Guest post by Amber Cain, Technology and Research Services Librarian & Assistant Professor; Seton Hall Law
If you attended the 2023 AALL Annual Meeting & Conference Cool Tools Café program in Boston last year, you may remember someone standing behind a monitor near a corner of the room, shouting as loudly as they could while they demo’d Power Automate. That was me! So, ahead of the Annual Meeting & Conference this year, I thought it timely and appropriate to give you all a brief update on a feature within Power Automate that I mentioned was in beta testing last year: Copilot’s integration.
For those of you who do not know or understandably do not remember, Power Automate is a tool integrating with Microsoft Office 365 that allows you to automate tasks and processes between applications via “workflows” (which are, simply put, ways of triggering an event or
occurrence). Automations can be used in a variety of ways to do things like streamline information gathering and dissemination, create routine notifications, et cetera. You can create an automation to perform a simple task, such as one designed to send a Teams notification every time your boss emails you, but they can also be massively complex. For beginner to intermediate Power Automate users, the more complex automations are probably going to be where Copilot becomes your best friend.
Copilot is Microsoft’s AI tool, and its integration into Power Automate allows you to build automations using natural language. Because of this, Copilot negates the need for advanced knowledge of how Power Automate works or any knowledge of its coding language. Copilot
allows you to initially describe your desired flow in plain language, and then ask open-ended questions and get help with improvements as you build. This allows virtually anyone (even those not familiar with any sort of coding language or automation building) to effectively use Power
Automate to streamline even the most complex tasks they used to do manually.
If you are still not sold on Power Automate and Copilot or you are seeking additional training, you can access the following training modules below:
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