Power Automate for Everyday Work

COURSE CONTENT

2 Days (14 Hours) · Beginner to Intermediate · In-house at your office or online · 100% HRD Corp claimable programmes

Every office has small tasks that repeat all day. Someone chases an approval by email. Someone copies form responses into Excel. Someone opens the same files every month, copies the same numbers and saves them in the same folder. None of it is hard, but it adds up to hours every week.

This two-day programme teaches staff to automate that work themselves, without writing code. Day one uses Power Automate cloud flows across Microsoft 365: Outlook, Excel, Teams, SharePoint and Forms. You start by describing the task to Copilot in plain English, then check and refine the flow it drafts.

Day two moves to Power Automate for desktop, for work that lives in Excel files, shared folders, web portals and older applications. You record and build desktop flows, add logic, and learn how to test them and keep them running. You leave with working flows and a list of three tasks from your own job to automate next.

What participants will be able to do

• Recognise a task worth automating, and choose between a cloud flow and a desktop flow.
• Build a working cloud flow with Copilot, and refine it by hand when needed.
• Use variables, conditions and loops so a flow responds to the data it receives.
• Connect Outlook, Excel, Teams, SharePoint and Forms into one automated process.
• Run approvals and notifications without chasing people by email.
• Record and build desktop flows that handle files, Excel workbooks, email and web pages.
• Test and troubleshoot a flow step by step, and understand how self-healing can help.
• Share a flow responsibly and know when a request should go to IT instead.

Programme outline

Module 1: Why Automate, and What Has Changed

• What Power Automate is and where it sits in Microsoft 365
• Cloud flows and desktop flows: what each one is for
• From templates to Copilot: describing the task in plain English
• Where automation fits in everyday admin work
• A simple guide for choosing cloud or desktop
• Licences at an awareness level: standard and premium connectors
• What should not be automated
• Picking the first task to automate

Hands-on activity

• List five repeat tasks from your own job and rate them for automation
• Use the decision guide to choose cloud or desktop for each

Module 2: Building Your First Flow

• Describing a task to Copilot and reviewing the draft
• Triggers, actions and connectors
• Starting from a template or a blank flow
• Finding your way around the flow designer
• Dynamic content: using values from earlier steps
• Testing a flow and reading the run history
• Turning flows on and off safely
• Naming flows and steps so others understand them

Hands-on activity

• Build a flow that emails you when a form is submitted
• Test it, read the run history and fix a planted error

Module 3: Making Flows Smarter: Variables and Logic

• Variables in plain terms
• Conditions: if this, then that
• Switch for several possible values
• Looping over rows in a table or form responses
• Working with dates and times
• Handling empty or unexpected values
• Keeping logic simple and readable
• Checking results before a flow goes live

Hands-on activity

• Send a different follow-up depending on a form answer
• Loop through an Excel table and email a reminder for overdue items

Module 4: Connecting Your Everyday Tools

• Outlook: send, read and file emails
• Excel Online: add, update and read table rows
• Teams: post messages and adaptive cards
• SharePoint: lists and document libraries
• Approvals: start, wait and act on the result
• The Power Automate mobile app for approvals on the go
• Scheduled flows for daily and weekly tasks
• Sharing a cloud flow with a colleague

Hands-on activity

• Build a claim approval flow from Forms to Approvals to Excel and Teams
• Approve a request from the mobile app

Module 5: Getting Started with Power Automate for Desktop

• What a desktop flow can do that a cloud flow cannot
• Installing and opening Power Automate for desktop
• The designer: actions, variables and the flow canvas
• The recorder: building a flow by doing the task once
• Running, pausing and stopping a desktop flow
• Where desktop flows are saved and how they are shared

Hands-on activity

• Record a flow that opens a folder and renames a file
• Run it again and watch each step

Module 6: Everyday Desktop Automation

• Files and folders: back up, rename, move and organise
• Excel: open, read, write, save and close
• Outlook: read and file messages that follow a pattern
• Extracting data from a web page without code
• Filling in web forms
• Working with PDFs and text files
• Waiting for windows and pages to load
• Building a flow from several small steps

Hands-on activity

• Combine monthly statement files into one Excel summary
• Pull a small table from a web page into Excel

Module 7: Adding Logic: Conditions, Loops and Message Boxes

• If and else in a desktop flow
• For each loops over files and rows
• Variables that carry values between steps
• Message boxes to ask the user or show a result
• Handling errors inside a flow
• Subflows to keep a long flow organised

Hands-on activity

• Process every file in a folder and move each one when done
• Add a message box that confirms how many files were processed

Module 8: Keeping Automations Working

• Why desktop flows break when a screen changes
• Self-healing and repair with Copilot, and where they are available
• Testing and troubleshooting step by step
• Calling a desktop flow from a cloud flow
• Sharing a flow responsibly: who can see and edit it
• Documentation and handover
• When a request has outgrown an end-user build
• Your personal automation backlog

Hands-on activity

• Break a flow on purpose and fix it
• Write your backlog: three real tasks to automate first

What you leave with

You leave with working cloud flows for form notifications and approvals, a desktop flow that combines files into an Excel summary, and your own list of three tasks to automate next. More importantly, you can build, test and maintain simple automations yourself. For the company, routine approvals and reports move faster, fewer steps are missed, and staff time goes to work that needs a person.

Who should attend

• Staff who repeat the same steps in email, Excel, Forms or shared files
• Admin, HR and finance staff who handle approvals, claims and records
• Executives who prepare the same report every week or month
• Operations and sales support staff
• Team leads who want their team to spend less time on routine tasks
• Microsoft 365 users with no coding or IT background
• Not aimed at IT staff building automation for others