Microsoft’s Power Automate Desktop is software that automates recurring tasks. If you want to streamline repetitive tasks, consider looking into Power Automate. What are some examples of tasks you can automate? For example, if you need to move data between two systems that are not similar, and the only way to do this seems to be to copy and paste, maybe Power Automate could help. Power Automate is similar to using a macro in Microsoft Excel except that instead of being limited to Excel, you can write a macro using any application on your computer.

To use Power Automate Desktop (PAD) you need either Windows 10 Professional or Enterprise and you need a work or school account. With Windows 11, PAD is already included.

Learn with YouTube

Here’s a YouTube video by Kevin Stratvert called How to use Microsoft Power Automate – Tutorial for Beginners. It’s about 17 minutes long. For a good Power Automate video introduction have a look at Kevin Stratvert’s video called How to use Microsoft Power Automate Desktop – Full tutorial. Here’s a video from Leila Gharani called Learn to Use Power Automate with Examples | Create Bulk PDF Files | Planner to Outlook. Here’s a video on renaming files, automatically. The video is by Leila and it’s called Easily Rename All Files In Folders (NOOB vs PRO) & rename files based on an Excel table with PAD.

Use Excel & Power Automate | Record Working Hours from Phone & Update LinkedIn from Excel! by Leila Gharani. it looks at two examples. 1. Record your working hours. You’ll press a button on your mobile when you start and end your work. The time you started and ended your work will automatically be recorded in Excel.
2. You’ll create a LinkedIn post directly from your Excel file!