The Ultimate Tutorial Guide for Microsoft Power Automate

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Microsoft Power Automate Tutorial: How to create an invoice processing flow from scratch?

Before even starting to work on the process in Microsoft Power Automate, we will first take a look at all the steps, datasets, tables, and connectors we will require. We need to set everything else up before we start making business flow in PowerApps.

So our flow would be simple, we want to create a flow

When we receive an Invoice in our Inbox -> Extract Data From Invoice -> Store information in a table in Excel

In our case, we will need the following:

• Connectors: Gmail, One drive, Excel
• AI Model: Invoice Processing Model
• Tables: An Excel with proper headers

So let’s start with creating the AI model first.

Building AI model

Step 1: Select AI Builder and select custom to extract data from standardized documents and click get started.

You need to have an AI Builder license for this step

Step2: You’ll be redirected to a list of action items. Select all the options that are relevant to you. In our case, we assume that the invoices are fairly standardized, hence we will select the first option

Step 3: Adding the variables

In the next step, select the type of information you would like to extract from your invoices. In this case, pre-planning the variables come in handy.

In our case, we would like to select fields for invoice numbers, invoice data, and total amount. We can also select the single-page table to select an entire table of all the items mentioned in the invoice.

For the single table, make sure you mention the number of columns and rename it properly.

Once you’ve listed all the information you want to extract, select Done and choose next.

Step 4: Adding collections

Collections are the set of files that have the same format. Upload your invoices from the same vendor in different collections. Once you upload the documents, select the fields and tables to reflect the values that you need.

Open any document that you’ve uploaded. Select detect words to see the fields that are automatically detected. Hover your mouse over the fields that you want to select. Then select the value for each field.

Tip: For the table, make sure you divide table into columns and tabs and name the header properly.

Follow the same steps for all the uploaded invoices in all the collections.

Step 5: Once done, select Train model. Then select Go to Your models. The list should show your model with the name you gave at the start.

So now, our AI model is complete. Let’s try to create a flow where we will use the AI model to extract data from our email attachment and save the information in an excel.

Step 6: Go to flows, select create an automated flow. And select the trigger that you want. In this case, we will select Recieve email on Gmail and select create.

Step 7: You’ll see a flow where only Gmail trigger is added. Select the required option. I’ll add a filter where in it processes emails with invoices in the subject line and has an attachment.

Step 8: Add the next step for processing the invoice using the AI builder. Select +New Step and select AI builder. Select “Extract custom information from documents” and select your AI model from the drop down. Add the document type and select attachment content for Form.

Step 9: Select New Action and select Excel. Select add new row as you want to extract information from invoice and add the data into a new row in your Excel document.

Tip: Make sure you create your Excel with proper rows and columns before starting this task here.

Step 10: Input all the locations of your excel, the table and the column data from the drop-down. Here, you will assign the data extracted from the invoice to the correct columns in your excel.

Step 11: Once done, select save and Test the Flow by sending an email with an invoice to the email mentioned in the flow. You can check the activity and the progress of the flow by checking My Flows or Monitor > Cloud Flow Activity.

In order to add more checks, validations and approvals, we need to add more steps.

Some related videos that can help you created sophisticated businesses process flows:

Limitations of using Microsoft Power Automate

Difficult for first-time users

Microsoft Power Automate is easy to use for 2-step connections like connecting Youtube and Twitter, Email and Team chats, etc. But the process gets progressively difficult when you’re trying business process flow. The entire process is set across multiple platforms and might require knowledge like WDL or creating JSON files which is a little confusing for a non-coder.

Need Office 365 to use it

If your organization uses Microsoft Office 365, great, you’ll have most of the tools to start with. But if you don’t have one, you’ll have to either buy one because in order to use Microsoft PowerApps you need a license.  

Need Admin access for Business Process Flows

When you’re creating a business process flow, you’ll be working with Dataverse (known as Common Dataverse earlier) which requires admin rights. You won’t be able to use all the features of Business Process Flows without admin access.

Not a stand-alone application

Microsoft Power Automate is not a stand-alone application. It is available via Microsoft Power Apps.

Security issues

The automated workflows can be used by attackers to download company data, extract passwords, or send malicious applications to your customers. In one instance, Microsoft announced that they found attackers downloading data from MNC organizations for over 200 days. Microsoft Power Automate flows to bypass security gateways which makes it possible for any third person who has access to a single company email, to get access to the entire company’s data.

