Introduction to Power Automate and Microsoft Forms

Overview

This section provides an introduction to using Power Automate and Microsoft Forms to implement an automated process for managing HSSE Risk Assessments efficiently.

Microsoft Forms Setup

Step 1: Create a Microsoft Form

1. Navigate to Microsoft Forms:

   • Go to https://forms.office.com/.

2. Create a New Form:

   • Click on "New Form".

3. Design the Form:

   • Provide a title, e.g., "HSSE Risk Assessment".
   • Add relevant fields such as:
     • Name (Text Field)
     • Department (Choice Field)
     • Date (Date Field)
     • Risk Description (Long Text Field)
     • Severity (Choice Field)
     • Likelihood (Choice Field)
     • Mitigation Measures (Long Text Field)

4. Preview and Share the Form:

   • Click on "Preview" to see how the form looks.
   • Click on "Share" to get a link to distribute the form to respondents.

Power Automate Setup

Step 2: Create a Flow in Power Automate

1. Navigate to Power Automate:

   • Go to https://flow.microsoft.com/.

2. Create a New Flow:

   • Click on "Create" and select "Automated cloud flow".

3. Set the Trigger:

   • Search for "Microsoft Forms" in the trigger options.
   • Select "When a new response is submitted".

4. Select the Form:

   • Choose the HSSE Risk Assessment form created in Microsoft Forms.

Step 3: Add Actions to the Flow

1. Get Response Details:

   • Add a new step and search for "Microsoft Forms".
   • Select "Get response details".
   • Configure it with the form ID and the response ID from the trigger.

2. Create an Item in SharePoint (or other storage system):

   • Add a new step and search for "SharePoint".
   • Select "Create item".
   • Configure it with the relevant site address and list name.
   • Map fields from the form response to the corresponding columns in the SharePoint list.

Step 4: Notifications and Approvals (Optional)

1. Send an Email Notification:

   • Add a new step and search for "Office 365 Outlook".
   • Select "Send an email".
   • Configure the email to notify responsible individuals about the new risk assessment submission.

2. Approval Process:

   • Add a new step and search for "Approvals".
   • Configure the approval process by assigning the approval task to the appropriate personnel.

Example Flow Configuration

1. Trigger:

   • When a new response is submitted (Microsoft Forms)

2. Action:

   • Get response details (Microsoft Forms)
     • Form ID: HSSE Risk Assessment
     • Response ID: Response ID

3. Action:

   • Create item (SharePoint)
     • Site Address: [Your SharePoint Site URL]
     • List Name: [Your SharePoint List Name]
     • Title: [Risk Description from Forms]
     • Columns:
       • Name: [Name from Forms]
       • Department: [Department from Forms]
       • Date: [Date from Forms]
       • Severity: [Severity from Forms]
       • Likelihood: [Likelihood from Forms]
       • Mitigation Measures: [Mitigation Measures from Forms]

4. Optional Action:

   • Send an email (Office 365 Outlook)
     • To: [Recipient Email Address]
     • Subject: "New HSSE Risk Assessment Submitted"
     • Body: "A new HSSE Risk Assessment has been submitted. Please review it at your earliest convenience."

5. Optional Action:

   • Start and wait for an approval (Approvals)
     • Assigned to: [Approver Email Address]
     • Title: "Review HSSE Risk Assessment"
     • Details: "A new risk assessment has been submitted for your review and approval."

Conclusion

By following these steps, you can create an efficient automated process for handling HSSE Risk Assessments using Microsoft Forms and Power Automate. Ensure continuous monitoring and refining of the process to adapt to any organizational changes or improvements in risk assessment methodology.

Building the Form and Understanding Branching

Part 2 of Automating HSSE Risk Assessments

This section will focus on creating a form for HSSE risk assessments using Microsoft Forms and handling branching logic to streamline the automated process.

Microsoft Forms: Creating the Risk Assessment Form

1. Access Microsoft Forms:

   • Open Microsoft Forms.
   • Click on "New Form" to start creating a fresh questionnaire.

