What is Power Automate?
Power Automate is the part of Power Platform. It allows enterprises to implement automated workflows and business processes and achieve operational efficiencies. It is the tool to help you eliminate the manual and repetitive processes so that you can focus on higher-value tasks.
It’s a unique service that you can use to unify cloud services, desktop applications, and legacy systems.
There are two main types of automation available in Power Automate:
- API-based digital process automation (DPA): cloud flows
- UI-based robotic process automation (RPA): desktop flows
DPA is used with the modern applications (including cloud-based services) that using APIs to provide programmatic access to data and functionality. Power Automate to automate processes in over 380 applications by using API-based connectors provided out of the box.
For example, you can use the connectors for SharePoint and your email program to automate the process of adding a new item to a SharePoint list when you receive an email that has a specific subject line.
RPA is suitable for the websites and desktop applications that don’t have API. With RPA, you automate applications by teaching Power Automate to mimic the mouse movements and keyboard entries of a human user, as if a robot were using the computer.
RPA robot (or bot) is a GUI-based process running on a desktop or virtualized environment. There are two types of bots.
- Attended bot: Triggered by an explicit user action on their workstation, i.e., a local or remote desktop
– Must operate concurrently with the user on the same workstation
– Can run more than one discrete process, but each process must be serialized to run sequentially - Unattended bot: Runs autonomously without requiring user actuation
– Can be deployed on a local or remote desktop, or other virtualized environment
– Can run more than one discrete process, but each process must be serialized to run sequentially
– Concurrent instances of a singular process require an additional unattended bot for each instance
Above are some key terms you should familiarize with prior to moving to License sections.
How to license?
In general, the full Power Automate capabilities are available on a standalone basis. Limited Power Automate capabilities are also included within Power Apps, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft/Office 365 and Windows licenses.
Standalone Power Automate plans
Power Automate per user plan allows the users to create and run unlimited flows using DPA. If the entire organization are licensed with the Power Automate per user plan, admins will have minimal overhead with tracking how many flows are being activated and used within the organization.
The Power Automate per user with attended RPA plan allows the licensed user to create and run unlimited flows using DPA, plus the ability for a user to run an attended RPA bot on their workstation. Additionally, the per user with attended RPA plan includes access to AI Builder capacity in support of scenarios like forms processing, object detection, prediction, text classification and recognition, and more.
The Power Automate per flow plan is licensed by flow and allows users to implement critical cloud flows (DPA) that serves teams, departments, or the entire organization without individually licensing each end user that triggers the licensed flow.
This plan alleviates the need to license each end user that knowingly/unknowingly triggers execution of the licensed flow.
Noted that the minimum initial purchase is five flows and the flows that are only used as “child” flows (triggered by another flow) do not need to be licensed.
There are two Power Automate add-on licenses that you can purchase if you have Power Automate per user with attended RPA plan or Power Automate per flow plan. These are qualifying base licenses for the unattended RPA add-on.
The Power Automate unattended RPA add-on and Power Automate hosted RPA add-on enables a bot to run autonomously, i.e., independent of a user. Multiple unattended RPA add-on or hosted RPA add-on licenses can be added with a single qualifying base license.
One unattended RPA add-on or hosted RPA add-on license includes the rights to one unattended RPA bot, as well as all necessary functions tied to desktop flow authoring, bot orchestration and management. Each hosted RPA add-on provides capacity for a single Microsoft-hosted bot machine.
Note: Power Automate unattended RPA add-on or hosted RPA add-on is licensed by bot. Concurrent instances of a singular process require an additional unattended bot for each instance.
Any services or applications the unattended bot accesses must be licensed separately. For instance, if the bot is accessing Windows or Office, the Microsoft 365 – Unattended License must also be purchased in addition to the Power Automate unattended RPA add-on.
Power Automate pay-as-you-go plan enable users to build and/or run premium Power Automate flows (a flow connected with premium connectors) and to pay for their usage based on the number of times these flows run. Flow runs are billed on a monthly basis and charged to an Azure subscription.
A flow can be a cloud flow or a desktop flow with a user in attended mode or unattended mode.
Power Automate use rights included with
Power Apps licenses
Power Apps standalone licenses (refer the article of Power App licensing) include Power Automate use rights for the purpose of automating workflows associated with the Power Apps application(s).
Power Automate use within Power Apps is limited to the context of the Power Apps application. Flows included within a Power Apps application connect to:
– Any data source within the use rights of the Power Apps application.
– Directly with the Power Apps application (via built in trigger/action).
If the flow is isolated and has nothing to do with the Power Apps application, then standalone Power Automate licenses will need to be purchased.
Dynamics 365 licenses
Similarly, Power Automate use within Dynamics 365 is limited to the context of the embedding Dynamics 365 application.
select Microsoft/Office 365 licenses
Limited Power Automate use rights are included with select M/O365. Power Automate use within M/O365 is limited to the context of the embedding M/O365 application.
If the embedded flow is not within the context of the M/O365 application or if the embedded flow needs to connect to a premium on-premises or custom data source, standalone Power Automate licenses will need to be purchased.
Windows licenses
Limited Power Automate use rights are included with select Windows licenses to create and execute personal desktop automation for attended RPA capabilities in Power Automate Desktop.
Power Automate use within Windows is available for all applications and websites (across all web browsers). Enterprise automation and administrative rights are not available in Windows.
AI builder
AI Builder is a Microsoft Power Platform capability that provides AI models that are designed to optimize your business processes. You can easily add AI capabilities to both apps and business processes. AI Builder supports various scenarios such as predictions, business card reader, and many more.
AI Builder is licensed on a capacity basis. This capacity is expressed in the form of “service credits”. Qualifying license prerequisites include Power Apps, Power Automate per user with attended RPA, Power Automate unattended RPA add-on, Power Automate hosted RPA add-on and Dynamics 365 Finance subscription licenses. These licenses also include seeded credits.
Service credits are pooled across the tenant and available service credits are deducted when AI Builder services are used. Different capabilities, for example, forms processing, prediction, burn down service credits at different rates. For instance, “Business Card reader” will consume 32 credits per card or “Document processing” will take 100 credits per page.
The AI Builder add-on
The AI Builder add-on is offered via capacity packs. Each capacity pack includes 1 million service credits per month (e.g., if a customer requires 4.7 million service credits per month based on anticipated usage, they should purchase 5 capacity packs.)
In addition, AI Builder capacity can be got through a trial. The capacity is then linked to a user. Trials are available only when there’s no paid capacity within the tenant.
