Automate Reimbursement Approval : Automate Your Business Processes - Ep.2

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heat hey heat hey heat [Music]

greetings everyone welcome again to the business automation so

presented by Corner community so this is our second session so we have been uh

you know talking about that uh how automation can be used for your

different uh process on your organization or you know whatever your job responsibilities how you can

automate your process so this is so is all about that automation okay so here

uh we will be talking about different scenarios so we will be taking different use cases different case studies and we

will showcase that how you can you know automate those process using Microsoft ecosystem okay so this is our second

show and uh I have with me my friend Sep so we both are hosting this show so

let's have a quick uh introduction about ourself i'm going to share my PBT

so myself Mahindra and my friend SEP is with me we both are Microsoft MVPs and

we have more than 10 years of experience on Microsoft technologies so we both are

sharp corner MVPs as well so here uh is

the agenda that uh we are going to talk

today just second yeah so this that that is the

high level agenda that we will talk today so we'll start with the basic introduction about uh today's use case

so what we are taking in today's what is the scenario that we are taking so what is the proposed solution So we have

thought of that we can solve that process uh you know we can automate that process and then what are the components

that we are going to use from the Microsoft ecosystem so we'll uh touch base those Microsoft forms power

automate excel online and then we will have a demo for all these process and we'll show step-by-step process on that

how we can build this automation

okay so so in today's uh scenario we are

going to talk about that reimbursement process okay so this is a very common

process that is done in most of that organizations right so when when you are

spending money on something so let's take an example that uh you know you are working in corporate and uh maybe you

are visiting client or maybe you are buying some accessories for your office

or maybe you know you are ordering some food you know from based on that office

expenses and you paid for that right but that is the money that you paid you want

that money back from your business from your company right So that is the

process that what we call is reimbursement that the money that you have spent you want to get your money

and as soon as possible right so whenever we are spending money we want to get our money as soon as possible

right but most of the time this process is done manually so maybe there will be

some kind of uh reimbursement forms so manually you will be filling that form and maybe you will submit that form to

your HR and then maybe you know your HR will submit that form to your manager

and they will review it and then you know after that they will send maybe to

the finance team and then they will you know approve or give that amount to you okay so the there are multiple steps

involved here right and when we are talking about that manually you are doing these process so it means that

your form or the physical uh you know form or the you know email you are

sending or you know you are passing to the next person it may be that you know

they may take some time right and you need to wait for that and then after you

know from one person to another person again it can passing that information can take time right and maybe in between

sometime if let's say they have many forms right and they have many request maybe they can misplace your request as

well right so there are chances that your this complete process can be

delayed and you won't get your amount in time or maybe that that completely the

forms is totally misplaced and you need to restart the process again right so to

solve that issue that what we are saying here that we can easily automate this

process using the Microsoft ecosystem tools okay so we are going to use some

of the tools for example uh you know we are going to use that this form let's

say when we I'm saying that maybe there is a physical form or maybe you are sending email but let's take an example

we want to make it electronic form right or some online form where you can fill

the detail so that your details will be stayed there they won't be misplaced

somewhere right and when the form is submitted all the details you can put

here okay what was that when it was done okay what was the amount amount on that

you spend maybe automatically there you know some of the your managerial

information will be there who is your manager maybe some information from that HR so all that related information can

be filled on the form and then further we can start that form to the next

process so that's what we are going to talk about here so let's talk about like first thing that what is the proposed

solution so there can be different ways we can automate any manual process so

one potential option that we are going to talk about here is using Microsoft

forms so this will be a front end or you know uh the UI where you will be feeding

all the details so if you are employee and you will put all the details there and then this information will be passed

to the power automate okay and the power automate is basically the automation

engine that we are using here which will basically extract that information so whatever information you have fitted on

the Microsoft forms it will get that information and based on that it will

decide that okay what should be the next step okay so like for example it will

identify that okay this form is submitted by this person and who is the manager for this person so this then

that notification will go to that uh you know manager and that can be notification it can be through the email

or it can be a team notification so it will be basically start that approval

process right so when of course like when you are spending money sometime

there are some limit right up to that amount you can spend okay and if that

the amount is under that limit it will be easily approved approved by the manager right but if it's you know above

the limit maybe there is another process that manager need to take approval from you know his manager or her manager so

depending on that it can be different approval process uh depending on the you

know company to company organization to organization right so once this uh approval is done

then we are going to collect this information on a centralized location so here we are using Excel online where all

the reimbursement uh records will be stores maybe you know one from you one from others so all that you know uh

department person or different employees all the data will be stored on there so that at any point of time we want to

create any kind of reporting from that data or maybe they want to you know export that data or print the data or

maybe send that data to somewhere you know or to you know hire manager or they want to see that okay for this quarter

how much reimbursement is done okay for this year how much reimbursement is done or how much we spend on that right so