2. Form Questions:

   • Title: "HSSE Risk Assessment"
   • Add various sections based on the required risk assessment categories. Below is a sample structure:

3. Sample Questions:

   question: "What type of risk are you assessing?"
   type: "Choice"
   choices: ["Operational", "Environmental", "Health & Safety", "Security"]

   question: "Describe the potential hazard."
   type: "Text"

   question: "What is the likelihood of the risk occurring?"
   type: "Choice"
   choices: ["Rare", "Unlikely", "Possible", "Likely", "Almost Certain"]

   question: "What would be the impact of this risk on operations?"
   type: "Choice"
   choices: ["Negligible", "Minor", "Moderate", "Major", "Severe"]

Branching Logic

To make the form dynamic and ensure respondents only see relevant questions, use conditional branching.

4. Adding Branching:

   • Select a question where you want branching to begin.
   • Click on "More options" (...) and choose "Add Branching."

5. Implementing Branching Logic:

   • Example:

     • From the earlier example, if "What type of risk are you assessing?" is set to "Operational":

       IF choice == "Operational":
           GO TO "Describe the operational hazard."
       ELSE IF choice == "Environmental":
           GO TO "Describe the environmental hazard."
       ELSE IF choice == "Health & Safety":
           GO TO "Describe the health & safety hazard."
       ELSE IF choice == "Security":
           GO TO "Describe the security hazard."

6. Complex Branching:

   • For further questions based on previous answers:

   question: "What mitigation measures are in place?"
   type: "Text"
   branch_from_previous:
     IF choice in {"Moderate", "Major", "Severe"}:
         GO TO "What mitigation measures are in place?"
     ELSE:
         GO TO "How frequently is this risk reassessed?"

Integrating with Power Automate

After structuring the form and setting appropriate branching, the responses can be automated using Power Automate.

7. Automated Workflow:
   • Trigger: Microsoft Forms - "When a new response is submitted"
   • Action: Get response details
   • Next Actions: Define custom actions based on response content, e.g.,

     IF response("Likelihood of the risk occurring") == "Likely" OR response("Likelihood of the risk occurring") == "Almost Certain":
         SEND alert_email("Alert", response_details)
     ELSE:
         LOG response_details

Using the above structure, you can efficiently create a dynamic risk assessment form with condition-based branching, and set up an automated workflow using Power Automate to manage and respond to the collected data.

Creating and Configuring the Power Automate Flow for HSSE Risk Assessments

Step 1: Create the Flow

1. Create a new Automated Flow:

   • Open Power Automate.
   • Click on Create in the navigation bar.
   • Select Automated flow.

2. Define the trigger:

   • Name your flow, e.g., "HSSE Risk Assessment Workflow".
   • For the Trigger, search for "Microsoft Forms".
   • Select the trigger: "When a new response is submitted".

3. Select the form:

   • Choose your HSSE Risk Assessment form from the list of available forms.

Step 2: Add Actions to Your Flow

2.1 Initialize Variables (Optional - If further computation or checking is needed)

• Add a New Step -> Initialize variable.
  • Name: riskLevel
  • Type: String
  • Value: (Optional based on your Form fields)

2.2 Get Response Details

• Add a New Step -> Get response details.
  • Form ID: Select your form.
  • Response ID: Use the dynamic content Response ID from the trigger.

2.3 Conditional Branching (Risk Level Evaluation)

• Add a New Step -> Condition.
  • Condition: Check the risk assessment value from response details.
  • For example, if we assume a "Risk Level" field is being captured:
    • Risk Level greater than or equal to 5

If Yes (High Risk Level):

• Add the necessary actions you require, for example:

  • Send an Email:
    • To: responsible_person@company.com
    • Subject: Urgent: High Risk Assessment
    • Body: Include dynamic content like Risk Level, Response Details.

• Create a Task in Planner:

  • Plan Id: Select your plan.
  • Title: HSSE Risk Assessment Alert
  • Assigned to: Responsible person
  • Details: Include dynamic content from the form.

If No (Low Risk Level):

• Send a Confirmation Email to the Reporter:
  • To: Use dynamic content for respondent’s email.
  • Subject: HSSE Risk Assessment Submitted
  • Body: Thank you for your submission. We'll review the assessment...

Step 3: Review and Test the Flow

• Save your Flow.
• Test the flow manually by submitting a form response.
• Verify the actions performed, ensuring emails are received, and tasks are created if applicable.

Step 4: Deployment

Upon testing successfully:

• Turn on the Flow to make it live.
• Monitor its execution via the Power Automate dashboard.

