Book Image

Democratizing RPA with Power Automate Desktop

By : Peter Krause
Book Image

Democratizing RPA with Power Automate Desktop

By: Peter Krause

Overview of this book

Whether you want to organize simple files or perform more complex consolidations between different Office programs and remote-control applications that don't allow outside access, Power Automate Desktop helps meet these challenges. This book shows you how to leverage this workflow automation platform by explaining the underlying RPA concepts in a step-by-step way. You’ll start with simple flows that can be easily recorded and further processed using the built-in recorder. Later, you’ll learn how to use the more advanced actions to automate folder and file management and enable Office programs to interact with each other. You’ll also get to grips with integrating desktop flows into other cloud environments and further enhance their value using AI. As you progress, you’ll understand how flows can run unattended and how they are managed in the Power Platform, as well as key concepts such as creating, modifying, debugging, and error-handling UI flows. Finally, the book will guide you to use Process Automation Designer (PAD) in conjunction with your frequently used desktop systems to automate routine tasks. By the end of this book, you’ll have become a Power Automate Desktop expert, automating both professional and personal tasks.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)

UI flows demystified and their role in Power Platform

As explained in the previous section, Power Automate is a component of Power Platform. However, Power Automate is in itself also an umbrella term for various types of workflows or simply flows that can be created with it. The following types of flows are distinguished:

  • Cloud flows: These kinds of flows run in the cloud, meaning they are running on the Microsoft Cloud infrastructure within Power Platform. A cloud flow runs on a specific trigger event – for example, a new contact was created. It could also run instantly, for example by the press of a button in a Power App, or scheduled – for example, every hour. A cloud flow can be designed in the designer in the browser, and it can incorporate any data or systems that are also available online.
  • Business Process flows: Dynamics 365 contains a lot of predefined business processes, such as lead qualification. This describes the path of a prospect to a real...