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Comprehensive Guide on Microsoft Power Automate RPA Developer Associate (PL-500) Certification

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Power Automate is designed to help people manage repetitive tasks by cutting down and simplifying tasks. Microsoft’s new enterprise system for automating the synchronization and integration of data and applications. This is to enhance personal productivity and improve business efficiency. With Power Automate, you can connect two or more applications and perform actions that integrate your repetitive business processes.

Power Automate is a web service that allows for a functional flow that excludes the option of developing a code or with minimal code. Some functions that can be executed with this service include moving data between systems, supporting data from an API, setting reminders, and automating tasks from a local device.

The Application comes with an easy-to-use interface, templates, and recommendations on linkable applications.  With its navigable features, users can perform an endless list of activities from automating tweets and retweets, downloading email attachments, and receiving and sending notifications, to mention a few. You can easily create a seamless flow of all work-related activities.

Upon the recent announcement of the Microsoft Certified: Power Automate RPA Developer associate certification, developers now have the privilege to take the exam and get certified. This certification offers you the privilege to prove to yourself, colleagues, and prospective employees that you are an expert in developing robotic process automation (RPA) solutions.

What is the Pl-500 Certification

Associate Level Power Platform Certifications

The PL-500 certification is a recently added certification to several certifications Microsoft offers. It is a certification provided to you upon satisfying some skill measure or requirements. You will find each skill measure below alongside how Microsoft intends to assess them (in bullet points). You can download the complete list here.

1. Design Solution (25-30%)

This section determines how you can interact with applications targeted for automation. Your skill or knowledge on the following will be tested:

  • Evaluate whether an application can be automated;
  • Selection of which automation technology to employ to interact with a target application;
  • Plan connection, payload, and other relevant information for required APIs, and 
  • Verify access to target applications.

 

Your knowledge  and skill of which type of power automate flows to implement will be tested, such as:

  • Differentiating between clowdflows and desktop flows;
  • Selecting logical components required for a solution;
  • Developing strategies for running flow (Parallel or serially);
  • Choosing connectors for a solution (Including custom connectors).

 

You will also be tested on how well you can design solutions such as:

  • Designing automation models that include required flow types and methods; 
  • Selecting trigger types to meet specific business requirements; 
  • Choosing between running solution attended versus unattended; 
  • Developing fault-tolerance requirement of the solution;
  • Designing retry and exception handling logic;
  • Designing required user interface element for a solution;
  • Designing strategies for scaling a solution and reusing solution components;
  • Designing needed variables and variable types.

2. Develop Solution (40-45%)

Your knowledge  and skill in creating core solution components will be tested, and your ability to do the following: 

  • create custom connectors;
  • create components to launch, connect to, and authenticate with target applications;
  • create components to perform business logic and transactional process work;
  • create components to exit from safely and close target applications;
  • create components that perform actions by calling external APIs;
  • implement actions to perform application integration tasks;
  • implement system actions to run custom scripts and change target screen resolution;
  • implement Power Automate actions to run Microsoft Office scripts;
  • create flows by using Microsoft Visio, the mobile app for Power Automate, and other tools.

 

Your knowledge  and skill in configuring solution components will be tested, and your ability to do the following: 

  • select an environment for the solution, and configure environment details;
  • map target application accounts to environments and other solution components;
  • configure connection features, and manage references to connections;
  • configure flow queues, triggers, and schedules.

 

Your knowledge of enhancing solution components will be tested, and your ability to do the following: 

  • create exception handling blocks to manage business and system exceptions;
  • create routines to handle and log errors and business exceptions;
  • create routines to manipulate Power Automate data objects, including JSON objects;
  • configure role-based security;
  • configure security for sensitive data.

 

Your knowledge and skill in Integrating AI Builder and Azure Cognitive Services with solutions will be tested, and your ability to do the following:

  • describe use cases for and capabilities of AI Builder;
  • describe the Bring your own AI model feature;
  • differentiate between pre-built and custom-trained AI Builder models;
  • select the appropriate AI Builder model for a solution.

 

Your knowledge and skill on finalize development and test solutions will be tested, and your ability to do the following:

  • differentiate between features and behaviors of debugging and compiling solutions;
  • create and implement a test plan;
  • perform unit testing, and resolve identified issues;
  • configure and run attended, and unattended desktop flows;
  • debug solutions by using Power Automate debugging features, including Run from here and breakpoints;
  • identify machine-level differences and dependencies;
  • prepare and deploy solutions to a user acceptance testing (UAT) environment.

3. Deploy and Manage solutions (30-35%)

Your knowledge and skill in configuring solution infrastructure will be tested, and your ability to do the following:

  • configure machine management options, including machine registration and machine groups;
  •  implement queue management to distribute workloads;
  •  implement logging and alerts;
  •  implement role-based access control (RBAC);
  • manage credentials by using Azure Key Vault;
  • determine whether to implement data loss prevention (DLP) policies at the tenant level or the environment level;
  • implement Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies and other options to protect sensitive and confidential data;
  • connect to on-premises data by using a data gateway.