those kind of reporting can be done so for that we are using Excel online here

where we will be storing that information right and after that there

will be notification for the notification we are using outlook so from the power automate it will send

that notification okay so your uh reimbursement request that you have

submitted that is approved by your manager right or if there is some issue

or there is some you know differences on that maybe there is some you know it may

different different thing can happen right If you are not authorized to spend that money that maybe that you will get

uh your request you know will be rejected so whatever it is rejected or approved you will get a notification

from the power automate so that's the proposed solution uh that we are going

to showcase today so here the first thing that uh we

are using is Microsoft forms so this Microsoft forms is a very useful

Microsoft ecosystem product and we can use for this multiple purpose as you can

see here on the screen it is a you know very easily drag and drop controls are there you can easily generate your forms

so it will look like just kind of HTML forms or any web forms okay so those

controls are there you can simply drag and drop there so it's available on the free of cost and there are some feature

that is required uh you know subscription for that and you can use it for the different purpose you can you

know for use like for example we are using for the reimbursement process but if you want to do some kind of survey if

you want to get some feedback from your customer so you can use for different type of purposes this can be done okay

and of course you can restrict that you know when someone is using So you can

totally control that security that who can use that okay so depending on that this form can be shared with that user

and they can fill that detail and that forms basically the data that you will

be stored it will be stored on the your tenant on your Microsoft subscription

okay so if you want to see that how many forms are submitted and again there also

there are you know some uh you know uh you can say lightweight reporting is also there you can see that how many

forms are submitted how many forms are completed you know how many are not done so if something like for example if you

are using for survey so you can see that how much survey is completed how much survey is not completed so that can be

done on the Microsoft forms and it also has it's uh you

not that uh complex but you can easily put uh you know some type of controls

here so like for example if you want to check something so based on that you can do here uh checking as well so those

type of controls available on the Microsoft

forms and the automation engine that we are using here that is power automate

and power automate as we discussed in last time this is a cloud service so this uh you know workflow service where

we can automate our repetitive task depending on the scenario different different scenarios it can be different

so we can create from the blank or we can use templates so there are some templates that is provided by Microsoft

those template can be used and we have some specific you know events and uh we

we call them like basically triggers okay so based on the triggers and based

on the actions we can perform different different type of functionality here so

as you can see on the screen here so we are using a trigger here for the Microsoft form so we with the help of

the connector so as we discussed in the last session in there are thousand of

connectors that is available on the Microsoft uh you know power automate which help us to connect with the

different different applications whether they are from Microsoft or they are not from the Microsoft using those

connectors so there are connectors using that we can connect so here this is

basically using the Microsoft form connector so we have a trigger okay so

as soon as someone will submit a form that trigger will occur and then based

on that it will check that okay what are the uh you know details that is submitted on that it will identify that

and then it will start that approval process so there are approval process can be implemented in the power automate

we will show this in on the demo that how it can be done it can be part integrated with the Microsoft teams so

that you know in your uh organization they can easily say that okay there are some approval waiting for them okay so

they can easily go ahead and approve or reject and then that manual process that

we were doing earlier that will be totally eliminated here so everything is automated here as soon as you will

submit the form Power Automate will trigger it will start the approval process and once the approval is done as

you can see here we have a control system so it will check okay so what is

the response If it is approved or it is rejected based on that it will go ahead

and it will perform different actions so then again we are using that you know uh

this Excel connector here using that Excel connector we are recording that information onto the Excel online and

after that we are sending notification to the user to notify that okay your

approval process is done your request is approved you will be getting your amount

soon from the financial uh department and if it is not then they will get that

rejection email so you can see here this the the process which can take you know

maybe weeks okay maybe days when we are doing manually but here as everyone is

getting their notification they can immediately you know take action on that

and maybe after you know couple of minute or maybe half an hour 1 hour depending on that you will get uh you

know your response and you will get that okay uh you are going to get this amount

or not right So that type of thing we can easily automate here using the power

automate and we are using different connectors to get the data from this different different application which is

part of the Microsoft ecosystem right

So the third one that is Excel online so this is also you know part of your

tenant so you can easily you know access if you you have office 365 subscription

that you have taken so you can use that Excel online and you can you know Excel is the mostly and most widely

used database right earlier there are still some companies that is using Excel

as a database so they are storing their data into Excel only right so nowadays

like you know this digital transformation is going on now they are moving you know from Excel to that

automated applications so they can you know digitize their uh business on that

but still that was the Excel was the mostly used database and here also we

are what doing we are storing that information of all that reimbursement

records into the Excel so that it can be easily extracted from the PowerBI or we

can also create you know uh some kind of reporting in Excel itself so this is

very very useful here so anytime we want to see history of that reimbursement

reports we can easily go ahead on see on the taxo you know excel online so if you have that access depending on that you

