Power Automate

Power Automate is Microsoft's workflow automation and robotic process automation (RPA) service, part of the Power Platform. It supports cloud flows triggered by events or schedules using hundreds of connectors (Business Central, Dataverse, SharePoint, Outlook, Teams, third-party APIs), desktop flows that automate legacy applications by driving the UI, and business process flows that guide users through stages of a Dataverse process. Power Automate is how most Dynamics 365 customers extend, automate, and integrate without writing traditional code, and is licensed per user, per flow, or bundled with Dynamics 365.

In practice, a cloud flow is built as trigger → conditions/branches → actions, and the vast majority of Dynamics 365 automation needs (send a notification when a record changes, sync a field to another system, run an approval) fit that shape without needing desktop flows or custom code at all. Desktop flows exist specifically for the case a cloud flow can't reach — a legacy Windows application with no API — and they're materially more fragile (a moved button breaks the automation) than a proper API-based cloud flow, so they're a last resort, not a first choice.

Licensing is the most common practical confusion: a flow that touches only "standard" connectors (SharePoint, Outlook, Teams) can run on the free tier bundled with Microsoft 365, but a flow that touches a premium connector — Dataverse, Business Central, HTTP, SQL Server, most third-party services — needs a premium Power Automate licence on whoever owns the flow, and most Dynamics 365 licences only cover flows genuinely tied to that specific licensed app, not arbitrary automation.