W H I T E PA P E R

Robotic process
automation using
Power Automate
Scaling to the new heights of automation

Udayan Pal
Technical Architect,
Microsoft Cloud COE
Summary
Though the information technology (IT) industry has multiple options for
automation and robotic process automation (RPA), discussing any promising
low-cost, low code no code automation platform is sensible. Microsoft’s recent
offering, Power Automate, is an easy-to-use and setup automation powerhouse
with additional administration advantages.

Power Platform is a high-productivity, low-code application development

platform by Microsoft. It is a family of integrated products to deliver business
applications and automation. This whitepaper will provide insights to the
person or department responsible for planning, deploying, and supporting
automation using Power Automate Desktop (user interface (UI) flows) and
Power Automate (could flow). This paper has thrown light on the automation
capabilities of Power Platform using Power Automate cloud flow and Power
Automate UI flow – an RPA offering. It also elaborates on how the Power
Platform embraces the idea of one automation platform using Power Automate.

Power Automate is a vital part of the Microsoft Power Platform. It is a

comprehensive cloud-based automation engine for automating repetitive and
time-consuming tasks using a low-code/no-code (LCNC) approach. Power
Automate cloud flow can automate workflows between organizations’ favorite
applications and services using built-in or custom connectors. A relatively new
feature of Power Automate is UI flows which offer robotic process automation
(RPA) capability. Organizations can automate legacy applications, and manual
processes using the UI flows through an easy UI-based automation integrated
development environment (IDE). It also has rich support for manual UI action
recording features.

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What’s more to know
about automation?
Power Automate Desktop Flow is a relatively new capability added to the Power
Platform. We should look for Power Automate (desktop flow) when an application
(windows or web) needs to be automated. Still, we don’t have an application
programming interface (API) or connector to create a custom connector, as API is not
publicly exposed. With the addition of Power Automate Desktop, users gain additional
options which support RPA in Power Platform.

Power Automate Cloud Flow mainly targets web-based application automation

for automating processes. It uses 500 + prebuilt connectors and has an opportunity
to build custom connectors to automate almost any process.

Power Automate help us to automate anything

or other windows based applications

Legacy desktop Power Automate

+ Power Modern
app such as Desktop Automate Applications
excel, MS
access or other
windows based
applications

Figure 1: Seamless integration between cloud and on-premises application

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Amplifying the
automation capabilities
Power Platforms – built on top of Microsoft Azure and integrated with any Azure offerings
like cognitive service, natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML),
optical character recognition (OCR), etc., can be utilized inside the Power Automate
with minimal effort as most Azure offering provides built-in connectors at Power Platform.
On the other hand, the Power Automate desktop supports RPA capability and consumes
Azure resources using API calls. We can build intelligent automation using artificial
intelligence (AI) builder and native Azure AI. Hence, combining UI flow and cloud
flow is a natural choice to offer unlimited intelligent automation possibilities with
a cloud-first approach.

Digital process automation

Robotic process automation

Intelligent automation

Process and task mining

Figure 2: Combining UI flow and cloud flow for an intelligent automation

Digital process automation

for accelerated automation
Digital process automation (DPA) enables quick automation of one-time and recurrent
business processes without enormous customization efforts. The simple principle
of DPA emphasizes four pillars: discover or identify the process, document or map
the journey, automate or digitalize the process, and monitor or improve the process.
IT teams and business users can make DPA solutions meet their specific business
needs – such as employee onboarding, invoice processing, and integration with line
of business (LOB) systems – using low-code development capabilities like Power
Automate. It’s noteworthy that Power Automate capabilities like automated cloud flow
and business process automation can quickly implement digital process automation.

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RPA at the center stage
RPA focuses on automating individual, discrete tasks. Furthermore, RPA contains
software bots that imitate human tasks, as these bots complete rules-based tasks by
recording the process workflow that humans perform. Using RPA, we can access the
system, navigate the page, and input and extract data, mimicking humans’ interactions
with computer systems.

Significant benefits of RPA include:

• Investing resources in core business operations

• Limiting dependence on daily monotonous activities
• Encouraging businesses to focus more on critical functions
• Saving huge costs by automating mundane day-to-day processes
• Minimizing chances of error

RPA implementation scenarios range from simply reading and responding to emails
to automating a complex enterprise resource planning (ERP) customer relationship
management (CRM) process. For example, read data from an email attachment and
insert it into the CRM system. Power Automate Desktop (UI flow) provides a wide range
of options to implement an RPA bot that can run attended or unattended mode and
queue workloads.

