Ultimate Microsoft Power Automate Desktop

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to RPA and Power Automate Desktop

Introduction

The first chapter in the book will introduce you to the RPA terminology, explain the key terms used in RPA, and what the technology is used for. It further explains what Power Automate Desktop or PAD is, where does it stand in the entire ecosystem of the Microsoft Power Platform, which applications PAD can interact with, and how to select automation processes.

Structure

In this chapter, the following topics will be covered:

Understanding RPA

Traditional Automation vs. RPA

The Evolution and Current Status of PAD

The Power Platform and PAD’s Place in it

Misconceptions about Desktop and Cloud Flows

Applications and Services PAD Can Interact With

Problem with the Term Use-cases

Good Candidates for Automation

Understanding RPA

In simple terms, RPA or Robotic Process Automation, is a technology used to automate repetitive and rule-based tasks that are typically performed by humans in their day-to-day activities. To automate these tasks, there are several tools under the RPA technology.

Some of the tools, not in any particular order are, Automation Anywhere, SS&C Blue Prism, and UiPath.

Power Automate Desktop is Microsoft’s RPA initiative, which is going to be the subject of this book.

Let’s look at the keywords mentioned in the definition of RPA above.

Repetitive: Anything that is done over and over

Rule-based: Anything that follows a particular set of rules or a pre-defined sequence of instructions

RPA is used across various industries and sectors to automate repetitive tasks, streamline business processes, increase efficiency, reduce errors and in-turn free up human resources for more valuable tasks.

In various manufacturing units and factories, you may have noticed that physical robots have already been doing repetitive tasks thus improving productivity and allowing humans to focus on more complex tasks.

In the case of RPA, there are no physical robots, but the same level of efficiency and productivity has now become possible among various organizations where humans were performing repetitive and rule-based tasks – thanks to software robots. These software robots can interact with digital systems just like humans do, and can execute tasks across multiple systems and applications without the need for human intervention.

With the help of RPA tools, one can build such software robots.

The various terms used to refer to a software robot or to anything that is built via RPA tools are - bots, digital workers, digital agents, robotic agents, virtual workforce, software assistants, automation agents, or an inter-combination of these words, but they all point to the same.

Applications and Usages of RPA

RPA bots are used to perform a varied list of automation tasks such as the CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations, report generation, invoice processing, data entry, data validation, data extraction and manipulation, form filling, conduct automated testing, perform IT support and maintenance activities, assist in compliance and auditing, financial processing, inventory management, HR and payroll processing, automating customer service tasks and much more.

Thus, RPA can be - and is already - used across various industries and business functions such as supply chain, logistics, human resources, customer service and support, healthcare and life sciences, finance and accounting, insurance, manufacturing, legal, IT operations, sales and marketing, real estate, education, and the list goes on.

In short, the RPA technology can be applied anywhere and everywhere.

Traditional Automation vs. RPA

Automation is not a new concept and it has been used since decades. If we refer to these earlier methods and approaches as Traditional automation, then they include the established tools, methods and technologies that were developed in the past such as macros, programming and scripting languages. Most of them primarily integrated user applications with the backend systems of organizations, and others automated pre-defined tasks and activities without any backend databases. Developers needed to have good programming and scripting skills to make use of such type of automation.

It is not entirely possible to replace traditional automation with RPA as you will see in the upcoming chapters where scripting and programming languages are also used in conjunction with RPA. Having said that, let’s take a look at the distinction between Traditional automation and RPA.

Table 1.1: Traditional automation vs. RPA

The Evolution and Current Status of PAD

Back in 2020, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Softomotive, a leading RPA provider and creator of products such as WinAutomation (Robotic desktop automation tool) and ProcessRobot (enterprise RPA platform). With this acquisition, Microsoft integrated WinAutomation capabilities into its already existing Power Automate stream which didn’t yet had the RPA capabilities at the time. This gradually gave rise to the Power Automate Desktop tool.

Know more about the full details of the announcement at:

https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-acquires-softomotive-to-expand-low-code-robotic-process-automation-capabilities-in-microsoft-power-automate

Since then, there has been no looking back for the RPA arm of Microsoft’s Power Automate. There have been frequent releases and updates of new features every single month in the Power Automate Desktop tool. This is evident from where it has positioned itself in the leading market researcher’s list, as mentioned below.

Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Robotic Process Automation

Reference: https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-named-a-leader-and-positioned-furthest-for-completeness-of-vision-in-the-2023-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-robotic-process-automation

In the chart shown in the preceding link, if you can see the mention of "Completeness of vision on the x-axis, and find Microsoft’s position in the top-right Leaders" quadrant, it has positioned itself the farthest.

Everest Group’s PEAK Matrix® assessment for RPA products

Reference: https://www2.everestgrp.com/reportaction/EGR-2023-38-R-6146/Marketing

(Right-click the Assessment image on the preceding link and open in a new browser tab to get a bigger view of the image)

Microsoft can be seen as a Star Performer in the Leaders quadrant of the above report.

Also, you will get to know the names of other RPA tools available in the market in the preceding links along with the ones that were mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.

The charts for both the preceding references are present in the GitHub folder for this chapter in case the links get changed in future.

Thus, after the acquisition, Microsoft entered into the RPA space and has taken a giant leap in the evolution of its tool.

The tool has been referred by different names among RPA enthusiasts. The wordings, Power Automate for Desktop or Power Automate Desktop or PAD as its abbreviated form, all refer to the same RPA tool from Microsoft, and from here on, these will be interchangeably used in this book and they would all mean the same.

The Power Platform and PAD’s Place In It

The Microsoft Power Platform is a suite of tools and components that allows organizations to create custom end-to-end solutions using no-code/low-code development. These tools are designed to analyze data, automate processes, create applications, build web pages, and develop conversational chatbots. Let’s take a graphical look at the Power Platform.

Figure 1.1: The Microsoft Power Platform

(The logos used in Figure 1.1 are sourced from the official website of Microsoft.com. They are utilized here solely for illustrative purposes and do not imply endorsement or affiliation with Microsoft Corporation.)

Furthermore, let’s go through each of the tools and components in a nutshell. The tools that comprise of the Power Platform are as follows:

Power BI: Power BI needs no introduction as it (Microsoft) has been positioned as a leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms for 16 consecutive years as of this writing. It is an analytics tool used for business intelligence, dashboarding, interactive reporting and for generating insights that allows users to visualize and analyze data by connecting to a wide range of data sources.

Power Apps: A low-code development platform that allows users to build custom applications without extensive coding knowledge. Users can develop apps for web and mobile devices for specific business needs by connecting to various data sources. Think of it as giving one or more frontend screen(s) for an underlying data at the backend and then allowing CRUD operations (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) for that data.

Power Automate: Power Automate is a cloud-based service that allows users to create automated workflows across various applications and services. As shown in Figure 1.1, one can create several types of Flows via Power Automate.

Simply put, Flows come from the word ‘workflow’ and so refers to a workflow automation created using Power Automate.

Cloud Flows: They are cloud-based process automation workflows that integrate with a wide array of Microsoft and several third-party services accessible via APIs, thus allowing seamless automation of business processes. A Cloud Flow automation can be triggered either automatically, or instantly, or on a set schedule. Automations built using Cloud Flows are also termed as Digital Process Automation(DPA). These types of Flows are created via the Cloud portal of Power Automate.

Desktop Flows: Desktop Flows is the topic of our book and is also highlighted in the preceding figure to show its position in the entire Power Platform. Desktop Flows make use of a separate desktop application, called Power Automate Desktop, to create workflows that can mimic human actions such as sending keystrokes and mouse clicks, interact with databases and various desktop and web applications, call APIs and much more, which we will be learning further in this book. Desktop Flows fall under the category of Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

Business Process Flows: These types of Flows would virtually hand-hold a user and walk them through a series of pre-defined steps in the form of visual stages. This visual representation of a sequence of steps or stages outline the path that a process should take from start to finish, guiding users so that they follow the same steps whenever they use the business process flow.

Power Pages: They allow you to create, host and administer professional and modern business websites. Power Pages provides a no-code/low-code development platform with a drag-and-drop designer to build and publish websites without extensive coding experience.

Copilot Studio: Formerly known as Power Virtual Agents, Copilot Studio is a low-code tool for building copilots. A copilot in this case is an AI-enabled conversational chatbot which can engage with users for various scenarios and can be incorporated in multiple channels. The studio which has a visual interface allows users to create and deploy intelligent chatbots without extensive coding or AI expertise.

