain including actions. Click on the + signal under your “When a brand new electronic mail arrives” set off, and the “Add an motion” pane seems.

Let’s add our new motion by trying to find Create merchandise. It is going to have the SharePoint brand hooked up to it to let it’s associated to SharePoint On-line. Click on on Create merchandise so as to add it to your canvas.

Now you possibly can configure the motion a little bit extra granularly. It is advisable give the SharePoint Create merchandise motion a few parameters, as a result of in any other case it received’t know what SharePoint web site you need to use for this circulation, nor will it know which record to make use of and increase as new emails and attachments arrive.

Go forward and choose the SharePoint web site you need to use, after which choose the record you need for this circulation. You may must go over to your SharePoint web site first and create a brand new record to be used with this circulation; when you do, it ought to seem in a drop-down record mechanically while you click on the Checklist Title area. (It might take a couple of minutes to point out up.) You’ll additionally need to add a textual content column in your SharePoint record known as “Message Content material” — that is the place the automation will retailer the physique of the e-mail message for you.

You’ll additionally need to add a few superior parameters to your Create merchandise motion:

• Click on Present all to point out the alternatives.
• Below Restrict Columns by View, choose All Objects.
• Below Title, kind / (slash) and choose Insert dynamic content material from the pop-up menu. On the pane that seems to the suitable, choose From underneath “When a brand new electronic mail arrives.”
• Below Message Content material, kind / and choose Insert dynamic content material, then choose both Physique or Physique Preview underneath the Outlook “When a brand new electronic mail arrives” record within the pane on the suitable. (Physique Preview won’t be instantly seen. To search out it, kind physique within the search field up high and it’ll seem among the many choices.)
• Below “Content material kind Id,” choose Merchandise.

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Click on the canvas to shut the parameters display screen and save your modifications.

Subsequent, we have to add a situation. A situation impacts the conduct of an motion when one other issue is true or false. On this case, we wish the situation to say that the following two actions have output from the earlier motion utilized to them — particularly, we wish the attachment from the brand new electronic mail acquired to be utilized to every of our subsequent two subsequent actions.

Click on the + signal underneath the Create merchandise motion. On the “Add an motion” display screen, seek for apply to every after which click on the Apply to every possibility that comes up underneath Management.

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Within the “Choose an output from earlier steps” area, kind / and choose Insert dynamic content material, then choose Attachments to the suitable. This tells Energy Automate to make use of the attachment for every of the following actions it’s going to take.

Jonathan Hassell / Foundry

Click on on the canvas to avoid wasting the “Apply to every” management. At this level, your circulation ought to appear like the determine under.

Subsequent, click on the + signal under the “Apply to every” motion and add one other motion. (This should be a reasonably acquainted routine for you at this level.)

Right here, we have to get the attachment — however we have to use the Outlook “Get Attachment” and NOT the SharePoint “Get attachments.” This can be a key distinction. So while you seek for get attachment, ensure that to choose the one within the Outlook subsection.

Then, within the parameters part, hit / and select Insert dynamic content material in every area, and add Message Id to the Message Id area and Attachments Attachment ID to the “Attachement [sic] Id” area. Each of these things are underneath the Outlook “When a brand new electronic mail arrives” record within the pane that seems on the suitable, however they won’t be instantly seen. To search out them, kind the primary few letters of every within the search field up high and select the merchandise from the record that seems.

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Click on again on the canvas while you’re performed to avoid wasting your modifications.

Now, for the ultimate motion, click on the plus signal under the Get Attachment merchandise, seek for add attachment, and select Add attachment from the SharePoint record. Right here, you have to add parameters once more, which try to be getting used to as properly. You’ll need to add:

• Web site Tackle: decide your SharePoint web site.
• Checklist Title: decide the SharePoint record.
• Id: hit the / key, select dynamic content material, and choose ID from the SharePoint record.
• File Title: hit the / key, select dynamic content material, after which select Attachments Title from the Outlook record.
• File Content material: hit the / key, select dynamic content material, after which select both Content material Bytes or Attachments Content material from the Outlook record.

