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)

The use and automation of local network services

In many large and small companies, Windows-based local networks are used, providing additional Microsoft services. First and foremost, of course, this includes AD, but also Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, and so on. These and other services are assigned to the Office Server product line.

Since PAD is perfectly suited to automate administrative tasks, it is obvious that corresponding actions are also provided for these services. Unlike the local Windows services we learned about in Chapter 7, these are network services on the local network and, therefore, not in the cloud. Accordingly, the actions presented here are also to be used only for the on-premises installed server products. To automate the corresponding cloud services, Microsoft refers to the use of the respective connectors for the online products (Azure AD, Exchange Online, and so on). The fact that more and more companies are opting for cloud technologies is probably also...