Microsoft Power Automate vs. Workato

We replaced all the classic SharePoint and Nintex-based workflows with Power Automate. This saved extra licensing costs and getaways from managing legacy workflows. Power Automate Designer is very user-friendly and requires no additional learning curve. We also use it to replace RPA solutions created with other platforms using the Power Automate Desktop application.

Incentivized

Well Suited

• Business Process Work Flows, File Management, Small/Medium # of Records Queried (<~1000)
• Closing a sales deal in system one kicks off work flows in system two for implementation
• Notification of key events in system one via text, outlook event, etc
• While I note management of two-way integrations needs improvement, it is a strength of Workato and easier to set up here than in any other tool.
• Support for connectors business processes require (Docusign, Dropbox, Outlook, Quick Base, Salesforce, etc)

Needs Improvement -

• Management of two-way integrations. It's often a bit of a struggle to create the appropriate fields in both systems to ensure redundant jobs are not run nor infinite loops created. That said, Workato does provide some documentation to counter this.
• Working with Large Data Sets (1000+)

Incentivized

• Sending confirmation email to clients and user once the flow is triggered.
• Fetching or Dumping files from one location to another if the flow is triggered.
• Schedule flow helps to send alerts and triggers the flow at a specific interval of time to carry out the required task.
• Power Automate also be used to convert any file format to a specific file format and save it to the required location

Incentivized

• Workato is very easy to pick up and use. You'll be creating complex recipes within days. The UI, workflow, formulas, and other features are very intuitive.
• Workato is very powerful. The native connectors it has to hundreds of software already, allows users to make substantial automation and integrations, but the HTTP connector makes it seem like it has no boundaries. If you are using software that isn't a native Workato connector but it has an API, you can use their HTTP connector to make calls to and from.
• Workato is always making improvements to its platform. This includes adding more connectors, more features, updating current connectors to be more powerful, or expanding on other tools it offers.

• No activity disable feature in the workflow, this would have saved lot of time
• Allow turn off feature to not trigger any pending runs in the queue or add new feature to just run pending runs when the workflow is turned off
• Allow easy copy and paste activities from UI

Incentivized

• Customization has a bit of a learning curve associated with it. Be prepared to expand your programming knowledge for any deep customization, however having the option to customize is critical
• Online training material is out there, but can be a bit cumbersome to read through and retain. More straight-forward online training material would help 10 fold

Power Automate is a great product that has a vast array of options on how to use it. Your imagination is the only hurdle with using Power Automate as there is no limit to what can be done with the system. It has brought a lot of value to our business through the use of custom systems, connectors, and streamlining processes.

Incentivized

We need to develop Enterprise Application Integrations and Workato was not designed for this

For most tasks WinAutomation is great and easy to use. You just set up tasks on a step by step basis and you can even tell the program what to do when there is an error (such as continue with job). Sometimes with complicated web extraction jobs it would be good to be able to easily extract data from the web page source.

Incentivized

Due to prebuilt recipes, Workato is easy to learn and use for non-technical users if their use case fits the existing recipes. It is not easy for non-technical users to create, modify, debug or maintain complex integrations that are outside the prebuilt recipes.

both Community support and Microsoft official support typically respond to (and resolve) reported issues in a VERY expedient manner, usually going above and beyond for education and bugfixing. I have been thoroughly impressed with the level of support I had been provided in the past.

Incentivized

They employ an extremely knowledgeable team of problem solvers. I've never had a disappointing interaction or one that has left me still searching for answers. I know that when I ask for help, they'll partner with me until we find a solution together

Incentivized

after reviewing the main features of Power Automate, the Microsoft trainer focused on some of our real life use cases implementation, from simple to more advanced.

Incentivized

although it was productive, it is more difficult to stay focused and in a 7 hours a day online training (including screen share issues and the fact that the trainer just can't precisely show the exact location of your mistake)

Incentivized

I had to migrate from Robocorp to Power Automate. The automation was using API and sharepoint. So it was better to use Power Automate instead of Robocorp so we did the migration. in some areas the migration was easy but creating flows and making it smaller codes was difficult. Debugging the code was tough so we took lots of time.

Incentivized

We discovered that we could not use Workato for our more complex, large enterprise integrations. It was useful for simple workflows that matched the prebuilt recipes.

Power Automate can do many things that most platforms can't do as a 'citizen-developer' with no access to coding tools and deployment. It allows you to develop and deploy low/no-cost automation flows quickly. The blocks in Powert Automate do the API work for you, where you only need to connect the key data points and actions taken.

Incentivized

We found Workato to be easier to use, more powerful and more robust than other solutions we tested at the time. It simply does the trick and allowed us to implement all that we needed in all the precise details we needed. It gave us all the power, flexibility and autonomy we needed without bogging us down with unjustified complexity. Workato came through for us and that's why we keep using it after three intense years.

• Automating emails for finance and payroll has not only saved hours of work for those departments but lowers the risk of human error.
• Creating workflows and approvals for our goals and bonus system has saved everyone in the organization hours of manual work and MATH!

Incentivized

• Workato is an unusual type of software in that it’s very much middle-wear, which means it’s extra important for stake holders in your company (especially those who won’t be interacting with Workato on a daily basis) to see the ROI that Workato can provide. Typically ROI is in developer time, as well as replacements for other SaaS tools. For our team, we move 2X as fast and need 1/2 the developers, so the ROI is just incredible.