Exam Study Guide to crack PL 500 Microsoft Power Automate RPA Developer(beta)

If you are interested in business process automation and automating repetitive tasks without wasting time, Power Automate is the one-stop solution for your problem. Microsoft Power Automate is one of the products of the power platform which provides you low code solution. Repetitive business processes can be automated such as data collection, communication, and decision approvals. Enterprise-grade process automation is possible using Power Automate. Beginners to developers can use this product to automate work tasks with a simple interface. Microsoft has announced a new certification exam PL 500 Microsoft Power Automate RPA Developer(beta), this is a golden opportunity to validate your developer skills. This article will give you an overview of preparing for the PL 500 Microsoft Power Automate RPA Developer. It is an ideal tool for any organization that intends to improve and automate business workflows.

The PL 500 guide is for those Developers who deploy solutions into the production environment by collaborating with administrators. This PL 500 examination preparation helps those who review solution requirements, process document creators, and design, develop, troubleshoot, and evaluate solutions.

Prerequisites for PL 500

This course is for those candidates who are interested in business process automation, preferably with experience in cloud flows, desktop flows, and json. Apart from experience in integrating solutions with REST and SOAP services using data from Microsoft Excel, VBScript, and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Experience using HTML, JavaScript, and Microsoft Power Platform suite of tools like Power Apps, and Power Virtual Agent is also required to take up this course. Since this is an Associate level course, initially taking up PL 900 exam will be an added advantage for this exam preparation.

Introduction

Microsoft Power Automate is a tool that users can use to create workflows to automate repetitive tasks like approval tasks, getting notification messages, data collection, and sending automated emails. Time-consuming, manual, and repetitive tasks are automated with the help of triggers and actions being used in the workflows. For example, the trigger could be an addition of a row in an excel sheet and action is an email sent automatically. The power platform provides drag and drops options where just with a click of a button workflows can be created seamlessly with minimal effort. Users can create simple tasks to large-scale integration with the use of pre-built connectors like OneDrive, SharePoint, and Dynamics 365. Microsoft supports more than 300+ connectors along with the facility to create custom connectors.

Microsoft Power Automate is meant for any individual to automate repeatedly executed tasks, not just any technical person. Any person who is new to the technology can also learn it without much technical background. Once thorough with the basics, candidates can take up PL 500. This course gives you an overview of automating processes with Robotic Process Automation, various technologies in Power Automate for desktops, and implementing advanced logic in Power Automate for desktops.  This course discusses the technologies to expertise with Power Automate for desktop.

Overview of PL 500 certification

PL 500 certification concentrates mainly on 3 sections as shown below.

3.1. Design Solutions (25-30%)

Module 1: Determine how to interact with an application targeted for automation

This module discusses the steps to be followed to automate an application. This module gives an insight into how to select the automation technology to interact with a target application. Also covers details about connection, payload, and verify access to target applications.

Module 2: Determine which types of Power Automate flows to implement

This module discusses and differentiates cloud flows and desktop flows. Depending upon the application details about the logical components required for a solution like flows, triggers, canvas apps, connectors, and model-driven apps. This module also explains the strategies for running the flows serially or in parallel and the usage of connectors for a solution.

Module 3: Design the solution

This module elaborates on the details of designing an automation model, and the criteria to consider for selecting the types of triggers to meet specific business requirements. The module also explains how to develop fault-tolerant requirements for the solution, design user interface elements, exception handling logic, required variable types, and strategy for scaling a solution and reusing solution requirements.

3.2. Develop Solutions (40-45%)

Module 1: Create core solution components

This module explains the creation of custom connectors and how to create components to launch, connect to, and authenticate with target applications. The module details implementing system actions to run custom scripts and change target screen resolution. Also elaborates on Power Automate actions to run Microsoft Office scripts and create flows by using Microsoft Visio.

Module 2: Configure solution components

This module comprises selecting and configuring an environment for the solution and explains the various configurations of components like queues, schedules, and triggers. Also discusses configuring connection features and managing references to connections.

Module 3: Enhance solution components

This module details about handling of system exceptions, log errors, and business exceptions. Also covers topics on configuring role-based security and sensitive data security. Also covers the creation of routines to manipulate Power Automate data objects.

Module 4: Integrate AI Builder and Azure Cognitive Services with solutions

This module describes the AI builder use cases and capabilities and selects the appropriate AI model for a solution. This module also discusses differentiating between prebuilt and custom-trained AI Builder models.

Module 5: Finalize development and test solutions

This module gives an overview of creating and implementing a test plan, performing unit testing, and resolving identified issues. Also comprises debugging solutions by using Power Automate and preparing and deploying solutions to a user acceptance testing (UAT) environment

3.3. Deploy and manage solutions (30-35%)

Module 1: Configure solution infrastructure

This module explains about implementing queue management to distribute workloads, implement logging and alerts, and role-based access control (RBAC) implementation. This module also elaborates on managing credentials by using Azure Key Vault and implementing data loss prevention (DLP) policies at various levels to protect sensitive and confidential data. The module also gives an overview of how to connect to on-premises data by using a data gateway

Module 2: Prepare solutions for deployment to production

This module has topics on creating and managing environment variables and preparing a solution package. The module also explains configuring priority for flows and child flow configuration.

Module 3: Deploy and manage solutions

This module covers replication of development and user acceptance testing (UAT) environment settings to production. Also explains the use cases, capabilities, and monitoring solutions using process advisor. The module also details the deployment of solutions to a production environment and upgrading and patching solutions.

Module 4: Share solutions and collaborate with others

The module describes the process for sharing solutions and the creation and sharing of cloud flows and desktop flows. This module also details machine and machine groups.

Examination Tips

To start the preparation, thoroughly go through the MS learn path for PL 500. Pl 500 can also be prepared with the help of instructor-led training. CloudThat provides PL 500 training which is handled by expert trainers. For reference, Microsoft Official Courseware (MOC) is provided by CloudThat upon enrolment for the course. CloudThat also provides practice questions through the TestPrep portal for those interested in taking up certification. The examination can be scheduled online or offline in the link provided on the Microsoft documentation page.

Get Certified Now

Whenever you are preparing for any course, the right guidance and right source of learning can help to crack the exam. At CloudThat, there is a course aimed to prepare for PL 500 Microsoft Power Automate RPA Developer(beta).

Hope this covers all the necessary details for preparing for PL 500 exam. If you have any queries, you can drop your questions and we will soon get back to you.

About CloudThat

CloudThat spearheads cloud computing training & consultancy in India with a track record of empowering 500k+ professionals on various niche technologies in the cloud domain. We are a Microsoft Gold Partner, Authorized AWS Training Partner, Advanced AWS Consulting Partner, and Authorized VMware Training Reseller. Our training programs are aligned with Microsoft Official Curriculum and the training is delivered through real-world use cases, and hands-on lab sessions by giving access to Exam Preparation Portal to take up numerous Mock exams.

Frequently Asked Questions

How difficult is the PL-500 exam?

• The PL 500 certification is an intermediate-level exam where you can expect around 40-60 questions and around 120 questions. Most preferably get trained by Microsoft authorized training partners like CloudThat which has Microsoft Certified Trainer who can provide hands-on lab sessions, Microsoft official Curriculum, real-world applications, and free practice tests.
• What is the passing score for PL 500?

The passing score for PL 500 is 700 out of 1000. It doesn’t mean 70% but it’s a scaled score.

• Is it Multiple choice questions and any negative marking?

It’s a Multiple-choice question pattern and there is no negative marking.

WRITTEN BY Raji P