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Lastly, click on Save within the high proper of the general Energy Automate window to maintain the circulation saved in your account. The ultimate circulation ought to appear like this:

Your circulation is now prepared to check. Use the Take a look at button to strive it out. You’ll be requested the way you need to take a look at — choose Handbook, after which ship your self an electronic mail with an attachment and put “scholarship utility” within the topic line. The circulation will report again to you onscreen and present you the way lengthy it took to course of and what occurred at every step.

Notice: you could obtain errors a few duplicate filename. This pertains to the actual fact we’re not attempting to rename particular person attachment names after we save them into SharePoint, so for those who get a bunch of PDFs from totally different people all known as “utility” or one thing comparable, Energy Automate is telling you the names are duplicated and it isn’t renaming them. That is high quality for our functions, since we’re saving the attachments to particular person record objects, so we’ll all the time know who they’re from whatever the filename.

Different errors could outcome from how your particular Microsoft 365 tenant is configured, however you possibly can typically discover a workaround. For instance, utilizing the Physique merchandise within the Message Content material area on this circulation works high quality in my tenant, however when my editor examined it in her tenant, the circulation failed, flagging ‘merchandise/MessageContent’ because the supply of the error. When she substituted Physique Preview in that area, the circulation ran flawlessly. So for those who hit an error while you begin constructing your personal flows, it’s price in search of an analogous merchandise you possibly can substitute.

You’ll know the circulation is working while you get inexperienced arrows at every step. You too can head over to your SharePoint record, and it’s best to see your message added to the record. The e-mail deal with of the sender shall be within the first column, the message physique within the second, after which while you click on the person merchandise, you’ll see the attachments listed there — simply click on on them to open them up.

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Voila! You’ve simply made your first circulation and arranged a bunch of stuff out of your inbox right into a single place the place you possibly can share the load with co-workers.

Including AI energy: Copilot and AI Builder

Now let’s make issues actually attention-grabbing by including synthetic intelligence to your flows. That is the place automation turns into actually highly effective, dealing with duties that historically required human evaluate.

On this instance, let’s ask Copilot to create a circulation that mechanically processes invoices utilizing AI Builder, a Energy Platform characteristic that creates AI fashions that automate your enterprise processes. What’s cool about this instance is that you simply’re going to construct it just by describing what you need in pure language, and as a part of the ensuing circulation, Energy Automate will combine AI Builder actions, which use generative AI to evaluate and extract data from current information after which do one thing with it.

Notice: You’ll want an AI Builder credit score allocation or a premium Energy Automate license to work with this part.

Create a brand new circulation in Energy Automate, after which click on Describe it to design it. You’ll get the next display screen in consequence:

Jonathan Hassell / Foundry

Now, within the giant field within the middle of the display screen, simply describe the circulation you need to create. I’ll provide you with some language right here, which you’ll both minimize and paste your self into the wizard, or you possibly can change any a part of it you want just by customizing the immediate.

Instance: When a brand new bill file is created in SharePoint, I need to use AI Builder to extract data from the invoices. Particularly, I need to extract the bill quantity (extremely advisable), date, whole quantity, vendor data, and line objects (if wanted). As soon as that data has been extracted, I need the data to be added to an inventory in SharePoint, with the AI-extracted fields mapped to record columns, and likewise together with the processing date and standing. I additionally need to ship an electronic mail to accounting to inform them of the presence of the bill, and that electronic mail ought to embrace extracted information within the electronic mail physique, have the unique bill file hooked up, and also needs to have hyperlinks to the SharePoint entry. I additionally need some error dealing with to verify if AI extraction succeeded, and if it didn’t, I need an electronic mail to inform me of the failure and likewise to create a process for guide evaluate.

When you’ve acquired the immediate set, click on the arrow on the backside proper of the immediate window to enter it. Relying on how you customised your immediate, you’ll get one thing like the next flowchart, reflecting Energy Automate’s interpretation of your immediate:

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That’s it! You’ll be able to click on Subsequent under the prompt circulation after which click on every motion as we did earlier than to configure the precise SharePoint libraries, lists, and information concerned in addition to the e-mail contents and our bodies.

