Power Automate in Teams — Step-by-Step Guide & Transcript

[00:00] Power Automate is an application that's available within Microsoft 365 and is essential to use in Microsoft Teams because we automate a number of tasks for us. With Power Automate, you can create custom workflows that integrate with Microsoft Teams and other applications.

[00:16] So let's take a look at some of the Power Automate options that you have within Microsoft Teams now. There are a couple of ways of working with Power Automate within Teams. You can go to your apps button on the left toolbar to find your workflows that Microsoft has available for us.

[00:31] Or you can actually pin the Power Automate application to your toolbar on the left-hand side. So I'll show you the apps first, how to get there, and then I'll show you how to pin Power Automate to your left toolbar here.

[00:45] So let's click on apps. And from apps, I'm going to have you go down to the very bottom where it says workflows. and in workflows these are some of the power automate and workflows that have been created for you by Microsoft or partners of Microsoft and if you click on all templates you see all of the

[01:00] templates that are available to you that are workflows and then of course you've broken it down based on different kinds of things you might want to automate like approvals, productivity, social media and so on. So we'll see a few of these things in a few minutes when we look at

[01:16] the Power Automate a different way as well. So you can use this method if you want for what we're about to do, or you can use the method I'm about to show you. So to get the Power Automate button showing on the left-hand side, you're going to click on the three dots, and then you're going

[01:30] to search for Power Automate. And when you see it in the list, you're going to click on it to add it in there. Now, if you've never used Power Automate or Flows before, you're going to have to log in, and log into your SharePoint account and your Microsoft 365 Office account,

[01:46] which would be the same login, by the way. So once you have the Power Automate working on the left-hand side here with your login, then what you'll see is at the very top, you'll see any flows that you've created. And then further down, you'll see popular templates.

[02:02] So these are very similar, if not some of them being exactly the same, as what we saw in the apps back then there for workflows So let just figure out our way around here a little bit in terms of how we would create the flow based on some of the templates So I going to go to the very bottom where it says see all team templates So what

[02:19] Microsoft starts us with is the popular templates that we can create like how to follow up on a message, creating a task in Planner from something that's been posted in Teams or from Forms, starting approval when a new file is added. I've

[02:34] I've moved on to top picks, and I just want to show you a couple of things in here that could be of help to us. You have an option to save a message to OneNote. So again, if someone is posting something within the team's channel and you're thinking,

[02:47] oh, we should add that to our OneNote notebook page, then you can have just one click for you to be able to do that rather than having to copy and paste it somewhere or link it in somewhere.

[02:59] I have used a few of these workflows already in my team, So I'm just going to show you how they actually accomplish what they set out to do, and then we're going to create one from scratch. What I'm going to show you to start with is within the social media channel of the marketing team.

[03:13] I'm using the to-do workflow so that I can create tasks, and when any of my team members say, hey, we should do a post on this. So I'm going to go to new conversation, type in to-do, and then what I want my task to say.

[03:26] What to do is the trigger that is within the post, and that's going to create the actual planner task with whatever words I say after it. So if I click on the send, it will create the task.

[03:38] Okay, so it shows right away that Power Automate kicked in. Tasks have been created. I can click here to view the task. Actually, what I'll do is go to tasks for social, because that's where it should have created it. And there you see posts about workflows and teams.

[03:52] So it puts it in the area where there's no bucket, but I can certainly move it around now to the appropriate place. Right? So let's create a flow from scratch now.

[04:04] I'm going to go to Power Automate. This is where you see the flows I already have working, including that to-do one. If you see follow-up flow is one I already have working, I'd like to show you this one because it is very simple.

[04:16] So I just going to turn the status of this one off And in fact I going to go over to the three dots here and just delete it So we start from scratch And follow up on a message is right here

[04:28] under the popular template. So I'm going to click on that one. And you can leave it as follow up on a message as the actual flow name, if you like. I'm going to say follow up on post.

[04:43] Just to make it different. And I am logged into my team, my 365. That's why I have the green check marks, otherwise it will prompt you to log in. And so now I'm going to say create flow. And now it's telling me how to use it.

[04:55] So the flow has been added, so it's suggesting go to the more options at the upper right corner of the message and then choose follow up on the post. So let's do that. So remember mine is called follow up on the post or a chat. We'll go back to Teams.

[05:07] We're in performance management. Let's just go to this message here and let's go to more actions and see more, because I'm still not seen it and follow up on a post. So my name needs a little bit long here, but let's just

[05:21] use that. And so now it wants to know when. So let's say I want to be notified on the 20th. I can pick a time to be notified and then notes for a reminder. So it's actually going to highlight

[05:34] that particular post on this date. It's going to give me a pop-up in Teams and it's going to highlight that post so I see it as my reminder. Okay. And that's how easy that follow-up one is. Now, another popular automation that you might want to have is the one that says, when a new file is added, notify me.

[05:53] So, you can have it notify you by email, or you can have it notify you within the team. If it's within the team, then everybody gets notified. And so, here is an example of it working within my human resources team in the general channel.

[06:06] When a file is added, so it says a new file is added, I get all of these notifications. And it also lets you go to that file really quickly to take a look at it. And that's all it's doing, it's just telling you, hey, your file's been added, it's not

[06:19] asking you to approve it or anything, it's just saying that this has happened. So that's one of those ones that we can quickly automate and create for ourselves. So that happening within the Human Resources team that is not happening necessarily in any other team Whereas that follow workflow that we just did is really available to us everywhere So some of them are universal

[06:40] throughout teams and some of them are based on the team and the channel. Okay, let's do a workflow from scratch where it affects the recruiting channel of our human resources team. And so let's say that when we add a file in here, we want to use that approvals workflow so that it actually

[06:58] prompt for that approval and it also makes a message in the post okay so if I go into power automate on the left hand side I'm going to go to the very bottom where it says see all team templates I'm going to click on approval on the left side because that's part of what I want my flow to do and then I want to use

[07:14] this template here okay so I'm going to say approval next and then we're going to say which site we're monitoring so that is the HR site the LISP we're

[07:26] monitoring is actually the documents area and the folder we're looking for within the documents area is if we go to share documents and recruiting we're looking for really anything that happens within that entire channel of files and

[07:40] now who do we want this approval to be sent to so this will send an email message to that approver and it can be more than one person as you can see okay so I have it sending to the info address for me so I'm going to click on create

[07:55] create flow. Alright, it says it's done, so now let's go test it out. I'm in the files area of my recruiting channel. I'm going to drag in a file and now I'm going to wait for that email to appear. It might take a few minutes. Once it does, I'll show it to you

[08:11] right away. Alright, so here is the email that I received that says review new SharePoint file for Connie resume. So it's telling me the file name and then it's giving me an option to approve it or reject it.

[08:24] All right, so when you click on approve, then that will show that file as being approved for you as well. So this is one example of many that you can use within your team to create a system that helps you

[08:37] work more effectively with the information that you're sharing. So give one of these a try and see what you can automate in your team. Thanks.