Global Content Lead - Tech & Consulting
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Through Power Automate, businesses can automate workflows for a quicker turnaround of tasks that can be easily performed by bots. The workflows begin with a ‘trigger’ which is a predefined event that initiates a response. Once the workflow is triggered, tasks defined in the workflow are automatically performed with the help of robotic process automation technology.
Below are six processes that businesses should automate to achieve operational efficiency.
Save e-mail attachments automatically
Trying to find email attachments sent to clients during meetings is a bottleneck that you must also have faced in your work life. Professionals, especially account managers, must spend time shuffling through emails to access the data that they need, the time that can be better spent analyzing and strategizing around the same data. Alternatively, when automation is used this bottleneck can be eliminated altogether. Attachments can automatically be extracted and saved to a relevant SharePoint folder whenever an email is sent to a client. This way relevant employees will be able to easily track and access attachments through the document library created.
Automate holiday requests and their approvals
Everyone needs a vacation at some point in a year and automating holiday requests and approvals can only make this process easier and less time-consuming Through, Power Automate teams can digitally submit leave requests to trigger the respective workflow in a systematic fashion. The managers can be immediately notified through the system and timely responses to the notification can be submitted without unnecessary delays. This way, managers can track leave requests properly and there will be no requests lost in the communication process.
Grant access to crucial documents and notify via Teams
Approvals for critical documents are a very time-consuming process due to the delayed communication and excessive following up required. Power Automate can be used to automate this process by sending a request to the management whenever a document is uploaded. Once the document is reviewed, relevant team members are notified.
Giving access to crucial documents will allow teams to work efficiently and it will also decrease the dependency of the managers and leads. Timely notifications will inform team members about the status of documents and decrease the time spent waiting for manual approvals.
Push notifications for important emails
No employee wants to miss an important business email that can define their performance. Through powerful automations, you can receive an extra email/mobile alert every time you get important emails, especially those from your boss. This will allow employees to timely reply to their supervisors and ensure seamless reporting of tasks.
Cherry on top, you can make sure that you are always available for any queries and assignments from important clients whose projects need urgent attention.
Stay on top of your pipelines
In many businesses, the decision-makers need to get updated on the tasks being executed on a regular basis. Going through complex reports takes a lot of time as compared to a weekly summary of tasks. Employees also need a lot of time to make those comprehensive reports and this time can be used in more productive tasks.
Through automation, higher management such as directors, managers, and supervisors can receive a weekly automated email featuring an overview of all tasks being executed in the business organization. This ensures that the management is always knowledgeable about its pipeline nothing is left unattended.
Monitor social media mentions
Social Media teams must regularly monitor social mentions with keywords related to the company and its products. This task becomes quite distracting and time-consuming when one is working on social media because it can take up a lot of time as monitoring all company posts on social media is a painstakingly lengthy process. Through Power Automate, managers can create workflows so that every time a social media post with a certain keyword is uploaded, a push notification is triggered to notify the team. Other triggers can also be added such as sending out a notification when a post is shared/liked a certain number of times. This functionality will allow social media teams to effectively gauge the impact of their branding efforts on social media.
Microsoft Power Platform connector library
The interesting aspect of Power Platform is that it is not restricted to linking with only Microsoft products such as Dynamics 365, SharePoint, Power BI (Business Intelligence), Outlook, Teams, etc. It comes with a connector library through which businesses can connect with other applications using a diverse range of 3rd Party connectors. The most popular 3rd party connectors include Twitter, Mailchimp, Asana, DocuSign, Adobe Sign, Eventbrite, Google Drive, Trello, and FreshBooks.
These connectors tremendously expand the automation and development possibilities within a business organization.
Conclusion
As organizations continue to process a tremendous amount of data, they get tasks that have to be tackled on a daily basis. The more tasks there are, the harder it becomes to reduce error margins and delays. Having an inefficient business system adds further insult to injury. By adding intuitive software such as Microsoft Power Platform to business processes, companies can automate tasks so their teams have more time to work on the company’s growth and position the business in the optimum position to compete in the modern competitive market.