Making your flows dependable

Reliability is the cornerstone of profitable automation. Whereas creating flows is thrilling, guaranteeing that they proceed to work flawlessly is what separates efficient automation from irritating setbacks. Let me stroll you thru tips on how to construct strong, reliable flows which you can belief.

First, take into consideration error dealing with as you construct your circulation. After every main motion, take a second to contemplate what may go improper. Possibly an electronic mail received’t ship, a file received’t add, or information received’t course of appropriately. These potential failure factors want safeguards.

That is the place Run after settings develop into your greatest good friend. You’ll be able to create an motion that responds to what occurs throughout a earlier step within the sequence: when the step is profitable, when it fails, when it’s skipped, when it instances out, or some mixture of the above. Consider this as your circulation’s security web.

For instance, you possibly can arrange an motion that sends you an electronic mail notification if a earlier motion fails, is skipped, or instances out. Click on the + signal after an motion so as to add a brand new step. Seek for and choose Ship me an electronic mail notification. Sort in a topic line for the notification (which may embrace the Topic line from the unique electronic mail, through the / key, dynamic content material pane) and a few physique textual content indicating that the circulation didn’t full efficiently.

Subsequent, right-click the brand new motion within the circulation and choose Run after from the pop-up menu. The motion’s pane opens to the Settings tab. Scroll all the way down to the “Run after” part. You’ll see the identify of the motion instantly above it within the circulation. Click on that motion to develop it, then verify Has timed out, Is skipped, and Has failed. Uncheck Is profitable.

If you happen to like, you possibly can add different earlier actions to this record by clicking Choose actions and choosing the actions you need, then increasing and checking/unchecking the standing choices underneath every motion. On this means, you possibly can arrange a single “Run after” step for all of the earlier actions in a circulation, or you possibly can create totally different “Run after” steps for various actions within the circulation.

By establishing “Run after” responses, you’ll be ready when one thing does go improper. Arrange notification actions to warn you instantly if a step fails. Create incident tickets so your group can observe points. Hold a log of errors in a spreadsheet for sample evaluation. And don’t overlook about retry logic — typically a second try is all that’s wanted to succeed.

Parallel branches are one other highly effective instrument for reliability. By clicking the + image between steps and selecting Add parallel department, you possibly can create simultaneous operations. That is excellent for operating unbiased processes, sustaining backup procedures, or sending out secondary notifications. Consider it as having a number of backup plans operating concurrently.

Lastly, let’s discuss monitoring — your early warning system for potential points. Create a every day monitoring circulation that runs mechanically. Have it verify your circulation historical past and search for any failures. Set it as much as ship you a every day digest summarizing what’s working and what wants consideration. Embody success charges so you possibly can spot tendencies earlier than they develop into issues.

Your monitoring system also needs to embrace sensible alerts. Arrange notifications for important failures that want fast consideration. Configure warnings when efficiency begins to slide. Observe utilization statistics to make sure you’re taking advantage of your automation sources.

Bear in mind, reliability isn’t about stopping each doable downside — it’s about having methods in place to catch points early and resolve them rapidly. With these practices in place, you possibly can construct flows that don’t simply work immediately however proceed working reliably lengthy into the longer term.

The final phrase

Microsoft Energy Automate gives a service like Zapier and IFTTT that’s properly built-in with each Microsoft 365 and plenty of different well-liked cloud companies utilized by people and companies alike. Whereas I’m not exhaustively evaluating Energy Automate to IFTTT and Zapier, Microsoft retailers and particularly organizations already in mattress with Microsoft 365 could discover integrating flows into their every day work simpler and extra user-friendly.

Regardless of the state of affairs, utilizing flows can imply the distinction between forgetting delicate however important particulars in enterprise workflows and having all your bases coated.

This text was initially printed in October 2019 and up to date in March 2025.