By following these steps, you can automate the management of HSSE Risk Assessments efficiently using Power Automate.

Generating PDFs and Email Automation for HSSE Risk Assessments

Below is the practical implementation for automating the generation of PDF documents and automating the email distribution using Power Automate. This implementation assumes you have created a form to collect the data and a Power Automate flow to trigger the process.

Step 1: Generating PDFs

To generate a PDF document from the collected form data:

1. Initialize Variables in the Flow:

   • Form Responses: Stores the collected data.
   • HTML Content: Initialize this variable to build the HTML content needed for PDF.

2. Retrieve Form Responses: Collect the responses from Microsoft Forms using the appropriate Power Automate trigger.

3. Compose HTML Content: Use the Compose action to structure the HTML content for the PDF. Here’s a sample HTML template:

   
   
     
   
   
     
   HSSE Risk Assessment Report
     
   Date: @{{TriggerOutputs()?['dynamicContent']('Date')}}
     
   
       
   
         
   Question
   Response
       
       
   
         
   Question 1
   @{{TriggerOutputs()?['dynamicContent']('Question1')}}
         
   Question 2
   @{{TriggerOutputs()?['dynamicContent']('Question2')}}
         
       
     
   
   

4. Convert HTML to PDF: Add the Convert HTML to PDF action (provided by services such as Adobe PDF Services or any other suitable connector) to convert the composed HTML content to a PDF file:

   • Input: HTML Content from the previous step.
   • Output: PDF File.

Step 2: Email Automation

1. Send an Email with Attachment: Use the Send an email (V2) action to email the generated PDF to stakeholders:
   • To: List of recipients (could be hardcoded or dynamically fetched).
   • Subject: Unique or relevant subject line like "HSSE Risk Assessment Report".
   • Body: You can include a custom message or leave it as a notification.
   • Attachments: Add the PDF file generated from the previous step.

Example Flow Steps in Power Automate:

1. When a new response is submitted (Trigger)
2. Get response details (Action)
3. Initialize variable (HTML Content)
4. Compose HTML content (Action)
5. Convert HTML to PDF (Action)
6. Send an email (V2) (Action)

Implementation Notes

• Ensure that the necessary connectors for PDF conversion and email are properly configured.
• Customize the HTML template according to the specific questions and style requirements of your assessment.
• Verify permissions and access rights to send emails from the automated system's account.

This practical implementation will help in systematically generating PDFs from collected data and automating the email delivery of risk assessment reports without overlapping with previously discussed steps in your project.

Archiving and Managing Flow Outputs for HSSE Risk Assessments

To implement an automated process for archiving and managing flow outputs for HSSE Risk Assessments efficiently, follow these steps. This solution leverages Microsoft Power Automate for workflows and SharePoint for storing archived documents.

Steps

1. Create a SharePoint Document Library for Archived Files: Ensure you have a dedicated SharePoint Document Library where the assessment outputs will be archived.

2. Power Automate Flow Configuration:

   • Trigger: When a PDF is created and email is sent (assuming this was defined in a prior flow).
   • Create File in SharePoint: Store the PDF in the SharePoint Document Library.
   • Update Metadata: Add metadata to archived files for better management and retrieval.

Power Automate Flow - Detailed Steps

Step 1: Create a SharePoint Document Library

• Navigate to SharePoint: Go to your SharePoint site.
• Add a New Library: Click on New > Document Library.
• Name the Library: E.g., HSSE_Risk_Assessments_Archive.

Step 2: Configure the Flow in Power Automate

1. Trigger: Use the trigger that indicates when the PDF and email step is completed (e.g., When a new email is sent or When a file is created in your working directory).

2. Action - Create File in SharePoint:

   Action: Create file (SharePoint)
   Site Address: [Your SharePoint Site URL]
   Folder Path: /HSSE_Risk_Assessments_Archive
   File Name: RiskAssessment_.pdf
   File Content: [PDF Content from previous step]

3. Action - Update File Metadata (Optional but recommended for better file management):

   Action: Update file properties (SharePoint)
   Site Address: [Your SharePoint Site URL]
   Library Name: HSSE_Risk_Assessments_Archive
   Id: [ID of file from previous step]
   Title: Risk Assessment - 
   HSSE Risk Level: 
   Assessor Name: 
   Date Conducted: 

Flow Diagram

1. Trigger: When a new PDF email is sent.
2. Action: Create file in SharePoint.
3. Action: Update file metadata in SharePoint (optional).

