The best Power Automate examples automate work your team already does by hand: saving email attachments to SharePoint, routing approvals through Microsoft Teams, and flagging important emails the moment they land. Below are 7 practical Microsoft Power Automate flow examples you can build from prebuilt templates, plus flow types, pricing, and sample projects that extend your workflow automation.
Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow) is Microsoft's workflow automation tool inside the Power Platform. Automated workflows are called flows. Every flow starts with a trigger, a defined event that sets one or more actions in motion. Each example below starts from an existing template, so you can have it running in minutes.
Key takeaways
- Power Automate connects Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and third-party apps through more than 1,400 prebuilt, certified connectors (Microsoft).
- Cloud flows handle app-to-app workflow automation. Power Automate desktop adds robotic process automation (RPA) for legacy apps and files.
- All 7 examples in this list start from a free Microsoft template. No code required.
- Standard connectors ship with Microsoft 365. Premium connectors and attended RPA start at $15 per user per month (Microsoft pricing).
- Unattended RPA needs the Process plan at $150 per bot per month; Hosted Process with a Microsoft-managed VM is $215.
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Example 1: Automatically Save Email Attachments to SharePoint
Who this benefits: Account Managers
When a client emails an attachment, Power Automate saves it to the right SharePoint folder automatically. No more digging through your inbox to find a file. Every document lands in the correct library the moment it arrives.
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Example 2: Manage Vacation Requests and Approvals
Who this benefits: Employees and Managers
Time-off requests are a classic business process automation win. When an employee submits a leave request, Power Automate sends an approval to their manager, then notifies the employee of the decision. The whole loop runs without a single forwarded email.
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Example 3: Request Document Approvals and Get Notified in Microsoft Teams
Who this benefits: Project Managers
Critical documents need sign-off before they go out, and chasing approvers eats hours. With this flow, uploading a new document to SharePoint requests approval automatically. Approvers get the request in Microsoft Teams, action it there, and you get a notification the moment it clears.
At project kickoff, that means every deliverable moves through review without a single follow-up email. Generate the documents, add them to SharePoint, and the flow alerts the right people that approval is needed.
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Example 4: Get a Push Notification for Emails from Your Boss
Who this benefits: All staff members
Never miss an important email from your boss again. When their message arrives, Power Automate sends a push notification to your phone so you can respond fast. This template needs a Microsoft 365 email address and the Power Automate mobile app.
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Example 5: Get a Weekly Email of New Dynamics 365 Opportunities
Who this benefits: Sales Directors, Managers, and Representatives
Each week, this flow emails you a summary of every new opportunity logged in Microsoft Dynamics 365. You stay on top of the pipeline and nothing slips through.
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Example 6: Receive an Email when a Power BI Alert Fires
Who this benefits: Support Teams
Send any audience an email when a Power BI data alert triggers. Warn the support team when ticket volume passes 100. Alert sales managers when ten or more leads sit untouched for two weeks. Nudge reps when a target is at risk and the deadline is five days out.
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Example 7: Monitor Your Social Media Mentions
Who this benefits: Social Media Managers
Collecting popular posts that mention your brand on X (formerly Twitter) is slow manual work. Using the X connector, Power Automate can send a push notification when a post with a target keyword is reposted more than 20 times. Since June 2023 the X connector no longer offers a free shared connection: it requires a Bring Your Own Application setup on a paid X Developer tier before it will authenticate. Once that setup is in place, brand monitoring runs itself. This template needs the Power Automate mobile app.
What Is Power Automate Used For? Workflow Automation in Practice
What is Power Automate used for day to day? Workflow automation and business process automation across the apps a company already runs: approvals, notifications, data entry, document routing, and scheduled reports. Cloud flows move data between services through connectors. Desktop flows automate clicks and keystrokes in legacy applications that have no API. With Copilot in Power Automate, you describe a flow in plain language and get a working draft back (Microsoft). Flows are also the plumbing of AI operations: they hand data to AI agents, run AI prompts as steps, and carry out the actions an agent recommends. If a task follows rules, Power Automate can run it. If a task needs judgment, AI operations flows hand it to an agent and execute the result.
What Can Power Automate Do? Cloud Flows vs Power Automate Desktop
What can Power Automate do beyond these templates? It depends on the flow type.
A cloud flow is a workflow that runs in the Microsoft cloud and connects apps through connectors. A desktop flow is an RPA script that Power Automate desktop replays on a Windows machine.
| Flow type | Best for | How it triggers | Licensing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud flow (automated, instant, scheduled) | Connecting cloud apps like SharePoint, Outlook, Teams, and Dynamics 365 | An event, a button press, or a schedule | Standard connectors ship with Microsoft 365; Premium is $15 per user per month |
| Desktop flow (Power Automate desktop) | RPA for legacy apps, websites, and files with no API | Attended (you watch it run) or unattended (runs on its own) | Attended RPA is in Premium; unattended needs the Process plan at $150 per bot per month |
Premium connectors are $15 per user per month, and unattended bots are $150 per bot per month. Full licensing detail is on Microsoft's Power Automate pricing page. Hosted Process, at $215 per bot per month, adds a Microsoft-managed virtual machine so bots run without your own infrastructure.
More Power Automate Flow Examples and Sample Projects
Want more than seven? These sample projects all start from templates too:
- Save new Microsoft Forms responses to an Excel table, then email a daily summary.
- Post a welcome message in Teams when a new member joins a channel.
- Create a Dynamics 365 lead from each new row in a SharePoint list.
- Back up new OneDrive files to a second folder on a schedule.
- Extract invoice data with AI Builder and route it to your finance system.
These double as Power Automate practice exercises. Microsoft renamed Microsoft Flow to Power Automate in 2019, so older Microsoft Flow examples still apply. Rebuild one of the 7 examples above, then swap the trigger or add a condition. The best Power Automate examples to learn from are the ones wired to data you actually use.
Beyond Microsoft: Third-Party Connectors
A connector is a prebuilt wrapper around an app's API, giving flows ready-made triggers and actions. As Example 7 shows, Microsoft Power Automate is not limited to Microsoft products like SharePoint, Dynamics 365, Outlook, and Power BI. The connector library includes Asana, Mailchimp, X, Adobe Sign, DocuSign, Google Drive, Eventbrite, FreshBooks, and Trello. Some require additional licenses, but they widely expand what you can build and automate.
Every example in this article uses an existing flow template, and there are hundreds more. If no template fits, build a flow from scratch with any connector in the library.
