Your team approves purchases by email, someone saves supplier attachments by hand, and form responses get copied into Excel. You open Power Automate and hundreds of Power Automate templates show up. Which one actually helps, and which one ends up requiring a premium license?
In this guide you'll see the official gallery, 12 examples by process, SharePoint automation, Copilot, the service limits, and how to connect to Odoo.
What Power Automate is and what types of flows exist
Power Automate is Microsoft's platform for automating processes without coding. Every flow starts with a trigger (an email arrives, an item is created in a list, it's Monday at 8:00 a.m.) and runs actions in other services through connectors. You can build it from scratch, with Copilot, or from a template.
There are three types of cloud flows: automated (triggered by an event), instant (started with a button), and scheduled (run at a fixed time). Separately, there are desktop flows, which automate Windows applications with RPA.
How to use Power Automate templates
A Power Automate template is a flow already built by Microsoft or the community that you copy to your account and customize. You'll find them under Templates at make.powerautomate.com. To use one:
- Search by product (SharePoint, Forms, Outlook) or by scenario (approval, reminder).
- Check the connectors it requires: if even one is premium, the flow requires a premium license.
- Connect your accounts, adjust lists, folders, and recipients, and test the flow before turning it on.
Skip any that use deprecated connectors or actions, such as the Notifications connector.
Power Automate use cases: 12 flow examples by department
A Power Automate use case is a repetitive process that a flow handles end to end. These 12 Power Automate flow examples are named after the templates in the official gallery (checked in October 2026; we reviewed the Spanish-language gallery, so English titles may vary slightly, and searching by keyword will find them). This is an editorial selection by KPB, not a ranking.
| Department | Template | Trigger | Actions | Connectors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Approvals | Request approval when a new file is added to SharePoint | New file | Approval and Teams notification | Standard |
| Approvals | Send form responses for approval | Forms response | Approval and record in SharePoint | Standard |
| Approvals | Request approval (everyone must approve) for a selected item | Button in a list | Unanimous approval with reminders | Standard |
| Save Office 365 email attachments to OneDrive for Business | New email | Saves the attachments | Standard | |
| Monitor incoming emails to an alias in an Excel worksheet | New email | Adds a row in Excel | Standard | |
| Forms | Record form responses in SharePoint | Forms response | Item in a list | Standard |
| Tasks | Create a Planner task when a Microsoft Forms is submitted | Forms response | Planner task and email | Standard |
| Tasks | Send a digest email of all outstanding Planner tasks | Scheduled | Summary by email | Standard |
| Documents | Notify a team of new SharePoint files | New file | Card in a Teams channel | Standard |
| Reports | Copy SharePoint list items into a CSV each week | Scheduled | CSV in OneDrive | Standard |
| Finance | Read information from invoices | Button | Extracts data with AI Builder and sends it by email | Premium + AI credits |
| ERP | Request approval for a Business Central purchase invoice (first response) | Purchase invoice | Approval that updates the ERP | Premium |
The takeaway for Power Automate for small business: anything within Microsoft 365 is usually standard, and premium shows up when you read documents with AI or connect to an ERP (costs in Power Automate licensing). For supplier invoices in Chile, check finance automation first: the DTE (Chile's electronic tax document) already arrives as XML. For notifications when a KPI goes out of range, see automatic threshold alerts.
SharePoint automation: approvals, rules, and Copilot
SharePoint automation is the set of tools that run tasks on their own on lists and document libraries: rules that notify you when something changes, built-in approvals, rules written with Copilot, and Power Automate flows for complex logic. It's best to use the simplest one that solves the case.
Approval workflows in SharePoint
SharePoint approval workflows send an item or file to one or more people and record their response. Built-in approvals are turned on from the list or library command bar; by default one approval is enough, but you can require everyone to respond. For multiple stages or conditions, use Power Automate.
Rules and Copilot in SharePoint
List and library rules send an email notification when an item is created, changed, or deleted. Copilot in SharePoint (Knowledge Agent in its preview version) creates rules from a description. It requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license and, according to Microsoft, supports up to 15 rules per list or library and understands instructions in Spanish, but only processes files in English (checked in October 2026).
The end of SharePoint 2013 workflows
According to Microsoft, SharePoint 2013 workflows were retired from SharePoint Online on April 2, 2026, with no possible extension: if a process depended on one and nobody migrated it, it no longer works. Microsoft recommends rebuilding them in Power Automate.
Copilot in Power Automate
Copilot in Power Automate is the assistant that builds a cloud flow from a natural-language description: it suggests the trigger and actions and sets up the connections. It only works in the new designer, with a work or school account, and Microsoft notes that it's optimized for English, with limited support for other languages. Use the format it recommends, "when X happens, do Y," name the connectors, and review each action before turning the flow on.
Agent flows are different: they're built in Copilot Studio and billed against its capacity, not Power Automate's.
Limits worth knowing
The main ones, according to Microsoft's documentation (checked in October 2026):
| Limit | Value | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Actions per flow | 500 | Use child flows |
| Duration of a run | 30 days | An unanswered approval expires |
| Flow with no triggers | 90 days | It may be turned off, unless it has a premium owner or a Process license |
| Continuous errors or throttling | 14 days | The flow is turned off |
| Concurrent runs | 1 to 100 (25 by default) | Once concurrency control is on, it can't be reverted without rebuilding the trigger |
Add co-owners: they receive the notice 30 days before an inactive flow is turned off and can reactivate it.
Power Automate with Odoo or other ERPs: real options
Microsoft doesn't have an Odoo connector in its official catalog (checked in October 2026). There are three paths:
- HTTP action against the JSON-2 API in Odoo 19 or later, using an API key.
- Custom connector built on that API, easier to reuse.
- Webhook from Odoo: an automation rule with the Send Webhook Notification action sends the selected fields to a flow with an HTTP request trigger.
The HTTP action and custom connectors are premium. On the Odoo side, there are three conditions (checked in October 2026):
- The external API only comes with Odoo's Custom plan, not with One App Free or Standard. Odoo Studio, where Odoo documents those rules, isn't included in Standard either.
- An API key lasts three months at most: if nobody renews it, the flow stops.
- XML-RPC and JSON-RPC will be removed in Odoo 22 and Odoo Online 21.1: anything new should use JSON-2.
If you're integrating Microsoft 365 with Odoo, design it as part of your Odoo implementation.
When Power Automate isn't the right tool
Power Automate performs well within Microsoft 365. When the data lives in Odoo or the step requires interpreting text, there are more direct routes:
- If the flow only monitors Odoo data, such as overdue invoices, Keep Checking brings those alerts ready-made inside the ERP and is set up in 7 days; you choose them in the quote builder.
- If you're looking for Odoo reports, Keep BI adds prebuilt dashboards such as "Collections," starting at 10 UF (Chile's inflation-indexed unit of account) + VAT per month for 3 dashboards.
- If the rule is simple and the data is already in the ERP, use its native automations.
- If you need to read an unstructured email or order, a custom AI agent from Kersify interprets it and logs the record in your CRM, whether Odoo or another, for a person to approve.
To compare platforms, see what n8n is; to prioritize processes, read AI process automation.
Why work with KPB Solutions
A template solves one step; the full process requires deciding what lives in Microsoft 365 and what lives in the ERP. At KPB, an Odoo Gold Partner with more than 70 active clients in 6 countries, we do that review with you, with licensing costs in plain view.
Not sure which processes to automate or with which tool? Book a meeting and let's review what belongs in Power Automate and what belongs in your ERP.