Example JSON for Power Automate Flow

{
  "trigger": {
    "type": "When a new email is sent"
  },
  "actions": [
    {
      "action": "CreateFile",
      "parameters": {
        "SiteAddress": "https://yoursharepointsite.com",
        "FolderPath": "/HSSE_Risk_Assessments_Archive",
        "FileName": "RiskAssessment_.pdf",
        "FileContent": ""
      }
    },
    {
      "action": "UpdateFileMetadata",
      "parameters": {
        "SiteAddress": "https://yoursharepointsite.com",
        "LibraryName": "HSSE_Risk_Assessments_Archive",
        "Id": "",
        "Title": "Risk Assessment - ",
        "HSSE_Risk_Level": "",
        "Assessor_Name": "",
        "Date_Conducted": ""
      }
    }
  ]
}

Note

• Replace all <dynamic_content> with actual content from previous steps or flow context variables.
• Ensure permissions are set correctly on SharePoint to allow file creation and metadata updates.

By implementing the above process, the HSSE Risk Assessment outputs will be effectively archived and managed within SharePoint, making it easy to retrieve and review as needed.

Power Automate: Implementing Conditions and Using Responses in Emails and PDFs

In this guide, we will cover how to create a Power Automate flow to handle responses from a form with Yes/No questions, use those responses to set up conditions, and then use them in emails and PDFs.

Step-by-Step Implementation

Step 1: Creating the Trigger

1. Log in to Power Automate and create a new flow.
2. Choose the "Automated - from blank" flow type.
3. Select your trigger, which is likely to be "When a new response is submitted" under Microsoft Forms.

Step 2: Capture the Form Response

1. Add a new step with the action "Get response details".
2. Select your Form ID and the Response ID from the dynamic content.

Explanation:

• Trigger: Initializes the flow when a form response is submitted.
• Get response details: Captures the specific answers from the form to use them later in the flow.

Step 3: Implementing the Conditions

1. Click "New Step" and select "Condition" from the control actions.
2. Set up the condition based on the response:
   • Choose the form response you want to check.
   • Set the condition to "equals" and the value to "Yes" or "No".

Example:

Condition: "Form response 1" is equal to "Yes"

Explanation:

• Condition Control: Allows you to branch the flow based on the response values.

Step 4: Using Responses in Emails

1. Under the "If Yes" branch, add a new step to "Send an email".
2. Fill in the email fields, using dynamic content to include form responses in the email body.

Example:

To: person@example.com
Subject: Form Submission Result
Body: The response to Question 1 is: @{triggerBody()?['response_1']}

Explanation:

• Send an Email: Uses the response details in email content, allowing you to communicate the form's results effectively.

Step 5: Generating a PDF with Responses

1. Add a new step to "Create a file" in OneDrive or SharePoint.
2. Configure the file's name and path, and build the content using dynamic content from the form responses.

Example - Create HTML content:

The response to Question 1 is: @{outputs('Get_response_details')?['response_1']}
The response to Question 2 is: @{outputs('Get_response_details')?['response_2']}

3. Convert HTML to PDF using an action like "Convert file" from a third-party connector or Power Automate premium connector.
4. Save the PDF file to a specified directory.

Explanation:

• Create a File: Generates a file with the form responses.
• Convert to PDF: Ensures the form responses are in a non-editable, shareable format.

Step 6: Handling Multiple Conditions

If your form has multiple questions, you can add more conditions within the flow by repeating the above steps for each question and configuring the conditions accordingly.

Example - Nested Conditions:

1. Add a second Condition action within the "If Yes" branch of the first condition.

Condition: "Form response 2" is equal to "No"

2. Branch further actions based on this second condition.

Explanation:

• Nested Conditions: Allow for more complex logic based on multiple question responses.

Conclusion

By following these steps, you have created a Power Automate flow that:

• Triggers on form submission.
• Retrieves form details.
• Sets up conditional logic based on Yes/No responses.
• Uses the responses to compose emails and generate PDF documents.

This approach ensures that form responses are captured, conditions are evaluated and the results are communicated efficiently via email and PDF files.