The above tools of the Power Platform are closely integrated with the following components:

Data Connectors: Data connectors are like bridges that allow Power Platform services to communicate with external applications, data sources and other services. Connectors facilitate the integration of data from various sources and applications into the Power Platform thus allowing the users to use this data and in-turn build apps, automate processes, analyze and manipulate data. There are 1000+ connectors and this number continues to increase since their inception. If there is no existing connector, then one can also create a custom connector.

AI Builder: In short, add intelligence to your Power Platform tools with the help of AI Builder. They provide prebuilt models to be readily applied to common situations, or build custom AI models to cater to specific business needs. AI Builder allows to leverage the power of AI (Artificial Intelligence) to drive innovation and solve complex business challenges within the Power Platform ecosystem.

Dataverse: It’s a universe of data. Think of it as a database of the Power Platform. It’s a cloud-based data storage service provided by Microsoft as part of the Power Platform. It serves as a secure and scalable data platform for storing, managing and leveraging business data used by Power Platform applications. It also allows businesses to build sophisticated applications, automate processes, and gain insights from this data.

Misconceptions about Desktop and Cloud Flows

Especially among new RPA enthusiasts, those transitioning from any other RPA tool or beginners who are already into Power Automate, there are certain misconceptions about the differences between Desktop and Cloud Flows.

The first one is about the term "Desktop" in either the name of the tool (Power Automate Desktop, Power Automate for Desktop) or in the wordings Desktop Flows. It gives an incorrect idea that PAD can automate only desktop processes. It also gives rise to a misinterpretation that Desktop Flow automations can interact only with local resources and applications on our machines such as files, folders, desktop applications, web browsers. While this is true, PAD can also call a web API (facilitating data exchange across the internet), interact with other applications on the cloud such as SharePoint, OneDrive, Excel online, Word online, MS Teams, make use of Cognitive services, and more.

In the August 2022 product updates (https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/preview-of-sharepoint-cloud-actions-in-power-automate-for-desktop-introducing-cloud-connectors-in-desktop-flows/), Microsoft announced its first cloud connector (SharePoint) into Power Automate Desktop and also mentioned that other cloud connectors will be continuously brought down to Desktop Flows, thus making the scope of automation limitless.

The PAD tool is a Desktop tool and it can automate cloud applications and services also. Even though you build the Desktop Flows via a Desktop Application (Power Automate Desktop), the Flows that you build are stored on the Cloud and therefore can be accessed from anywhere. This means if you use an account and login to PAD tool on your machine and build a Desktop Flow, the same Flow will be visible when you login to a PAD tool installed on another machine via the same login ID. Of course, this becomes achievable if there are no networking or login account or any other restrictions.

The second misconception is that the Cloud and the Desktop tools are two versions of the same Power Automate tool. You cannot create a Cloud Flow on the Power Automate Cloud portal and later modify it in the Desktop tool. Nor you can create a Desktop Flow in the Desktop application and later edit it on the Cloud portal. These are two different types of Flows used for different purposes. Cloud Flows cannot perform what Desktop Flows can do such as user interface-based automation of sending mouse clicks and keystrokes or screen scraping. Nor Desktop Flows have Cloud Flow capabilities such as creating Approval Flows, Business Process Flows, and so on.

However, Cloud Flows and Desktop Flows can work in conjunction with each other, for example, one can call a Desktop Flow from a Cloud Flow. You can schedule, monitor your Desktop Flow activity and view its logs from the Cloud portal of Power Automate.

It can also be noted that these two can be used individually. Meaning, Cloud Flows built using the cloud portal may not need the Desktop tool for building Desktop Flows, or the Desktop tool may not need the cloud portal.

Thirdly, the term Power Automate is used as a common term. You may be asked "How to read emails from Outlook in Power Automate? This is a common question to both, Cloud Flows and Desktop Flows, as reading emails from Outlook can be done via both the types of Flows and both have different ways of doing it via different connectors and actions. When you come across this situation, answer by asking a question Are you referring to doing this using Cloud Flows or Desktop Flows?. You may get an answer as either of the two Flow types or the questioner does not know these two types exists. Answer accordingly, now that you are aware of what these two types are and how they are accessed via different tools. A similar kind of question is What is the license plan for Power Automate?. You can begin by asking Are you looking to have Desktop Flows in your automation, or Cloud Flows, or both?". If needed, explain both these types. Licensing will be covered in its own section in this book.