Difficult to control access to Power Automate

If your company provides an Office 365 license to all the employees, and several people have the ability to create workflows, it becomes difficult to keep license limitations in check.

Data Backup stays for 30 Days

Your workflow data stays in the system only for 30 days. This becomes difficult if you’re using workflows for maintaining audit logs and for compliance-related activities.

Supports only sequential workflows

All the workflows that you’ll create in Microsoft Power Automate have to be sequential and need to follow one step after another. Adding loops is difficult and often requires intensive work.

Limitations on workflows

You can only use 250 actions per workflow (around 90 for free trial users). The limit can get exhausted quickly if you’re using loops to check the conditions again and again.

Non-intuitive navigation for simple tasks

Microsoft Power Automate can be non-intuitive in certain scenarios. For example,

• Connections are added via the option under Data and not the Connector option present in the navigation menu.
• There is no save option. There is a save as option but saves a copy of your existing workflow.
• Error messages are frequent and the error is not accompanied by a proper explanation of the cause of the error. If you save without resolving the errors, you’ll lose the entire process.
• Power automate workflows can run without a warning and there is no option to stop that.

OCR Tool is not advanced

The OCR tools for data extraction under the AI Builder is not as advanced as other tools present in the market. [Source]

Training material & customer support is not up to par

The training material is generalized which makes it difficult for a new time user to navigate. The courses provided by the Microsoft Power Automate platform are also basic. The content created by content experts on Youtube and other channels is better than documentation. The customer support points to the generic articles without diving into the core issue. [Source]

Can’t send output from one flow to the second flow

You cannot add a second flow to continue after your first flow and therefore if you want to add additional steps to your primary flow, you’ll have to create a new workflow from the scratch.

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Nanonets for Business Process Flow Automation

Nanonets is a no-code automation platform that helps businesses automate manual tasks with smart workflows without the IT team. Nanonets provides its users with an intuitive interface, drag and drops modules, and extensive customer support to make business process flow automation a breeze. Furthermore, you can set up Nanonets in 1 day without any external help!

Nanonets is a secure platform with GDPR and SOC2 certification. With role-based access options, you can control who can create workflows and gain access to the company data.

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Here are some features that make Nanonets a perfect choice for Business Process Automation:

• Modern UI visual editor with drag and drop elements to create workflows of your choice
• Advanced OCR API which extracts data with >95% accuracy.
• Integrates with 5000+ applications via API and Zapier.
• Strictly no-code environment – No need to write a single code to automate business process
• Available on cloud and on-premise hosting options for your requirements.
• Maintain data logs for every action taken on the platform and be ready for audit every time.
• Deliver automatic updates to relevant stakeholders directly in their inboxes
• Role-based access control to restrict platform access and improve security
• No hidden charges
• 24×7 online chat support and personal client managers
• Choose from pre-built templates or create your own in <15 minutes

Nanonets is rated 4.9 on Capterra and G2. Over 1000+ global enterprises use Nanonets to automate manual document processes. Nanonets can be used across industries like finance, logistics, banking, BPO to automate processes like

• Customer Onboarding
• KYC Processes
• Accounts Payable
• Document Verification
• Data Extraction
• Data Enhancement
• Approvals
• Expense Management
• Payment Automation
• Document Management
• Digitizing Documents

And more.

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If you work with invoices, and receipts or worry about ID verification, check out Nanonets online OCR or PDF text extractor to extract text from PDF documents for free. Click below to learn more about Nanonets Enterprise Automation Solution.

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Invoice automation on Nanonets vs Power Automate

We’ve already seen the steps to automate invoice processing on Power Automate in the tutorial mentioned above. Let’s see how to do it on Nanonets.

Tutorial: Automated Invoice Processing on Nanonets

Step 1: Sign in to your account

Sign in to your Nanonets account. You’ll see a screen similar to the one shown in the figure below.

Focus on the bottom part of the screen which says, choose to get started. Select “Invoices” Pre-built extractor from the screen.

Step 2: Add the invoices to the pre-trained invoice model

Once you select the Invoices, and pre-built extractor model, you’ll see a screen like the one shown in the figure below. You’ll have to upload your invoices in your next step.

