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)

UI actions in action

In the example presented in this section, we want to establish a data exchange between two applications that can’t do this: a Microsoft Access database and a Windows Desktop application. This scenario is illustrated in the following figure:

Figure 6.1 – Orders to Invoices structural view

Figure 6.1 – Orders to Invoices structural view

In this scenario, a database application has been created with MS Access. This application may be used by multiple users through network sharing and contains information about customers and suppliers. The users can also store orders from the customers in this database, but the invoices to customers need to be processed via another application for some reason. This application is a Windows executable program that is running on the desktop of a user.

Microsoft Access database as a source system

The database we are using in this example is a sample database provided by Microsoft. Starting MS Access from the program taskbar in Windows...