Power Automate’s Process Advisor is a useful tool that takes the guesswork out of your automation.
You’ll have better ideas of where the bottlenecks are so you can drive improvements in the right places.
Analysis insights from the Process Advisor can also give you the information you need to prioritise your automation efforts.
In this article, we will learn how to generate these insights with Process Advisor in Microsoft Power Automate.
What is Process Advisor?
Process Advisor records and analyses manual business tasks. It discovers inefficiencies and provides optimisation and automation opportunities. Process Advisor also automatically produces a process map that visualises the process which you can use to drive improvement in your business!
This article will cover two methods to get you started analysing your processes:
- Import an existing solution that includes Process Advisor recordings
- Create your own Process Advisor recording
For those of you who prefer to watch the video, you can have a look at the video below. If you prefer to read, just scroll down further for the article.
Method #1 Import an existing solution
Firstly, begin by logging into the Power Automate web portal (https://flow.microsoft.com) and selecting “Solutions” on the sidebar to the left.
Here, you can choose to import an existing solution.
You might encounter an error as shown below:
If you do encounter the error, refreshing the page will allow the Test Solution to be uploaded successfully.
Clicking on your desired solution will show all the flows under it. In this case, the RPA in a Day Process Advisor has numerous desktop flows, inferred tasks and PM Recordings from different users.
You can also view these recordings by going to the sidebar and clicking Process Advisor > Processes.
Opening one of the recordings will show the various steps under the flow.
In order to Analyse the recording, click on the “Analyze” tab.
Then select the “Analytics” tab.
The Analytics tab reveals various details of the process – the process map, number of recordings used for the analysis, the average time taken for the whole process, and much more.
The process map on the right-hand side makes it possible to visualise and analyse the process by looking at the graphical representation of how your business process are performing. Any differences/discrepancies in the steps taken to complete the process will also show up, as well as the time taken for each step to be completed.
If you go to the “Application” tab, you can see details on which applications are involved in the process, and how much they contribute to the proces. In this case, through the two pie charts we can see that legacyinvoiceapp and outlook have significant contributions to the Time Spent and Actions by Applications.
Method #2 Create your own solution
To create your own recording, go to the side bar, click on “Process advisor”, followed by “Processes” below it.
Click “New Process” (top left-hand corner), set your process name, select Recordings and click Create.
Click “add a recording”.
After selecting Add recording, you will be prompted to open Power Automate Desktop. Click on “Open Power Automate Desktop”
The Recorder panel will then be displayed.
You can then open the apps you perform your process on and record the actions you will take to complete your required process. (In our example, we’re using a legacy invoice processing app.)
Perform your steps on the apps as you would usually, and each action will show up under Recorded actions in the Recorder panel. When you’re done, click “Finish” on the Recorder panel.
Next, select View recording.
You’ll need to create labels to specify what activity you’re doing with the recorded actions (the activities will show up in your process map). Otherwise, you won’t be able to save.
Click “Add activity” on the right-hand corner and Name the activity. Click “Save” after naming all the activities.
After navigating to Processes, you will notice that the status of the Recording is “Not analyzed”.
You can analyse the recording by clicking “Analyze” on the top ribbon.
Once you have analysed the recording, you will be able to see the “Analytics” option.
Click on it to see the process map, time taken, and other information about your process.
Navigating to the “Application” tab will allow you to see the various applications involved in the process and the time spent by each of them.
Try out Microsoft Power Automate’s Process Advisor!
We hope you’ve found this overview of Power Automate’s Process Advisor useful.
But what we’ve shown here really only scratches the surface, though. We’ve only used a small set of recordings just to show the idea.
For Microsoft Power Automate’s Process Advisor to be impactful, you should try it out with real-life work processes that you want to make more efficient. The insights you gain from it might surprise you and help you drive major improvements within a short span of time. Think recording hundreds of instances of the process and getting all your team members involved in the process to record themselves too. This could be life-changing!
If you try it, let us know how it goes by leaving a message in the comments! We’d love to know your experience with Power Automate’s Process Advisor.