ROI & Value Measurement Toolkit

1. What to Measure (and Why It Matters)

Ever been in a meeting where someone asks "So what are we getting from this?" and you didn't have a clean answer? Microsoft's adoption guidance breaks value into four buckets: performance improvement, cost savings, risk mitigation, and business transformation. The measures below come straight from their docs: Measure and communicate the business value of Power Platform solutions

Category	What it means (per Microsoft guidance)	Example metrics
Time and cost savings	Compare time and costs before vs. after automation. Calculate based on hours saved per week or month, reduction in errors, and cost savings per task.	"4 hrs/week per user × 12 users = 48 hrs/month"
Error reduction	Track errors before and after implementation. Automated processes minimize errors.	"Approval errors dropped from ~15/month to 0"
Productivity improvements	Compare output achieved before and after implementation (tasks completed, work completed in a given time).	"Process 3× the invoices with same team"
Adoption / User analytics	Microsoft recommends tracking adoption rates, feature usage, and user engagement.	"85% of target users active in first 30 days"
Risk mitigation	Track incidents related to mitigated risks before and after; compliance rate; incident response time.	"Compliance rate improved; incident response time reduced"

2. Tangible vs. Intangible: Report Both

You've got stuff you can count (hours saved, errors down) and stuff that's harder to put a number on (people actually like using it, fewer headaches). Microsoft's framework says both matter. Don't leave the intangible stuff out. That's often what convinces people your solution is worth keeping.

Tangible value	Intangible value
Revenue growth ($)	Risk mitigation and compliance
Reduced maintenance cost ($)	Fewer disruptions
Reduced paperwork and admin ($)	Improved employee experience
Resource optimization (%)	Improved data security

Source: Measure and communicate the business value of Power Platform solutions

3. One-Page Value Summary: Copy-Paste It

Next time someone asks "What did that automation actually do?" (or you're writing a status report or project closeout), fill this in and you're done.

Solution name:  
Owner:  
Live since:  

Metric	Before	After	Delta
Time per transaction
Error rate
Cycle time (end-to-end)
Hours saved per month

One-line story for execs:
[e.g., "This automation saves Finance ~40 hours a month on purchase approvals and cut our error rate from 8% to zero."]

Evidence attached: [ ] Screenshot / [ ] Before-after process map / [ ] User count × hours saved

4. Questions That Actually Get You the Numbers

When you're talking to process owners, these questions tend to surface the data you need. They're from Microsoft's business value guidance:

Time and cost savings:

• What was the average time to complete this process before automation, and what is it now?
• How much did you spend on labor costs for this process before automation, and how much have you saved since?
• Can you provide examples of errors that occurred before automation, and how has automation reduced or eliminated them?

Productivity:

• What is the current volume of work handled by the automated process compared to the previous manual process?
• How has the automated process improved the speed at which tasks are completed?

5. Before You Hit Send: Quick Checklist

Your status update is ready when you can tick at least one of these:

• [ ] Before/after screenshot or simple process map (if you have it)
• [ ] User count × hours saved (or equivalent)
• [ ] A manual count you replaced (e.g., "previously 50 emails/week we no longer process")
• [ ] Adoption rate (e.g., "% of target users active"). User analytics is what Microsoft recommends here.
• [ ] UAT sign-off or business owner quote

6. When You Don't Have the Numbers Yet

Early launch? No baseline because the process was chaos before? Here's what to say instead of "we can't prove it yet."

Situation	What to say instead
Just launched	"First 2 weeks: X active users. Full impact metrics in 60 days."
Qualitative wins only	"Eliminated manual handoffs; team reports less friction and fewer 'where's my stuff?' questions."
Pilot phase	"Pilot with [dept]. Success criteria: [list]. Decision point: [date]."
No baseline data	"No formal baseline. Going forward we're tracking: [list 2–3 metrics]."
Skeptic asking for ROI	"We're measuring [X, Y, Z]. First report in [timeframe]. Happy to walk through the methodology."

7. Talk to Who's in the Room

Finance cares about different things than IT. Operations cares about different things than execs. Microsoft's guidance: adjust what you say based on who you're talking to:

Audience	Focus on
IT	Cybersecurity, scalability, technology adoption
Finance	Cost savings, financial ROI, investment justification
Operations	Process efficiency, productivity, reduced downtime
Executives	How it ties to goals, KPIs, OKRs

Source: Measure and communicate the business value of Power Platform solutions

8. When You Need to Do This at Scale

A few apps? This toolkit is enough. Hundreds or thousands? You'll want Microsoft's built-in tools. Here's what's out there:

Tool	What it does	Learn more
Business value toolkit	Lives in the CoE Starter Kit. Walks app owners through a story: problem → solution → obstacles → value → next steps. Uses a value calculator so you can quantify.	Link
Innovation Backlog	Helps you prioritize and line solutions up with what the org actually cares about	Link
Automation Project app	Part of the Automation Kit for Power Automate. Tracks value across flows.	Link

9. Drop-In Snippet for Your Next Status Report

You shipped something. Here's a sentence you can paste in:

Value delivered this period: [Solution name] went live on [date]. Early metrics: [X hours saved / Y errors reduced / Z users active]. Full impact report in [next period].

Microsoft Sources