Automation and data · Microsoft Power Platform
Get your critical processes out of email and spreadsheets
Approvals that live in inboxes, records kept in personal files and reports someone assembles by hand every week. With Power Automate, Power Apps and Power BI those processes gain an owner, traceability and indicators — on the platform your company already pays for.
Who it is for
Who this is for
For operations, finance and technology leaders who need visibility and control over processes that live in no system today. It is the sensible option when the process is specific to your company, changes often and justifies neither custom development nor an additional ERP module.
Signs you need it
- Purchase, expense or discount approvals get handled over email and nobody knows where a request stalled.
- Your team spends hours every week copying data between systems and rebuilding the same report.
- Operational indicators are consolidated manually and arrive too late to act on.
- Critical process information lives in personal spreadsheets with no backup and no version control.
- You have field, plant or branch processes recorded on paper and keyed in afterward.
- You need to connect your ERP to another system and a full development project cannot be justified.
Problems it solves
- Processes that live in no system
- If the process is spread across emails, files and chat messages, there is no status, no owner and no cycle time. What is not recorded cannot be improved or audited.
- Repetitive manual work that eats hours
- Copying information between systems, generating documents, sending reminders and consolidating reports take up the time of skilled people and are, on top of that, the main source of errors.
- Indicators that arrive too late
- When the dashboard is assembled by hand, the information shows up once the decision can no longer be made. Leadership ends up managing the past instead of anticipating.
- Critical spreadsheets with no control
- Files an entire operation depends on, with no permissions, no versions and no backup, stored on one person’s computer. It is an operational risk nobody has on record.
- Systems that do not communicate
- The ERP, the sales tool and third-party platforms do not exchange information, so someone bridges the gap. Every manual bridge is a delay and a chance to introduce an error.
- Automation without governance
- When every department builds flows and apps with no shared criteria, you end up with orphaned automations that break the moment someone changes jobs. The platform needs rules, not just tools.
Capabilities by process
Process automation
- Approval workflows by amount, category or exception with Power Automate
- Automatic notifications, reminders and escalations
- Automatic document generation and scheduled distribution
- Integration between your ERP, your systems and your files through standard connectors
- Task automation over applications that have no integration interface
Business applications
- Applications built with Power Apps to capture information where the work happens
- Use from a phone or tablet on the plant floor, in the field, in the warehouse or at a branch
- Forms with validation, photos, signature capture and geolocation
- Offline capture with sync once the signal is back
- Replacing critical spreadsheets with applications that have permissions and traceability
Business intelligence
- Power BI dashboards over ERP data and other sources
- Indicators for operations, finance, inventory, quality and service
- Exception alerts instead of reports nobody opens
- Dashboard distribution inside Teams, with role-based permissions
- Natural language questions over published dashboards
Data and platform
- Dataverse as the governed database behind your business applications
- Data source unification with Microsoft Fabric
- Documented data models shared across departments
- Historical snapshots of indicators so you can compare periods
Records and collaboration
- SharePoint lists for records, checklists and logs with version control
- Document libraries with role-based permissions and approval
- Operational processes centralized in Microsoft Teams
- A full history of who did what and when
Assistants and agents
- Conversational agents with Copilot Studio for frequent internal questions
- Checking the status of orders, requests or inventory from Teams
- Escalation to a person when the case calls for it
Platform governance
- Separate development, test and production environments
- Data loss prevention policies over the connectors that are allowed
- Ownership and documentation for every flow and application
- Error monitoring with named owners for response
Outcomes and KPIs
Processes with a status, an owner and a cycle time
When the request lives in a system, you know which stage it is in, who has it and how long it has been there. That is what lets you improve the process instead of chasing it.
Suggested indicators
- Request cycle time
- Requests stalled beyond the agreed deadline
- Percentage of approvals outside policy
- Full traceability of recorded transactions
Hours given back to the team
Copying, consolidating and notifying stop taking up people’s time. The impact is measured on the automated processes, comparing time spent before and after.
Suggested indicators
- Hours spent on repetitive manual tasks
- Documents generated automatically
- Rework caused by data entry errors
Indicators available when they are needed
Dashboards feed themselves and alert by exception. The operations meeting starts with the numbers on screen, not with someone explaining how they calculated them.
