Centric Consulting’s Microsoft Power Platform expert covered how to use the tool to optimize workflows at SIM Cleveland’s latest chapter meeting co-hosted by Akron-Area AITP.
Citizen development strategy has gained momentum in corporate IT for several years. Simply stated, it makes tech tools accessible to business lines that empower non-developers to create their own “mini apps.” Those apps can have a variety of purposes, but generally, people use them to automate repetitive, non-strategic – but important – operational tasks and activities.
Recently, Centric Consulting sponsored and spoke at a Society for Information Management Cleveland chapter meeting co-hosted by the Akron Area Association of IT Professionals that focused on optimizing workflows with Microsoft Power Automate. The event drew over 30 local CIOs, IT leaders, and practitioners to learn about automation opportunities using the Microsoft Power Platform.
At the event, Centric’s Power Platform Lead Brit Kwait, shared her insights on Power Automate, including an overview, use cases, value, and recommendations for successful deployment. Here are a few highlights from her presentation.
About Power Automate
Investing in standard Microsoft licenses contains a suite of tools that allow anyone to modernize how they work. Power Platform is the world’s most complete set of integrated, low-code development tools. Highly scalable with built-in security, running on the global, enterprise-grade Microsoft Cloud, it enables business, IT and dev teams to collaborate to:
- Automate and build new workflows that streamline secure and scalable operations.
- Add advanced functionality to existing pages or create new ones using both low-code and traditional code.
- Go from insight to action in minutes with visualization tools and dashboards.
- Create and manage powerful chatbots without the need for code or AI expertise.
Perhaps the most powerful of these is Power Automate, which offers desktop, process and data automation capabilities without writing a single line of code. To learn more about the basics of the tool check out our Microsoft Power Hour webinar featuring Kwait’s expertise.
Typical Use Cases
Access to Power Automate is integrated with Teams and SharePoint to quickly start building notifications, approvals and administration right where you need it.
Make.powerautomate.com offers hundreds of pre-built templates to inspire, teach and initiate automation from and across dozens of source systems, including Salesforce, Box and all social media platforms.
Power Automate is not only good for business, it’s good for people. By automating the boring and mundane, people can focus on the more interesting and challenging aspects of their work. They can experiment with new ideas without worrying about breaking anything or wasting resources.
Rules for Success
Would you hand over your unlocked phone to your kids? Rules of the road provide guidance and guardrails over what is and isn’t permitted when it comes to any technology and its data, and Power Platform is no different.
To avoid compromising company data, ensuring the tools boost efficiency, and thinking of ongoing support and maintenance for the solutions built by your end users, establishing real governance must be a top priority before embarking on organizational change to embrace low-/no-code platforms.
When working with this technology, Centric’s experts often see the ROI ruins left from construction on shaky foundations. Because of this, IT awareness is part of every engagement.
Conclusion
After Kwait’s presentation on Power Automate best practices and use cases, the meeting featured a panel of IT leaders who shared their experiences and practical advice to raise the audience’s understanding of the Power Platform’s value proposition and key success metrics.
Centric was proud to sponsor this engaging event joint-hosted by two of the region’s prominent IT organizations and share our expertise with an audience of executives and practitioners.
Brad Nellis, President of Akron-Area AITP, who attended the event, observed, “It was great to see IT leaders and staff members come together to network and learn from this presentation. They came away with excellent information to spur citizen-led automation efforts in their own companies.”
Read more about the event here.
