Power Automate Basics: Understanding Connectors & Triggers | DAY-2

In the Day 1 blog, we explored the foundation of Power Automate—What it is, Why it matters, Where it can be used, and When it’s most useful.
Now, let’s move one step further into the heart of Power Automate:

👉 Connectors (the apps and services Power Automate talks to)
👉 Triggers (the events that start a flow)

If Day 1 was about knowing the tool, Day 2 is about making it work.

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🟦 What Are Connectors?

Think of Connectors as bridges. They connect Power Automate with the apps and services you already use—like Outlook, Excel, Teams, SharePoint, Twitter, Salesforce, Google Drive, and more.

Microsoft has provided 900+ connectors (and growing) so you don’t need coding to integrate different systems.

🔹 Types of Connectors

• Standard connectors – available with normal licenses (e.g., Outlook, SharePoint, Excel).
• Premium connectors – require extra licensing (e.g., Salesforce, ServiceNow, Adobe PDF).

📌 Example:
If you want a flow that saves incoming email attachments to OneDrive, you’ll need:

• Connector 1: Outlook
• Connector 2: OneDrive

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🟦 What Are Triggers?

A Trigger is an event that starts your automation. Without a trigger, a flow cannot run.

Triggers are like a “doorbell”—once pressed, it alerts the flow to begin.

🔹 Types of Triggers:

1. Automated triggers – Start when something happens (e.g., “When a new email arrives”).
2. Scheduled triggers – Run at a set time (e.g., “Run every morning at 9 AM”).
3. Manual triggers – Start when a user clicks a button (great for mobile or desktop flows).

📌 Example:

• Trigger: “When a new file is created in SharePoint”
• Action: “Send a Teams notification to the manager”

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🟦 How Connectors & Triggers Work Together

Let’s take a simple real-world scenario:

👉 Scenario: Automatically organize invoices received in email.

• Connector 1: Outlook (to detect the incoming email)
• Connector 2: SharePoint (to store the invoices)
• Trigger: “When a new email arrives with subject containing ‘Invoice’”
• Action: Save the attachment in SharePoint’s Invoices folder

So, the trigger detects the event, and the connectors enable communication with the right apps.

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🟦 Why Are They Important?

• They define what is possible in your automation.
• They make it easy to connect multiple apps without coding.
• They let you design flows that match your daily tasks—saving time and reducing manual effort.

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🟦 Beginner-Friendly Examples

1️⃣ Flow: Save Email Attachments Automatically

• Trigger: When a new email arrives in Outlook
• Connector: OneDrive
• Action: Save attachment to OneDrive folder

2️⃣ Flow: Get Daily Weather Updates in Teams

• Trigger: Scheduled trigger – every morning at 7 AM
• Connector: Weather API + Microsoft Teams
• Action: Post weather update in a Teams channel

3️⃣ Flow: Approval Request

• Trigger: When a new file is uploaded to SharePoint
• Connector: SharePoint + Outlook
• Action: Send approval request email to manager

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🟦 Pro Tips for Beginners

✅ Start with standard connectors (Outlook, Teams, Excel, SharePoint)
✅ Use simple automated triggers first (like email received, file created)
✅ Explore templates in Power Automate—Microsoft has ready-made flows using popular connectors and triggers
✅ Document your flows—so you remember which connector and trigger is being used

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🟦 Conclusion

Connectors and triggers are the foundation of Power Automate. Once you understand how they work, you can design flows that save you hours every week.

In the next part of this series, we’ll build our first automation step by step—so you can see connectors and triggers in action. 🚀

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