Process automation on the Microsoft 365 your organization already pays for
Power Automate cloud and desktop RPA orchestrate your complete processes —capture, validation, approval, recording, and notification— within your own tenant, with a record of every execution.
One workflow where there are currently several email inboxes.
Input
Detects the email in Outlook and retrieves the attachment.
Extraction and archiving
Reads the data and archives it in SharePoint.
Approval
The responsible person decides in Teams; the decision is recorded.
Recording
Writes the entry in Excel, a list, or your accounting system.
Notification
Confirms with the external party and notifies the responsible department.
Two parts of this workflow have their own pages: when the destination system has no API, a desktop robot handles that step — see when to use RPA and when to use a connector—; when the process starts with a Teams conversation instead of email, the same tenant supports an agent built with Copilot Studio.
Frequently asked questions
Before we start
Are additional Power Automate licenses required?
Standard connectors use your existing Microsoft 365 licensing; premium connectors, RPA and consumption by a Copilot Studio agent are reviewed with your IT department during assessment. When licensing makes a self-hosted engine preferable, see the full analysis in our criterion-by-criterion comparison of Power Automate and n8n.