can see the data easily and maybe if you know it can be required by any department right

whether it's a HR department or finance department so it will be available to everyone so it's basically a centralized

file that we are creating after that approval is done okay so that's the uh

third component or third application we are using for our automation now we are

going to show you demo and we will see that how this reimbursement process can be implemented using these different

tools okay so I'm passing mic to my friend Sep and he will be taking care of

the demo so sep over to you thank you thank you Manda so am I

audible Yeah we can hear you so let me share my

screen so I will start with the power automate in last session we discussed

that how you can create the flow so whatever flow you will create yeah

to see no I cannot see it not visible

now

uh it's still blank blank page blank white screen is

let [Music] me let me stop first okay and then I

will share so one second let me share

again window

now it's loading yeah we can now see Power studio yeah yeah thank you so

what I was saying that in last video we discussed that how you can create the flow so we'll start with the power

automate UI so you will have better understanding that how you can create the flow and how you can manage your

flow so as you can see that whatever flow you you already created you can go

here my flows and all those flow like you created for your business you can

see here so we'll start with the flow and we'll select automated cloud

flow and here as we are going to take the Microsoft form so we'll uh take

trigger like when Microsoft form is submitted so when a new response is

submitted using Microsoft form that is what we'll take as a trigger and we'll name it according to

our flow reimbursement request so you can see the first

parameter we need here that is a Microsoft form so I'm going to create a

form using Microsoft form so as Mahendra told you that uh

this is quite handy you can just click on new form and once you will click on a new form you can see this kind of UI

from here you just need to name the form like reimbursement form and after that

you will have the like input types you want to take as

a choice or text rating so they have different different type of inputs that is what you can based on your

requirement you can select so we are going to select the first one is the post

name and we'll add the next one like email

address and the next one we'll take

amount so I'm just adding some demo ps based on your company requirement you

can take anything else whatever required in your business so then we'll take the

date and we'll take like multiple choice

department like job and the good part you can see like

whenever you are typing something Like here Microsoft will give you some inputs

for example I already added department here so you can see here engineering

research marketing IT training so all these departments are visible that is what you can select from here as well

and if you want to delete something you can just go and delete it so you can just click and you can see

this is how you can easily add and edit from here so that is what I'm going to have for

now if you want something it is quite easy later on you can come here and modify this form as well so now we have

this form i will go back to the Microsoft

forms and use this form so you can see this is the form I

just created so I will go back to the flow and we select this particular flow

and we try to refresh it because I just created that flow

i will click and select this

form let me save it

so now our first step is ready where this whenever this form is submitted

this trigger will run

so let me add the next step that is the get response get bomb

response and here again we need to select the same form I created

so we'll select on this list and we need to select the form ID so we'll just

click on the action and we'll select from here

so now our post step is completed uh whenever the form is submitted this flow

will trigger and we will have the response in the get response detail step

the next step is that we want approval process like whenever someone is submitting form the next step that we

will uh send a approval request to the manager whoever we want that the person

will approve so we'll find a approval process and that is by

default in Microsoft Power Automate you don't have to do anything you'll just go here and search you will find you can

see different type of approval process like wait for approval create an approval wait uh start and wait for

approval text so we'll select this one and uh once you will select this step

you will have the multiple types like approve reject everyone must approve like whenever you have multiple approval

process and in that case like multiple email uh addresses you added in this

process so once everyone will approve then only the next step will happen and

then first two response like if uh you have multiple email addresses and even though the one person will approve then

uh this flow will run wait for all responses so we will select the this one

the first two response so whenever the the person uh like the uh we'll send the

approval request and the first person will approve the next step will run after that then we will add the

title so let me request title I will add here and

then here you need to add your uh manager email address like who is going to approve that particular process so

here I will add my email

address so now we are all set we just save

it and then the next step is to add the condition like if someone will might be

the person will approve it or might be the person will reject it so based on that we have different different

processes as Mahendra already explained that if it is true we'll add in Excel sheet if it is false then in that case

we'll just send the email that your uh request is disapproved so I will use a

condition condition for

that so we'll use the uh condition control so here we have to give like the

uh if response is for example to once this is approved so that is what

we have to take here and match with the approved text and based on that we will take the action so we'll go here and

check that from where we will get the response and that is the start and wait for approval step to outcome so we'll

select the outcome here equal to approve so we'll add a room

here

and we save

it so now based on that if it is

true then we are going to add a row in our Excel sheets but before that we have

to create the Excel sheets so what I will do is I already created access that is what I will explain

here i will go in one

drive and I created this particular pro so easily this is not a complicated process you will go in one drive and

create this kind of excel sheet i will show you so this table I I already created in your case you'll just go over

here add the first name

like email address so whatever fields you want to add you will add here and then you will

select and convert it as a table like you can just convert it as a table and

then you will able to access this table in power auto so this is how you can easily create a table in Excel 8 and

