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)

Handling repetitive tasks with Loop statements

Another valuable concept in programming languages is to iterate through a list or run through a specific set of statements and actions a defined number of times. This can also be achieved in PAD by using loop actions. These are located in the Loops action group.

The Loop action

Let’s start with the Loop action and create a dice simulator for the Ludo board game. In this board game, players have to circumnavigate the board using pieces of a color chosen before the start of the game. The dice is rolled three times. If the result is a 6, the player can move a piece. If not, they need to try again. Here is the flow to simulate this situation:

Figure 4.11 – Roll the dice flow with a loop statement

Figure 4.11 – Roll the dice flow with a loop statement

The following is a detailed explanation of the steps you see in the previous figure:

  1. Open the Loops action group and locate the Loop action. Drag it onto the workspace and set the following...