Select the +Upload Files button to import your invoices. Nanonets allows you to upload your invoices from Email, DropBox, Google Drive, your Device, via Zapier or create your own API integration without writing a single code. Select the data source of your choice and upload invoices.

Once you select your invoices and select upload, wait for a minute or two while the files are being uploaded. When uploaded, you will see all your files on the app like this:

If you want to upload more files, select the +Upload Files button at the bottom.

Step 3: Check all the labels

The invoice model extracts all the necessary information from your invoices. You can check all the data and their labels when you click any file.

Once you open the file, you can see all the extracted data, their labels, and their position in the document on the left-hand side screen.

Step 4: Approve the files

Once you’re done with all the changes, approve the file to save all of your changes. Once you do that, you’ll see that the particular file is verified. There is a check in front of the document under the Manual Review column.

You can choose to manually review all the invoices or go ahead and extract the data from the files.

To extract data, select the Download Extracted Data Button on the bottom of the screen. You’ll see a screen like this. Select the fields that you want in you extracted file or you can select export all fields to extract all the extracted data.

Once you’ve selected the fields you want to export, scroll down to select the file type.

Alternatively, you can also use auto export workflows which will send extracted data to the selected data sources automatically.

From the Workflow option on the left, you can add extra checks for your invoice processing model.

Enhancing Data Quality

You can enhance the extracted data with available options.

Automate Approval

Add steps to add approval stakeholders, the matching conditions for invoices from your database, validate vendors, and flag error invoices based on the rules.

Export Options

You can export your data in various formats and connect Nanonets with the software of your choice with API integrations.

Nanonets vs Power Automate

We’ve seen how to perform a similar task on Nanonets and Power Automate. Through the steps, we saw some differences in how the platforms operate. Here, in the table below, we will discuss the compare Microsoft Power Automate and Nanonets platforms.

	Nanonets	Power Automate
User-friendly	Very easy to use with a visual editor and intuitive interface.	Can be confusing for first-time users as multiple steps are performed across different platforms eg. Power Automate, Power Apps, Dataverse
Coding Expertise	No-code platform. No need to write a single line of code.	Drag and drop but across multiple apps can get confusing
Free Trial	Yes. A forever free model is also present.	Free model but you need to work with a Microsoft environment and limited apps.
Security	Secure platform with SOC2 and GDPR certification, role-based access, and a controlled data environment.	Secure platform but can be used by attackers to extract company information as flows bypass security requirements.
Accessibility	Cloud data is easily accessible by the users on the go.	The data stored in the cloud can be accessed by the users via application.
Complexity	With drag and drop options, it is easy-to-use software. Even all complex workflows can be created without any code.	Difficult to automate complex processes. Would require a developer to set up complex processes.
Integrations	Can be integrated with 5000+ apps via Zapier.	Can integrate with 500+ connectors till now.
OCR Capabilities	A high-quality OCR API with an accuracy of over 95%	Great OCR capabilities
Business process workflows	Can be used to automate manual parts of business processes like documents, approval, incident management, etc.	Can be used to automate data capture processes with front-end apps, and automate document processes and approvals.
Pricing	Transparent And Easy Pricing Plans. Plans start from $499 per month with over $0.1 to process every additional document. Custom Options are available.	Four ways to get access to Microsoft Power Automate. There are multiple licensing options.  Pay per flow starts at $500 per month with additional addons for OCR capabilities ($500 per month) and RPA capabilities ($100 per flow per month) which add to the price.
Support	24×7 chat support, email support, and a separate customer manager to resolve all the queries.	No live chat support. Direct support options start from $180/month.

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Is Power Automate a correct choice for you and your business?

Whether Microsoft Power Automate is a good choice for your business depends on multiple factors mentioned below:

Availability of Developers in your team

A non-coder might not be able to use Microsoft Power Automate at its fullest capability. You’ll need to allocate some developer resources to carry out complex operations, fix errors, integrate tools, and maintain variables as required.

Budget

Microsoft Power Automate plans under per-user and per-flow categories. Per User, plans have low performance. Per-flow plans have the highest performance, but the plan costs around $100/flow/month. This price will increase with add-ons like AI builder and additional RPA capabilities. If we consider 10 flows with AI builder, the price reaches $1500/month. And it keeps increasing as you can’t control who creates a new workflow.