Your knowledge and skill in preparing solutions for deployment to production will be tested, and your ability to do the following:

  • create and manage environment variables and solution configuration files;
  • select a package type, and prepare a solution package;
  • configure the priority for flows;
  • configure machines and machine groups;
  • configure child flows.

Your knowledge and skill in deploying and managing solutions will be tested, and your ability to do the following:

  • replicate settings from development and user acceptance testing (UAT) environments to production;
  • deploy a solution to a production environment;
  • describe use cases for and capabilities of the process advisor;
  • monitor solutions by using a process advisor;
  • upgrade and patch solutions.

Your knowledge and skill in your ability to share solutions and collaborate with others will be tested, and your ability to do the following:

  • describe the process for sharing solutions;
  • create a copy of a cloud flow, and send the flow to other users;
  • Share a cloud flow with a user as a co-owner or run-only user;
  • share a desktop flow;
  • share machines and machine groups.

Who can take the PL-500 Certification?

Team certeficate

This certification is for candidates who are experts at and looking to prove their skills and ability in robotic process automation (RPA). They are developers who automate repetitive and time-consuming activities using Microsoft Power Automate. 

The PL-500 certificate is for developers who can review solution requirements and design, develop, troubleshoot, and evaluate solutions. Also, developers skilled in using Power Automate to streamline business processes and connect old and new systems can check out this certification.

As the certification is a way of validating your skills, you must have experience with JSON, cloud flow, and web flows. You will also be needed to be vast in integrating solutions with REST and SOAP services. 

You must be familiar with data analytics software like Microsoft Excel, Visual Basics for Applications (VBA), and VBScript. In addition, having the knowledge and experience with programming languages like HTML, JavaScript, etc., is a plus. Lastly, you must have been exposed to the Microsoft Power Platform suite of tools (AI Builder, Power Virtual Agent (PVA), Dataverse and Power Apps, etc.

This exam requires some level of expertise. Therefore, if you do not meet up to the level of experience needed, you could check out or sign up for some of these suggestions:

  1. Get hands-on experience by volunteering on a Microsoft power Automate robotic process automation project; to learn more about this, watch this video.
  2. Sign up for a training course led by paid instructors;
  3. Explore the Power Automate application interface. Start here
  4. Use the Microsoft  Learn, Learning Path to get familiar with RPA.

Roles of a PL-500 Certified Developer

Comprehensive Guide on Microsoft Power Automate RPA Developer Associate

As mentioned earlier, RPA developers will be needed to provide automated solutions for business corporations and organizations. Your job description includes but is not limited to the following: create process documents, review solution requirements, design, develop, troubleshoot, and evaluate solutions, etc. In addition, it is your job to work with business stakeholders in improving automated business web flows and deploy solutions to production environments.

Frequently Asked Questions on Pl-500 Certification

FAQ`s

According to the recent announcement by Microsoft, the exam will be available from April 2022.

The passing score for PL-500 is 700/1000. Learn more about the exams here

When you earn your certification, you can celebrate your accomplishment by posting your badge on your LinkedIn profile. Do well to highlight your skills and abilities, and not forget to mention how you can solve business challenges for a potential employer or customer.

There are two ways to get prepared for the exam. One way is by using the online (free) or the instructor-led paid learning paths from Microsoft. Both prep ways provide modules that cover all aspects of the exam. However, the instructor-led paid learning parts are not available for this certification.

The exam goes for a fixed price of $165. Prices are, however, dependent on the country in which the exam is proctored.

The exam is only available in the English language at the moment.

The exam is designed to measure your skills and ability to handle the following tasks: develop solutions, design solutions and deploy and manage solutions. You will be tested on all these areas that make up a possible score of 1000.

There is no retirement date yet announced.

Yes, you can renew the PL-500 and other Microsoft certifications. But, first, you need to pass a free renewal assessment on Microsoft Learn. This can be done anytime within 6 months before expiration.

You can join a community of Power Automate Developers to network, share ideas and ask questions. You will also be updated with Microsoft’s latest news, learning activities, and events. For example, you could be a part of the Microsoft Power Automate Community, Microsoft Learn Community, or find Microsoft Power Automate Jobs here.

Conclusion

This article covered what the PL-500 exam is all about, who can sit for the exam, the job roles and responsibilities of a certified PL-500 certified developer, and some frequently asked questions about the exam.

Suppose you fall into the category of developers with a flair for automation. In that case, you should consider taking the Pl-500 exams to validate your skills and be valuable to potential employees or clients. Then, with this expertise and certification, you simply tell your employer that you can solve and provide critical solutions to business problems. 

This certification will position you for better job opportunities and career prospects, but you also have the leverage to work remotely and provide solutions from any part of the world.

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