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)

Actions for UI Automation

In the previous chapter, we learned about UI elements and how they can identify areas an application interacts with. In this chapter, we will highlight the possibilities of PAD that can be accomplished with actions for UI elements. This includes covering the following:

  • Exploring the different UI actions and their purpose
  • Using UI actions to enable data exchange (extract data and form filling) and automation between two applications

By the end of this chapter, you will understand what is required to identify the necessary buttons and UI elements and trigger them with UI actions to safely and reliably repeat the desired tasks and configure them in a flow.