Mars, Incorporated (‘Mars’ for short), is a global manufacturer of confectionery, pet food and food products, and provides animal care services. Mars has been a proud, family-owned business for over 100 years with over 130,000 employees spread across the globe. There are several teams at Mars responsible for supporting the daily global enterprise processes. One of these teams is the Digital Demand Engineering team with employees based in North America and Europe. This team is responsible for enabling scaled engineering teams to build, operate and scale Consumer and Associate solutions over web, mobile, conversational, and collaborative experiences.
In this article, we learn about how an employee on their Digital Demand Engineering team took the initiative to use Power Automate for automating an enterprise-wide approvals process after being inspired by a colleague’s automation solution. From there, his passion for automation grew and more solutions were developed. The three Power Automate enterprise use case described in this article include:
Management of access extensions approvals for an internal application
User requests for provisioning of a new SharePoint site
Migration of user’s network files to OneDrive for Business
Power Automate solution – Automating access extension approvals
The first enterprise automation solution Alexander developed was for automating user access extension approvals for an internal application used as a collaborative platform at Mars. Certain users have a set period in accessing the internal application which can occasionally be extended. Prior to automating this process, it was manual and time consuming. Several users overseeing the user access process had to monitor the termination date of user access and continuously follow up with line managers on whether their access should be extended.
Alexander developed two cloud flows in Power Automate to automate the user access extensions. The first flow is a scheduled daily cloud flow that checks a SharePoint list where user data is stored to evaluate whether a user’s access termination date is near and generates the approval and reminders. If the termination date is within 28 days, a second cloud flow is triggered that sends the required information and generates an approval which is sent to the line manager to remind them that the user’s access to the internal application is ending and confirm if the user’s access should be extended.
Second cloud flow triggered when it is 28 days prior to the user’s access termination date and waits for an approval or rejection, followed by updates based on the approver’s decision.
Secondary reminders are sent 14 days and 7 days prior to the user’s access termination date if the line manager does not respond to the initial reminders. If no response is received or the senior line manager rejects the extension, the user is removed from the Azure Active Directory group. Otherwise, if the line manager approves, the cloud flow performs the necessary actions to extend the user’s access to the internal application.
Summary of benefits and impact
The automated access extension solution processed over 500 approvals in the first two years of going live and has improved the management of users who need their access extended.
Line managers are automatically notified based on reminders which reduces management overhead
Minimal disruption for users as their user access is extended through automated line manager approvals
Automation minimizes the possibilities of human error in missing extension requests for users
Accelerating Power Platform adoption at Mars
In 2021 a companywide Power Platform hackathon took place with many teams around the world participating. These teams gained firsthand experience in designing and building business solutions with the Power Platform. Many saw the value of developing low code solutions rapidly which later led to an increase of automation and apps. Today Mars has approximately 10,000 cloud flows and 4,000 apps.
Alexander has been instrumental in enabling others at Mars to develop Power Platform solutions. Not only was he a coach for the Power Platform hackathon, but he also regularly participates in sessions to demonstrate automation solutions to inspire others at Mars to think about how processes within their line of work can be automated. Other colleagues in the collaboration related teams have since followed in his footsteps by developing Power Platform solutions for unified services, desktop devices etc.
To help govern and administer the increase of solutions being developed across the company, a Centre of Excellence is currently operating which Alexander, and his current team are involved with. They recognize that it is important to manage the growth to ensure company policies are followed but also harnessing the value of employees developing their own processes that fit their requirements.
“Once you give them the tools, they will be able to build great solutions for their departments, businesses, areas, countries because they know their business much better. They know exactly how they are supposed to work and combine technical knowledge and eagerness to learn and build something with business knowledge. It can produce a great result, but at the same time it is important to control when you have over 10,000 cloud flows and over 4,000 apps in your tenant.”
– Alexander Nikulin, Collaboration Architect, Mars
Looking ahead
To continue supporting the growth of Power Platform solutions at Mars, Alexander and his Digital Demand Engineering team are working on materials which will be accessible from their internal hub site. Several types of materials will be made available such as learning and training resources, FAQs and much more. Alexander is planning to run monthly webinars to help educate others on how to build effective Power Automate cloud flows. Alexander and his team also plan to explore other Power Platform services such as Power Pages to expand on digitizing their business processes at Mars.
“Anyone can (no-)code. Everyone should (no-)code.”
– Sandeep Dadlani, Chief Digital Officer, Mars
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