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)

Identifying and creating UI elements

In Chapter 1, we learned that PAD comes from the robotic process automation (RPA) area and that this involves remotely controlling local applications. It is those applications that supply input options, which can be used for flow processing. These input options are identified by PAD through so-called UI elements, such as buttons, lists, or other controls used by the application.

In this example, we want to control the built-in Windows calculator application. The easiest way to create UI elements is to use the recorder. Follow these steps:

  1. Start the Windows calculator from your desktop and leave it open.
  2. Create a new flow called Windows Calculator Remote or provide some other meaningful name.
  3. Switch to the UI Elements pane on the far right-hand side and click the Add UI element button. This will start the unified recorder of PAD. You should now see the recorder window next to the Windows calculator. If you hover over the different...