In contrast, tools like Nanonets cost $499/month. Check out Nanonet’s pricing plans.

Requirements

Do you need to connect simple tools or do you want to carry out complex tasks? Do you need it to automate paper document processes, build front-end apps for employees, connect business software, etc? Based on your requirement, you need to evaluate other tools along with Microsoft Power Automate, rate your experience, and select the alternative.

You can consider easy-to-use automation software like Nanonets. Start your free trial or request a free product tour.

Microsoft Environment

If you’re already using the Microsoft environment, shifting to Power Automate can be an easy choice as Microsoft Power Automate integrates easily with existing Microsoft products. It can be a little trickier to connect other apps, and sometimes the connectors don’t work well and you might end up losing data.

IT team supervision

In order to prevent license over-charges, IT teams need to supervise account activity, stay alert on who is creating workflows and try to keep checking for malicious workflows. IT team needs to actively carry out these tasks to prevent phishing activities.

Strong Security

Like we discussed above, Microsoft Power Automate has some security breaches. In order to prevent this from happening, you need to have a very strong security check, an active team looking out for anomalies, and monitoring account usage on a regular basis.

If you have dedicated resources, Microsoft Power Automate might be a good choice for you.

Requirement of OCR capabilities

Microsoft Power Automate has OCR API under AI builder. The OCR model is not on par with other vendors in the market like Nanonets. If you are heavily reliant on the OCR features to automate your manual processes, you can opt for options like Nanonets.

Use OCR software to extract data with >95% accuracy. Start your free trial or request a free product tour.

Time to Implement

With admin requirements, the implementation of Microsoft Power Automate can be delayed. If you want to get started right away with no delays, this might not be the right choice for your business.

Even with the above-mentioned pointers, your team must evaluate Microsoft Power Automate on the basis of all your requirements and then come to a solution. According to the pointers, Microsoft Power Automate might be a good choice for organizations using a Microsoft environment, having a lot of IT staff to overlook implementation, fewer flows, and high budgets.  

Conclusion

Business process automation will become a necessity for businesses in the future due to all the improved efficiency, productivity, and security. The market is still in a nascent stage and will improve over time with better features and improvements. Businesses need to start adopting the technology now to reap the benefits in the future.

In this blog, we evaluated two software, Microsoft Power Automate, and Nanonets for business process automation. We saw tutorials on how to perform invoice automation on both platforms.

Microsoft Power Automate has a lot to offer to enterprises from powerful integrations to enhanced connectivity options (more like Zapier!). As the software continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see what the new additions to the platform will be.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Microsoft Power Automate for free?

Microsoft Power is not free for all users. You can use the free version to access the Microsoft Power Automate platform with limited capabilities. The platform is free if your organization has access via Microsoft Office 365 subscription.

What is Power Automate vs Microsoft Flow?

Microsoft Flow is the older version of Microsoft Power Automate. On the branding side, there is no difference between Microsft Flow and Microsoft Power Automate but there are some differences between the two platforms if we look at some features.

Microsoft Power Automate has cloud deployment and does not overburden your systems as Microsoft Flow did. Microsoft Power Automate is a low code environment as compared to its earlier counterpart, Microsoft Flow. Microsoft Flow was more driven towards creating rule-based workflows whereas Microsoft Power Automate is geared towards enhanced unattended robotic process automation in organizations.

What can Microsoft Power Automate automate?

Microsoft Power Automate can automate any data sync between 500+ different data sources, create front-end apps for efficient data collection, automate manual processes and send real-time notifications to required stakeholders. Microsoft Power Automate can automate any process as required.

Yes, Power Automate is a Robotic process automation tool. It can be used to automate anything from a data sync to complex multi-step processes like invoice management, approvals, and more.

What is the difference between Power Apps and Power Automate?

Microsoft Power apps is geared towards creating a front-end User interface for efficient data collection by using connectors. Microsoft Power Automate gives users the ability to use the data from the interface to carry out further activities like storing, analyzing, or enhancing.

Is Power Automate the right choice for small businesses?

Microsoft Power Automate requires a lot of resources to carry out automated processes perfectly. Given the high budgets, developer requirements, and advanced security requirements, it might not be the best choice for small businesses.

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