Suggested indicators
- Age of the data on the dashboard
- Reports generated manually
- Alerts handled within the agreed window
Operational risk reduced
Critical spreadsheets become applications with permissions, backup and history. The operation stops depending on a file sitting on one person’s computer.
Suggested indicators
- Critical processes still dependent on personal files
- Applications and flows with a documented owner
- Incidents caused by lost or corrupted files
How BETABOX works
Process mapping and prioritization
We document how the process works today, including its real exceptions, and prioritize by impact and effort. Automating a badly designed process only makes the error faster. The initial assessment is 100% free.
Designing the solution and the governance
We define what gets automated, what data is needed, which connectors are allowed and who will own each flow or application. Governance is defined before you build, not once there are hundreds of loose flows.
Building on what you already have
We develop the applications, flows and dashboards connected to your ERP and your existing systems, without replacing your current platform.
A pilot with real users
We test with the people who run the process, on real data, and adjust the rules based on what shows up in practice. The exceptions always surface at this stage.
Adoption and continuous improvement
We train by role, document every solution and periodically review the agreed indicators to decide which process to tackle next.
Support and maintenance
Error monitoring, maintenance of flows and applications, and 24/7 support with a response time under 1 hour. An automation without maintenance turns into technical debt.
Integrations
- Dynamics 365 Business Central: approvals, documents and indicators
- Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service
- Microsoft 365: Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, Excel and Lists
- Microsoft Fabric and Azure for data and integration services
- Databases, files and your own applications through standard connectors and APIs
- Third-party e-commerce, logistics and invoicing platforms
- Devices and sensors connected through Azure services
Security, governance and local adaptation
- Environments and lifecycle
- Separate development, test and production, with controlled deployment. Nothing is modified directly in production and nothing is left without a previous version to fall back to.
- Control over connectors
- We define policies that prevent corporate data from being mixed with personal or unapproved services. It is the control that keeps a useful automation from turning into a data leak.
- Ownership and documentation
- Every flow and every application has a business owner, documentation and a procedure for handling failures. That is how the solution survives staff changes.
- Security and permissions
- Role-based access inherited from Microsoft Entra ID, audit logging and protection of sensitive information with the Microsoft 365 compliance tools.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
- Which processes should we automate first?
- The ones with high volume, clear rules and visible consequences when they fail: approvals, reconciliations, document generation, notifications and report consolidation. During the assessment we rank them by impact and effort before building anything.
- Do we need to change our ERP or our current systems?
- No. Power Platform integrates with what you already use through standard connectors and, when needed, specific integrations. The idea is to complete your current platform, not replace it.
- Do we need additional licenses?
- Some capabilities are included in Microsoft 365 plans and others require their own license, depending on the type of connector and application. We review your current licensing, propose the minimum you need and give you the corresponding quote.
- Does our team need to know how to code to maintain it?
- Not for day-to-day operation. We document every solution, train the owners and provide ongoing support. When your team wants to build on its own, we train them and leave the governance defined so the platform does not fall out of order.
- When is automation the right call, and when is custom development?
- Power Platform fits when the process is specific to your company, changes often and needs to move fast. Custom development or an ERP extension makes sense when the process is stable, high in transaction volume or has to live inside the core of the system. We make that call with you during design.
- How do we avoid ending up with hundreds of flows nobody maintains?
- With governance from the start: separate environments, policies on which connectors are allowed, a business owner per solution, documentation and error monitoring. That is what separates a useful platform from a new problem.
- How long until we see results?
- It depends on the process, on data quality and on the availability of the users who take part in testing. We work in short deliveries so each one leaves a verifiable result; the schedule is agreed once the process mapping closes.
How many hours a week does your team spend on work nobody should be doing by hand?
Request a business process review. We map your critical processes, identify where time can be recovered and propose where to start. The initial assessment is 100% free.
Contact
Request a complimentary assessment
Tell us what your company needs and a BETABOX advisor will get in touch to schedule a call at your convenience. The initial assessment is 100% free of charge.
- +1 (754) 209-2071
- Bookings
- Book directly on the calendar