Most of the beginners using the tool are not aware that there are two different Power Automate tools. If someone is working on the Power Automate Desktop tool, they are not aware that a cloud portal of Power Automate exists where Cloud Flows can be built, whereas anyone working on the Cloud portal is not aware that a Power Automate Desktop tool is available – that is, they are unaware of the existence of the tool other than the one they are currently using.

Since the subject of the book is Desktop Flows, the next topic will cover the applications and services PAD can interact with.

Applications and Services PAD Can Interact With

PAD can interact with a varied list of applications and services that we use in our day-to-day work and they are as follows:

Web applications via browsers such as Edge, Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer

Database systems

Microsoft Office applications such as Excel, Word, Outlook and so on

Windows Desktop applications

File interaction (for example, Text, CSV, XML, PDF) and the Windows Folder system

APIs and web services

Terminal Emulators

Email clients and the use of Exchange server

Local workstation resources

Scripting such as VBScript, JavaScript, Python, and so on.

Cognitive services such as Google, Microsoft, IBM

Windows Active Directory

Use of OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

Cloud applications like SharePoint, Excel online, Word online, and so on.

Citrix and RDP virtual desktop applications

And the list is ever growing. Not to mention, as specified in the earlier topic, that Desktop Flows can work in conjunction with Cloud Flows, together making the Microsoft Power Automate suite very powerful.

Problem with the Term Use-cases

In the RPA world, whenever automation opportunities are to be identified, the term use-cases is widely used. There is nothing inherently wrong with the concept, but with the way it is referred as. A use-case, by some, is generally talked about as a large or an end-to-end automation that involves several data sources and multiple applications to be automated, and this causes a lot of anxiety, unease and waiting period among RPA members. This is also because of the word Process in the RPA terminology that might indicate to automate an entire process. Developers and senior RPA roles spend a lot of time thinking, "Which use-case to automate?" using RPA automation and then do not even start due to the analysis-paralysis it causes. RPA individuals or groups, overanalyze an automation decision to the point of being unable to make a decision or take further action. Instead, it is suggested to try to find out which "automation scenarios" can be automated.

Let’s go through a small example of a non-RPA kind of automation.

When using Windows 11, to shut down your computer, you would need to go to the ‘Start menu’, then look for the ‘Power button’ and click ‘Shut down’. Instead, you could create a simple shortcut on your Windows Desktop that would point to the shutdown.exe file. This way, whenever you double-click the shortcut or setup a shortcut key for it, the machine would shut down immediately without going through multiple steps.

Figure 1.2: The Shut down shortcut properties

Furthermore, if someone needs the Shut Down menu options, they can create another shortcut on the Desktop that provides these options.

Figure 1.3: The Shut down shortcut with menu options

The point of the above examples is not how it is done, but what is done to simplify a task that is performed on a daily basis. As mentioned earlier, this is not an example of RPA automation. Most importantly, this is not a big use-case but an automation scenario that an individual user would automate because they are boring, mundane, time consuming, repetitive or all of them. Likewise, in RPA, instead of looking for an end-to-end project, one could begin by identifying automation scenarios by starting small and then scaling up versus not starting at all. Remember that RPA automation and Power Automate Desktop can be used by everyone from independent users, to small businesses, to medium and large enterprises.

Now that you understand, you can refer to the term use-case, but without falling into the over analysis trap.

But just so that you know, from here on till the end of this book, automation scenario is mentioned for anything to be automated.

Yes, it’s true that for certain users or organizations, since costs are spent on infrastructure, licensing and resources for RPA automation, they need to see the ROI in order to reap the full benefits of the automation. ROI stands for Return on Investment and, in simple terms, refers to the measure of financial benefits coming from the automation solution compared to the initial investment done in developing and maintaining the automation. There are several factors that determine an ROI such as time saved for employees who were doing the same work manually, the costs saved, reduction in errors due to the automation, if any additional costs are required for maintaining the solution after it is built, time saved due to the speed of the automation and so on.

This brings us to the next topic on identifying good candidate processes for automation without a lot of waiting and overthinking.

Good Candidates for Automation

Selecting good candidate processes for automation becomes crucial especially when there is ROI involved. The following Value/Complexity matrix will act as a good guideline in doing so:

Figure 1.4: The Value/Complexity matrix

Before placing your processes in the above quadrants, use the following terms as a reference.

Complexity: Determine the complexity by identifying if the process is rule-based, repetitive, number of screens/applications to automate, whether the RPA tool has the ability to automate what is asked, if the process has documentation or not, and if not, would it be time-consuming to create one, whether the input data is structured or not. At times, a judgment call based on one or more of the above parameters can be helpful to determine the same.

