In this article, FlowForma explores the strengths and weaknesses of Microsoft’s power apps and power automate, as well as the potential alternatives for digital transformation
Microsoft power apps is primarily a design tool for forms, while Microsoft power automate is an automation and integration tool. They’re individual products but can be combined.
Feedback suggests that process owners find it challenging to build solutions themselves using power apps and power automate and are knocking on IT’s door to get it done. The user interfaces are undeniably slick and have all the appeal you expect from any Microsoft product.
Still, when you get under the hood, it is clear that you need coding experience and a lot of free time to learn both products to make them work together to meet the needs of the business. You quickly realise that it’s outside your skillset and a ticket/project needs to be logged with IT.
Using power apps requires Excel-like coding
When designing forms using power apps, you need to use Excel-like expressions to add logic to the forms you are designing.
These formulas can become quite complex. So, when problems are encountered, it’s not always a quick fix and often requires IT personnel to resolve them.
Power apps forms also need a workflow component (power automate) to engage the different users in a business process, such as:
- Form initiators/requestors
- Approvers (often different people at many different stages in a single process)
- Fulfillment resources (the people that complete the process by carrying out tasks e.g. HR and finance staff, site operations staff, etc.)
Integrating the two components together to deliver a smooth-running business process can be very challenging. You need to consider:
- How a Power App form will record the progress of a process through its stages?
- How the progress will be updated at each stage?
- How the transfer of responsibility will occur?
- How the communications will be handled between the resources involved in the process?
- How access to data will be managed?
- How documents are generated and managed?
And many more, depending on the complexity of the business process…
Because of these challenges, IT is often left carrying the process automation can. Given that this resource is usually overstretched, organizations are left with no alternative but to bring in a partner to implement process automation solutions.
This can be a costly exercise, as not only do solutions need to be built externally, but they also need to be maintained. It’s common for organizations to encounter other issues i.e. if there is a change in personnel within that partnership. The person who once used ‘their’ logic to create workflows may have moved companies, and their coding is often not ‘logical’ to another coder, which can introduce delays.
What can we take from the process automation challenges that IT Departments have faced? And what about alternatives to Power Apps & Power Automate for digital transformation at scale?
Process automation considerations
What’s important to consider before you take on any process automation solution, is the scale and ownership of your process automation project. How soon do you want or need to digitise, and who will be responsible for maintaining processes that are built that may require changes further down the line?
If it’s a few pain point solutions that the business needs, then IT can build and maintain these processes with Power Apps and Power Automate.
But if you are automating multiple processes, then IT’s ability to turn these processes around quickly and commit to their continued maintenance can be problematic. This is when it’s worth evaluating power apps & power automate alternatives for digital transformation.
There are many benefits to using a no-code platform, the main one being that the barrier to entry is lowered for digitising processes, and more people can create workflows than with a product that requires coding and working with multiple products.
Power apps vs. FlowForma – what is the difference?
With FlowForma Process Automation, process owners can build solutions quickly using one integrated tool that combines forms, workflow, and document generation in one interface. It’s a 100% no-code solution, and a great alternative to using power apps and power automate for digital transformation.
By combining everything into one no-code tool, FlowForma significantly reduces the learning time required to build solutions and automatically records performance metrics that demonstrate the value to the business user.
FlowForma uses built-in features for workflow, data, and communications management that make the creation of solutions easy for businesspeople. It reduces technical complexity and risk when digitizing processes. It provides a clear path that matches how business users think about processes and systems, with features that give users a helping hand when they need it.
Designers can test as they build and refine their solution as soon as they get feedback from people in the field.
Often, IT teams will use power apps for their own needs as they have the necessary development skills, while process managers from the business that need to build out processes quickly and scale fast use FlowForma.
The process owners are confident in creating what’s required for the business and maintaining it independently of IT. The beauty is that skilling up in FlowForma is not a steep learning curve for process managers, and once one process is built, subsequent processes are easy to replicate and tweak.
This flexible approach facilitates the digitization of processes quickly across the organisation.
How does FlowForma manage risks associated with citizen development?
Even if business process owners create solutions themselves, IT will always play a part. Ultimately, IT are the owners of IT risks. They provide the tools to the users and have some responsibility to ensure that the tools are used well. FlowForma offers specific features that allow IT to manage this risk.
FlowForma Governance empowers IT to quickly create sandboxes for process managers, enabling the business to test within their own sandbox without any risk to a production environment. Here they can build flows and test different processes, before applying to IT to have them promoted for day-to-day use by the business.
It’s a ‘win-win’ easing the reliance on IT but ensuring that nothing goes awry and that they get the final say before anything goes ‘live’.
For a side-by-side comparison, check out the Comparative Guide to FlowForma Process Automation vs Microsoft Power Apps.
