Workflow Automation with Microsoft Power Automate: Design and scale AI-powered cloud and desktop workflows using low-code automation 3rd Edition

Looking for a reliable, real-world guide to Power Automate? Industry experts consistently point to this book:

“Most common questions I get is: ‘Can you recommend a great Power Automate book?’ My answer is simple: Workflow Automation with Microsoft Power Automate (Third Edition)”— Thomas Rice

“The book doesn’t just teach features; it helps you think like a workflow designer”— Steve Miles

Free with your book: DRM-free PDF version + access to Packt's next-gen Reader*

Book Description

If you’re using Power Automate today, you’ve probably noticed that it doesn’t work quite the way it used to. The interface keeps evolving, AI shows up in new places, and features are rolled out faster than most documentation can keep up.

The third edition of Workflow Automation with Microsoft Power Automate is written for this reality. It focuses on practical, low-code workflows that help you automate real work using cloud flows, desktop automation, and Microsoft’s latest AI capabilities.

You’ll start with clear, step-by-step tutorials to automate everyday tasks across tools like Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Slack, and more — because not every workflow lives entirely inside Microsoft Teams. You’ll work with approvals, Forms, databases, and shared flows, and learn how to handle more advanced scenarios like parallel logic and multi-step processes.

The book also goes deeper into desktop RPA, showing how to automate legacy applications, web interfaces, and even Access databases using Power Automate Desktop. On the AI side, you’ll explore AI Builder, sentiment analysis, Copilot, and generative AI workflows, with practical examples that bring AI-generated content directly into your automations.

With 7 new chapters added, this edition helps you move from “I built a flow” to “this automation actually works in the real world.

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Who this book is for

If you automate work in Microsoft 365, this book is for you. Designed for information workers, citizen developers, and power users, with basic Microsoft 365 familiarity assumed.

What you will learn

• Build cloud flows using triggers, connectors, and actions
• Use Copilot and generative AI to create and edit flows
• Automate desktop tasks with Power Automate for Desktop
• Create approval processes for Teams, Slack, and email
• Connect Power Automate to Dataverse, Forms, and SQL
• Implement error handling, monitoring, and troubleshooting
• Govern and scale automations using best practices

Table of Contents

1. Introducing Microsoft Power Automate
2. Getting Started with Power Automate
3. Working with Email
4. Copying Files
5. Creating Button Flows
6. Generating Push Notifications
7. Working with Shared Flows
8. Working with Conditions
9. Understanding Expressions and Functions
10. Getting Started with Approvals
11. Working with Multiple Approvals
12. Posting Approvals to Teams
13. Using Databases
14. Working with Microsoft Forms
15. Posting to Slack
16. Accepting User Input
17. Automating Entra ID
18. Introducing Robotic Process Automation
19. Contributing to an Access Database with RPA
20. Automating Webpages with RPA
21. Introducing AI Models and Generative AI
22. Creating a Sentiment Analysis Flow