Power Automate - How are you using it?

Deborah Drucker

I only became recently aware of the possibilities of using Power Automate with NXT. Does anyone have any examples of how you are using this tool to streamline your processes and save time (or increase accuracy)? Thank you.

Natanya Auerbach

@Deborah Drucker

I've only recently started using it, but so far I've set up bi-weekly email notifications to two of my front-line fundraisers with their open actions, and monthly email notifications of our upcoming grant deadlines (based on open actions I've entered dated when the report is due). I'm disappointed that there isn't a way for something in RE to actually trigger a Power Automate flow since flows can only be run on a schedule or manually, so I'm hoping maybe that will be added in the future.

Dan Snyder

@Deborah Drucker check out the template showcase for a bunch of samples/ideas. You can even filter for just Power Automate solutions as some are for other Power Platform features (Power BI, Power Apps, etc.).

Austen Brown

@Deborah Drucker - I agree with Dan, the template show case is a great place to look for examples. You should also check out this blog I wrote on the possibilities of PA:

Keith Wilson

We are using it in several ways. We do have the usual large gift notification emails, and a monthly “birthday” list email to our Donor Relations team. But the biggest time saver is we produce our daily gift receipt merge letters using PA. We also use it for employee payroll gift imports and a different type of gift import that is unique to our organization. We are currently exploring other possibilities as well.

Nicole Holt

@Deborah Drucker, we're using it for acknowledgement letters, gift notifications, data hygiene and project management tasks. I have a couple rather bespoke reports (staff requested a format that isn't simple to replicate natively in NXT), an integration with VolunteerHub, and even more task management. There is a lot of possibility, and I second everyone here who referred you to the template showcase--there are a lot of items that are not difficult to implement there.

I will say that as I started using PA, it sort of changed the way I approach my job: when some pesky, repetitive task comes up, my instinct is now to see if it can be automated. We all have so much to do--none of our jobs are getting less busy or complex--that it just makes sense to let the computer do computer things, to free the people up for doing those higher value tasks.

Gwendolyn Williams

@Deborah Drucker We're trying very hard to use it to solve the acknowledgement letter problems that Blackbaud created but we are running into TONS of unexpected errors. Even with following the templates/instructions exactly (generally this is something I'm pretty good at), we're getting errors about Blackbaud Church management (finding out there are no triggers for it…and no one seems to know why) and unresolvable errors within the flows. I honestly am not sure if this is user friendly enough for the majority of people and I am wondering if we just wait to Blackbaud resolves these issues first. The amount of time it takes (and FRUSTRATION) is immense, and if you're a smaller org like we are, it might be better to continue to do things manually until the kinks are worked out.