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)

Microsoft best practices for hyperautomation

The extent to which companies are able to connect their processes through automation technology can be determined by a maturity model. Microsoft suggests the following Power Platform automation maturity model, shown in the following diagram:

Figure 12.13 – The Power Platform maturity model

Figure 12.13 – The Power Platform maturity model

This model can help determine the current state of automation capabilities and, from there, take the next steps, if necessary, to achieve a better level of automation and thus increase the company’s efficiency and productivity. In general, the idea here is not to look at individual applications but to take a holistic view of automation practices across an enterprise to embed them in an overall concept. For each individual automation project, so-called holistic enterprise automation techniques (HEAT) techniques can then be used to help design and roll out the solution in the context of the organization and manage...