Value: Determine the value by verifying if automating the process can reap good benefits in terms of cost or time or both, gains from a business perspective, or is of high or low importance. This value could be for a customer or an independent end user depending on for whom the automation is being built.

It is important to note that wherever Full automation is not possible you should strive to achieve Partial automation and wherever even that is not possible then you should go for Fragmented automation (meaning, automating small portions or fragments of the manual process).

Partial or Fragmented automation can imply a hand-off from the bot to the human and back from the human to the bot. For example, a report is generated by the bot and passed over to a human, then the human will perform some operations on the report which is not possible by the bot because it requires human intelligence, and then pass back the completed report to the bot for further automation such as uploading it onto another system or send this report via an email to intended recipients, and so on. You do not have to automate 100% of the end-to-end processes all the time.

There could also be challenges such as inconsistencies in the manual process. For example, data is sent in the body of an email in an unstructured format. Since it is unstructured it would at times become difficult for the bot to read. So, the best thing to do here is to standardize the process by having the same text written in a structured format sent in an Excel file attached to the email so that the bot can easily pick up the information and proceed further. Yes, this may require approvals with necessary users to modify the incoming data format, but standardizing is the way to go for RPA automation.

Standardize the process (if necessary), document which part(s) of the process are going to be automated, start with the automation once approved.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we looked at an overview of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Microsoft’s RPA initiative via Power Automate Desktop (PAD). We explored its evolution, place within the Power Platform, debunked misconceptions, understood the distinctions between Traditional automation and the power of RPA. By highlighting its wide range of applications, as well as knowing how to identify suitable automation candidates, you can begin to think of effectively using Power Automate Desktop as an RPA tool for automating processes.

In the upcoming chapter, we will start to look into the practical aspects of working with Microsoft Power Automate Desktop (PAD). We will be navigating from installing the tool to creating our first Desktop Flow and understanding the various components of its interface.

CHAPTER 2

Getting into Action with PAD

Introduction

This chapter will guide you through the entire process of installing PAD on your machine to building your first Desktop Flow. It will also help you understand the various components of the PAD tool’s interface, preparing you to effectively use Power Automate Desktop tool.

Structure

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

Pre-requisites

Installation

Our First Desktop Flow Using PAD

Knowing the PAD Interface

Ways of Running a Desktop Flow

Environments and Tenants

Pre-requisites

Like any other software, Microsoft has provided certain pre-requisites for installing and using the Power Automate Desktop tool, and they are as follows:

A compatible Windows Operating System version

Hardware requirements

Valid account to login to the PAD tool

Let us examine each of the above points in more detail.

Windows Operating System

Either of Windows 10 (Home, Pro, Enterprise) or Windows 11 (Home, Pro, Enterprise) would suffice. If you use any of the Home editions of either Windows 10 or 11, you won’t be able to call a Desktop Flow from a Cloud Flow, although you would still be able to create the Desktop Flows using the PAD tool and monitor them from the Cloud portal when run from the main Console of the PAD tool. Also, note that the PAD tool is available along with the Windows Operating System in the case of Windows 11, but has to be installed as explained in the Installation topic below for Windows 10.

Hardware Requirements

Microsoft, in its minimum hardware requirements, suggests having a processor with a speed of at least 1.00 GHz, a storage capacity of 1 GB, and a minimum of 2 GB of RAM. If you plan to run multiple user sessions or involve several applications in your automation that itself would consume your machine’s resources, or if you build Flows that would do an automatic login to other machines and perform the automation, then you will need hardware with higher specifications than those mentioned above.

Refer to the link provided after the section below for the minimum and recommended hardware requirements from Microsoft.

Valid Account to Login to the PAD Tool

Three types of accounts can be used to sign into the Power Automate Desktop tool.

Microsoft account: This is your personal Microsoft account, such as a Hotmail.com or Outlook.com account. If you already have this as your personal account you can straight away use it to sign-in to the PAD tool. But if not, you can sign-up for a new email address on any of the above domains. Hotmail.com has transitioned to Outlook.com but you can still choose either of the domains while creating an account. Any Desktop Flows built with this type of account will be stored on the personal OneDrive account.