access in power automate so let's go back to our flow and here we'll select another step

by which we can add the row add row in

Excel add

and row so add a row into table that is what

we'll select and once you will select this so you need to specify the the path

from where you are selecting it so I will use

this my path this is.1

drive one drive and then based on your uh library path you

will just select from here so I'm selecting the path where I have the file

so now I will select the P and once you will select you can see the table name

like if you have two three tables that is what you will have in this particular dropdown i have one so that is what I

can see here we'll save it again and then the

next step is we'll send email to the person who already in initiated request

so we'll use send email we

do send

email so we'll select this action send email and here we need to select the

email address to whom we want to send so what we do

is for now I will just use

this I will use my email address we'll make it dynamic

so I

just slowly

And then the email address that is what you can add here let me add the name from the full

name so this is how once the condition is true we'll send the email in case if

condition is false again we'll send the email so we will add

accent

and we use subject list

all right

so this is the complete flow you can see like when response is submitted we'll get the response then we'll send the

approval request if uh condition is true then we'll add in excel sheet and send

email and If disapprove will send email disapprover the next thing is like whenever you are adding row in excel uh

one thing we need to hear here like the whatever response we are getting from this particular form that is what we

need to add in this excel sheet so once you will click on here show all parameters you will have all

those columns which you added in excel sheet and you can map with your

Microsoft so you will just go here you will select the full name the

department the amount so this is how based on your requirement and whatever

fields you have you can easily map these columns and then you

can save so now you can see our flow is ready uh let's go for testing so what I

will do is I will just click on test manual and paste i will go to that

particular form we created and I will use

and I will submit let's go back to the

flow so you can see in Microsoft Teams like once you will

uh submit it in Microsoft Teams you will have a approval request like this hope

this is visible and then you will have two buttons here uh resent and approve the

team team's not visible okay so I share the complete window

you still see the power automate uh screen let me one more time I will save it

so is it visible Uh no

uh now it's loading so you can see like Yep yeah so we have two buttons here

like uh approve and reject the similar kind of uh request will get here in uh

in email as well again I will share

it so you can see like we'll get the email and that is for the approve and reject two buttons we'll have

here right so I will just approve

it but before that I will again stop and

share so you can see the flow So I'm going to approve it using

Microsoft Teams

approve so now you can see it's waiting for the approver and now I approved and you can

see like uh the approved like as I approved it is uh going to true and then

we are adding a row in Excel sheet and then we are sending a email so let me

show that particular email right

here again i think I need to stop and save

so this is how we'll get the response like hello uh name and then the message

and the amount we have is still not visible uh the

correct so now you can see like we have the name and the message I added over

there the your request is approved for amount and the amount is there so this

is the complete flow this is how we can easily uh

create create a power automated power automate flow for reimbursement approval

process so entire

screen all right so in case like it it is disapproved so that is what I'm going

to show what I will do is I will again run this blow in the test

mode and I click manual you go to the form submit the

form one more All right

and some let's go back to the globe so this time I'm going to

reject reject the

request and you can see it is going in a false condition so this is how easily uh

we can create a power automate flow for re reimbursement request in your

organization so over to you Mahendra yeah thank you Sundep for showcasing

this uh demo so yeah so this is uh like how we can automate this complete manual

process and you can see how we can use different type of controls right here to

identify that if this approval is done the approval can be done over the email or the team chats you know so it's

easily to perform action on those quickly so they don't need to wait on you know if they have that approval

notification and they can immediately do that right so there is no manual XNR here so this type of and this is this is

a you know this we have used a single approval process but like that we can

have multiple approval so if there you in your organization there are multiple you know approval is required so that

can be also easily implemented similar to that uh use case only okay yeah one

thing I can add here like right now we are using Excel sheet but instead of that if you want to add like we want to

exp add this expense in our like business central or fno that is what we can connect here so the process will not

just limited to the Microsoft 365 we can use any kind of like ERP system or any

accounting application you are using we can uh integrate here and uh we we can

log the expense uh there correct yeah so we can we can use any different type of

connector that is available whether it's it's not just the Microsoft as well so we can go out of Microsoft stack as well

so depending on that you know connector if that is there we can use those or otherwise we can build our own custom

connector to connect to that particular application and pass this information to that here okay so depending on that you

can pass on your ERP so whether it's a Microsoft ERP or non-Microsoft ERP so

that information can be also followed there and posted there so yeah so that's

what we wanted to cover in today's sessions and we will be back with another use case and we will discuss how

we can do more automation there and in case you have any you know request or

you want to see anything you know automated so you can also you know pass your message to us or you know post your

the comment on the YouTube or C# TV you know you can post your comment there and

we will do that you know take that use case and we will showcase how we can automate that particular process thank

you very much for joining us today thank you okay bye

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