Updated: March 23, 2025 (March 23, 2025)

How Citizen and Pro Developers Work with Power Automate

Before joining Directions on Microsoft, Rob worked at Microsoft for 14 years where he designed technologies for Microsoft products and... more

Power Automate, a low-code platform for building workflows, targets citizen developers (who are nonprofessional developers, also known as makers), but professional developers also use it for certain tasks. This diagram shows tasks each developer type performs on the platform and tasks that both groups share (middle).

Citizen developers can perform the following tasks using Power Automate:

Create flow logic, which includes the steps and branching of a flow

Specify connectors, which could be to internal solutions, such as SharePoint and OneDrive, and external services, such as Dropbox and SAP

Simple coding, using the Power Fx language, which is similar to Excel functions.

Professional developers can perform the following tasks using Power Automate:

Work on source code for advanced features by assuming development of a flow from a maker or by assisting the maker with ongoing development

Build custom actions and connectors, which a maker uses for specialized flow

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