Something to note here is that this account type will not have a provision for adding premium capabilities as the Go Premium button is not visible on the PAD tool. Also, if the Flows built with this account type ever have to be transitioned to a premium account in future, then that will have to be done manually without any export functionality for it.

Work or school account: This plainly is an account created by the IT department of your organization when you become a part of it. You can use this account and sign-in to the PAD tool. The account would be without any premium capabilities and features, however to try out the premium RPA features you can start a trial from the Go Premium button on the main screen of the PAD tool. Desktop Flows developed using this account are stored in the Dataverse of a dedicated default environment.

Organization premium account: Among the various types of Power Automate license plans, an organization purchases them for its users and ties it to this account. This would also involve making the premium features and capabilities available depending on the purchased license plan. Desktop Flows built using this account are stored in the Dataverse across the respective created environments. We will be looking at multiple environments at the end of this chapter.

Apart from the above, you would need a compatible browser such as Microsoft Edge (version 80 or later), Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox and an internet connection.

Keep the following link handy for extended reading on the preceding topics, for comparison between what is available in each of the above account types, and to understand any issues and limitations:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/requirements

Installation

In general, you would need the right Windows version as per the mentioned pre-requisites, the right browser, a valid account and then you could proceed with the installation of the tool.

The official link from Microsoft to install the tool is as follows and there are two locations from where the tool can be installed.

Install Power Automate:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/install

The two ways as explained in the link are as follows with some details to note:

Install using an MSI installer: Installing via this option requires admin rights on your machine and any new updates to the PAD tool will be required to be updated manually. When a new version of the tool is released, a pop-up will show up on the PAD tool and can be updated by clicking on it.

The installer also has an option to install a separate desktop app called as Power Automate Machine Runtime app, which is used to register a machine and connect it to the Power Automate Cloud portal further useful for triggering a Desktop Flow from a Cloud Flow. This is a recommended installation option.

Install from Microsoft store: The store installation does not require admin rights and the releases are updated automatically on a regular basis as and when they are released. If you install from the store but also need the Machine Runtime app, you can later start the installation from the MSI and select only the required check box for the Machine Runtime, as explained below.

Once you start the installation, you should see a screen as follows:

Figure 2.1: PAD installation screen

Along with the default check box options above, if you are using a Windows version other than Home edition, you will see an additional option that reads as Install the machine-runtime app to connect to the Power Automate cloud portal. Select this option and when you agree to Install, the blue Install button will be enabled, allowing you to proceed with the installation. The bottom left-hand corner shows the latest version available to be installed as well as the one that is currently installed on the machine, if any.

In the upcoming installation screens, you will have an option to install browser extensions for Chrome, Edge and Firefox. Make sure to install the one for your preferred browser as they will be needed to perform browser-based automation. Even if you miss, you will be having an option to install these from within the tool.

You will see a Launch app button on the final installation screen and clicking that will open up the PAD tool. If you selected the Create a shortcut checkbox during the installation process you will also find a shortcut to the tool on the desktop. Another way to open up the tool is to go to the Windows Start menu and type Power Automate. Although it does not mention the word Desktop in its name, it is the same Power Automate Desktop tool we have just installed.

Once installed, you would need to sign-in with the account you have. The tool may ask you to choose certain options such as Region and once the inputs are provided you are ready to use the tool. Additionally, the tool may also ask you to take a tour through its various menus and options, which you can choose to take if you wish.

In general, the installation should proceed smoothly. However, if you encounter any issues, refer to the various sections of the provided installation link for assistance.

Our First Desktop Flow Using PAD

There are no prizes for guessing that the first process in any language or tool is the Hello, World! program.

Please follow along the steps to create our first Desktop Flow:

Click the New flow button on the top left corner of the main screen as marked in Figure 2.2

Figure 2.2: Creating a new Desktop Flow

Give a name to your Flow and click the Create button.

Figure 2.3: Flow name and Create

After a few seconds, a screen as follows would open up. For now, we are not referring to what each of the screens are called as they are covered in the next topic, Knowing the PAD Interface.

Figure 2.4: The new Flow landing screen

In the Actions section on the left-hand side, search for the word displayin the provided box, click on the Display message and drag and drop it onto the whitespace as shown. Follow the sequence as per the numbering given.

Figure 2.5: Drag and drop Display message

Once dropped, automatically a dialog box will pop-up asking you to fill up certain parameters or select some properties. Add the details as marked below and finally click the Save button.

Figure 2.6: Parameters for Display message

You are now ready to run