Emulates human interaction

with desktop and/or
web interface.
Define the Robotic process.

Robots are considered as a

virtual workforce and control
by business users
or business operation.

Robots use existing

infostructure which
govern by IT team

Figure 3: The scope of robotic process automation (RPA)

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Intelligent automation
is here to stay
RPA, coupled with AI, empowers rapid end-to-end business process automation and
accelerates digital transformation as it paves the way for IA. The IA automates four main
capabilities of humans: execution, language, vision, and thinking & learning. It combines
various technologies, including machine learning (ML), sentiment analysis, intelligent
chatbots, speech analytics, image and video analysis, and intelligent chatbots.

For example, automating forms, document processing, and data extracting using
AI, OCR, and ML. Power Platform AI builder does this using out-of-the-model, and we can
call other Azure services within the cloud flow and UI flow to meet the business need.

Artificial Robotic Process

Intelligent Automation Intelligent Automation
An integrated system combination
of artificial intelligent, robotic
process automation and digital
process automation

Digital Process
Automation

Figure 4: Morphology of intelligent automation (IA)

Figure 4: Morphology of intelligent automation (IA)

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Unraveling insights with the
process and task mining
The process mining capability of the power platform helps us understand the gap in the
existing automation system and the scope for improvement. Task mining capability helps
an organization understand the new opportunity of automation with the help of business
users. It combines the concept of process optimization with data science to discover,
monitor, and improve actual processes by extracting knowledge from event logs that are
available in the different systems.

Again, this is a part of the intelligent automation and process advisor module of the power
platform that offers this facility. Regarding outcome, process and task mining technologies
complement each other and help organizations optimize and perform better.

Identify area
Discover poor of Improvement
business process using log analysis

Continues Implement
monitoring and and enhance
enhancement the process

Figure 5: Steps involved in the process and data mining

Power Automate – the unified

automation platform of tomorrow
Power Automate is built with several attributes that enable anyone to begin automating
tasks in a matter of a few clicks. Power Automate is built with triggers, actions,
and conditional logic. It also supports desktop or legacy scenarios automation to
modern applications with API. Orchestration, queues, and prioritization of RPA bot
and monitor all automation processes and components from a single unified interface.

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Power Automate is designed for ease of use, and with this goal in mind, business users can
automate processes with capabilities such as:

• Ability to share documents, data, and images

• Seamless integration across Microsoft’s cloud ecosystems and other cloud providers
• Build in connectivity to hundreds of popular applications
• A built-in modern data platform - Dataverse
• AI and machine learning (ML support)
• Extensibility to automate first and third-party scenarios

Seamless Integration
Hundreds of Share flows like Documents in Office, Extensibility model with
ways to trigger with templates Dynamics, Azure 1st and 3rd-party systems

Thousands of built-in Data connectivity Natively built Intelligent automation

templates and actions to 500+ services on the Microsoft infused with AI
common data service

Figure 6: Benefits of using Power Automate

Conclusion
Today, businesses must be resilient to grow and innovate; as a result, the need for
transformation cannot be avoided. Power Platform is an LCNC platform by Microsoft that
helps an organization with digital transformation initiatives. It encourages business users
or citizen developers to automate their processes and supports pro developers’ deep
customization. Power Automate, being the most cost-effective option for any automation or
RPA implementation compared to other tools, became a natural choice for many organizations.
Democratizing performance using citizen developers boosts the digitalization journey in the
organization. As per a commissioned Forrester Consulting study1, the return on investment
on Power Platform for a composite organization representative of interviewed customers was
140% over three years. Respondents from the study reported an average increase in delivery
efficiency of 22.6%, IT /DevOps efficiency of 18.8%, DBA/ data science efficiency of 18.3%,
and LOB user efficiency of 3.1%

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About author
Udayan Pal
Technical Architect,
Microsoft Cloud COE

Udayan brings over 15+ years of rich experience in the IT industry. He has eight
years of design, development, and consulting expertise in business applications
using .Net, Azure, and Microsoft 365, including Power App, Power Automate,
and Power Automate Desktop.

References
The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Power Platform Premium Capabilities, a commissioned study
1

conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft, August 2022.

About Virtusa

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