This course equips experienced Power Automate users to design, integrate, deploy, and maintain complex business automation solutions. Participants extend their cloud flow skills through API integration, custom connectors, resilient processing patterns, advanced Dataverse operations, and orchestration of desktop flows.

The course also covers security, governance, application lifecycle management, and operational monitoring. An integrated capstone project brings these capabilities together in an enterprise business process with reusable components, exception handling, and deployment documentation.

 

Duration 5 Days – 35 hrs.

 

Objectives

• Design modular automation solutions spanning multiple systems.
• Integrate REST APIs using HTTP actions and custom connectors.
• Process complex JSON structures and related Dataverse records.
• Implement duplicate prevention, controlled retries, and recovery patterns.
• Design long-running processes using persistent state and separate flows.
• Coordinate cloud flows, desktop flows, and work queues.
• Apply secure authentication, access control, and data protection practices.
• Optimize automation for throughput, service limits, and resource consumption.
• Manage solutions through development, testing, and production environments.
• Establish monitoring, operational logging, and support procedures.
• Deliver an integrated automation solution with documented deployment and recovery processes.

 

Target Audience

• Experienced Power Automate makers and citizen developers.
• Power Platform developers and technical consultants.
• Automation engineers and RPA developers.
• Business systems analysts designing complex workflows.
• Microsoft 365 and Power Platform administrators supporting automation.
• IT professionals responsible for enterprise integration and process automation.
• Technical leads responsible for automation reliability and governance.

 

Prerequisites

• Completion of a Power Automate intermediate course or equivalent practical experience.
• Proficiency with expressions, JSON, arrays, conditions, loops, and error-handling scopes.
• Experience using Dataverse, solutions, child flows, connection references, and environment variables.
• Basic experience creating and running desktop flows in Power Automate for desktop.
• Familiarity with REST APIs, HTTP methods, and authentication concepts.
• Access to development and test environments with Dataverse and appropriate maker permissions.
• Access to Microsoft 365 services and approved training APIs.
• Appropriate licensing and capacity for premium connectors, custom connectors, and the desktop automation scenarios included.
• A supported Windows computer or training machine with Power Automate for desktop and the required machine connectivity configured.
• Administrative support for application registrations, permissions, machine setup, and deployment configuration where required.

 

Course Outline

Day 1: Advanced Workflow Architecture and Data Processing

Module 1: Designing Enterprise Automation Solutions

• Translating business and operational requirements into solution designs
• Defining system boundaries, dependencies, and responsibilities
• Selecting cloud automation, API integration, and desktop automation
• Structuring parent flows, child flows, and reusable components
• Separating configuration from workflow logic
• Designing correlation identifiers for end-to-end tracking
• Establishing naming, documentation, and ownership standards

Module 2: Advanced Data Transformation and Dataverse Integration

• Navigating nested JSON objects and arrays
• Handling optional properties and inconsistent data structures
• Transforming and validating complex payloads
• Querying related Dataverse records
• Using OData queries and FetchXML where appropriate
• Applying pagination and incremental retrieval strategies
• Maintaining consistent identifiers across systems

 Module 3: Reliable Transaction and State Management

• Designing idempotent operations to prevent duplicate effects
• Tracking processing status and checkpoints
• Controlling concurrent updates and shared resources
• Separating temporary failures from business exceptions
• Designing compensating actions for partially completed processes
• Managing long-running workflows through persisted state
• Preventing recursive triggers and repeated processing

 

Day 2: API Integration and Custom Connectors

Module 4: Integrating External Services with HTTP

• Working with REST endpoints, methods, headers, and request bodies
• Configuring authentication for approved APIs
• Interpreting response codes and response payloads
• Handling API pagination and asynchronous operations
• Managing throttling, retry guidance, and timeouts
• Securing sensitive request and response information
• Troubleshooting authentication and integration failures

 Module 5: Developing and Managing Custom Connectors

• Identifying when a custom connector is appropriate
• Defining connector operations from an OpenAPI description
• Configuring connection and authentication settings
• Defining request parameters and response schemas
• Validating connector operations against a training API
• Using custom connectors in reusable business workflows
• Managing connector changes and solution dependencies

Module 6: Event-Driven and Long-Running Integration Patterns

• Comparing event-driven processing with scheduled polling
• Using authenticated request triggers and response actions
• Designing webhook and callback interactions
• Separating request acceptance from background processing
• Recording external transaction identifiers
• Handling duplicate and out-of-order events
• Coordinating completion, failure, and timeout notifications

 

Day 3: Advanced Desktop Automation and Orchestration

Module 7: Building Resilient Desktop Flows

• Structuring desktop flows with subflows and reusable logic
• Improving UI element selectors
• Using explicit waits and application-state checks
• Handling application, browser, and file-processing exceptions
• Managing sensitive variables and credentials
• Restoring applications to a known state after failure
• Capturing useful diagnostic information

Module 8: Coordinating Cloud and Desktop Automation

• Passing inputs and outputs between cloud and desktop flows
• Selecting attended and unattended execution patterns
• Understanding machine and machine-group configuration
• Managing execution availability and session requirements
• Coordinating desktop results with cloud workflow status
• Handling desktop execution failures and reruns
• Planning capacity for simultaneous automation requests

Module 9: Work Queues and Exception Processing

• Creating and managing work queues
• Defining queue-item data and processing priorities
• Processing queue items through desktop automation
• Recording processing outcomes and exceptions
• Applying controlled retry and manual-review paths
• Preventing duplicate business transactions during reprocessing
• Monitoring queue backlogs and processing bottlenecks

 

Day 4: Security, Governance, Deployment, and Operations

Module 10: Securing and Governing Automation

• Applying least-privilege access to flows and data sources
• Understanding connection identities and ownership models
• Evaluating service principal ownership where supported
• Managing credentials and secrets securely
• Applying data policies and connector restrictions
• Protecting sensitive information in run histories and logs
• Establishing ownership continuity and audit requirements

Module 11: Application Lifecycle Management

• Structuring solutions for maintainability and deployment
• Managing connection references and environment variables
• Handling dependencies and environment-specific resources
• Applying managed and unmanaged solution strategies
• Introducing source control and automated deployment options
• Using Power Platform pipelines where configured
• Planning upgrades, recovery, and post-deployment verification
• Preparing release and support documentation

 Module 12: Performance and Operational Monitoring

• Measuring processing duration, success rates, and throughput
• Identifying excessive actions, queries, and nested loops
• Balancing concurrency with connector and platform limits
• Understanding request consumption and capacity implications
• Designing centralized operational logs and alerts
• Monitoring cloud flows, desktop runs, and work queues
• Establishing incident triage and safe recovery procedures

 

Day 5: Integrated Enterprise Automation Capstone

Module 13: Capstone Project — Enterprise Order Processing Automation

• Define an order-processing workflow using provided training systems
• Capture and validate order information
• Store transaction state and tracking identifiers in Dataverse
• Retrieve customer or product information through a custom connector
• Route exceptions for human review
• Queue approved transactions for desktop processing in a simulated legacy application
• Update business records after successful processing
• Implement reusable child flows for logging and notifications
• Apply duplicate prevention, controlled retries, and recovery logic
• Protect credentials and sensitive transaction information

 Module 14: Capstone Deployment and Operational Readiness

• Package solution components and document external dependencies
• Configure destination connections and environment variables
• Deploy the solution to a test environment
• Verify successful, failed, duplicate, and interrupted processing paths
• Confirm alerts, tracking records, and queue outcomes
• Review performance and resource usage
• Prepare an operational runbook covering ownership, monitoring, and recovery
• Document known limitations and future enhancements