Microsoft Forms Actions In Power Automate Desktop Flow

hey everyone this is Daniel and in today's video we're going to take a look at Microsoft forms actions in power automate desktop flow now this feature was released around mid September but what it does is opens up a wide range of options because if you think about it you can now have Anonymous users filled a Microsoft form on the internet take that data and put it on a legacy desktop application so it definitely unlocks a whole bunch of ideas that you might already have so stick around this is very important but first here's my intro [Music] video so this feature came out around September of 2023 and the build number was 2309 and as you can see in the website one of the new features was Microsoft forms another important thing to not is that in this version of 2.36 uh if you go take a look at at actually all the desktop versions The 2.36 starts at the 2,39 which is around September 27 so basically if you've got anything new right now if you actually gone and even done you know an upgrade like now uh you should be in good shape and I'll show you exactly where to go and find so I thought at least start by this ways all right now let's go take a look at the action so I'm in the power automate desktop oh and by the way on the top right do you see hey co-pilot is now in the power automate for desktop but I'm not going to talk over here I'm going to do a whole separate video on that so make sure you watch that one anyway now I'm going to go ahead and create a desktop in my desktop I'm going to go and give it a flow name and click on Create and as the new popup will come up that's a whole separate window that comes in for the new desktop flow that we're going to build after it goes and gets things ready if I just go and do a search over here for Microsoft forms just do a search for Microsoft forms right over here you see that there is one action it is get response details now it's important that you plan how to build this because if you just go and drag and drop this action it actually doesn't make a whole lot of sense you need to have this whole mindset of getting a cloud flow to go ahead and do the triggering and then go ahead and send get the information of the Microsoft forms and send it to your desktop one that's basically the best way of how this all works but but before we go into that at least I want to show you what this action looks like so I'm going to grab this I'm going to drop it over here and now it goes ahead and has this popup window and the first thing that it's asking for is the form ID so if I CLI click on the form ID it actually goes and gives me all the list of Microsoft forms directly by the names that I have available and this is pretty neat now before you go and do this it is also important that whatever is the environment that you've selected that environment will automatically have a Microsoft forms connection reference connection references are how all the connections are made specifically in the power automated to desktop and if you're not familiar about connection reference I actually released a video on that topic I'm going to go put that in the link below go take a look at that it kind of helps you understand what is a connector the connections and the connection references it's really important that you understand that when you start working on it all right but I'm just saying that to you because if you don't already have a connection reference for Microsoft form another pop-up window will come up to go and make sure your connection reference is created before that connection references is created you will need to have a connection with the Microsoft form so there is some backend prerequisites that is required for this to work it's all simple and easy but just make sure that you have the connection reference done all right after all that is done in my case uh when I go ahead and I'll click on the drop down I see that I have a whole bunch of forms over here and these are basically searchable so right there there's a search bar I actually have one called new client request form that's the one that I want if I go and click on it voila this is shown over here now what it does is goes ahead and does a response ID that is where things get a little confusing because the whole process of Microsoft forms action here in the power automate for desktop is a secondary thing secondary thing means your flow needs to start on the cloud side the cloud gets all the information and then goes ahead and puts it into your desktop action that is the best way to leverage this Microsoft forms so don't start over here and then try to figure out okay what is happening I don't have any variables over here like what is this information I don't get it don't start over here go ahead and start on the cloud first and then call this desktop flow so now that you understand this thing I'm to actually show you and walk you through the process and then in the end I have a full end to end example and that'll really show you the power of Microsoft forms action in power automate for desktop so let's switch over to the cloud flow so I'm in the power automate Cloud uh making sure that I'm in the exact same environment that I need to be and over here I'm going to go and click on plus new flow now this is going to be an automated Cloud flow so when I go and click on the automated the first one that you want actually is the when new response is submitted in Microsoft forms I was doing a few demo over here that is why you see that as a first option in your case if you don't do that U you can either go and click on skip or right over here and search for triggers go and type in Microsoft forms and you will find it uh since I already see it I'm going to go and select it I'll go and click on create a new it directly opens up into the modern power automate studio uh for the sake of this video I'm just going to switch back over into the classic for now uh just just to make sure that we focus on what's important um and then I'll go and give this a name so there you go that's my demo and here I go ahead and now put in the form well before I put the form over here let's go take a look at that form really fast so I'm going to my form and the one that I want to look at is the new client request form what this is is a front and Anonymous access type of a place where a person who's coming in and say Hey I want to leverage your company for whatever tasks uh and so I need to fill out a new client form again this is happening anonymously on your company website or whatever with an internet access and Microsoft forms is an amazing tool just to get that done and over here three simple things are done company name what is the user's full name and an email address that's what it is so this is the another the new client form or new client request form so I come back out directly into a power automate flow uh and over here I search for the new client request form once I get that I go ahead and now make sure that I've got the form over here great I'm going and put in another action that action again is for the uh Microsoft forms it'll go ahead and submit that next I go and get this action called get response details get response details immediately goes and says which is my form ID the form ID comes from the new client request form which is right over here and then this response ID that comes from the previous trigger and so therefore I have to put that trigger over here got the response ID and we are in good shape over here now what I'm going to do is go ahead and send this form information to the power automate desktop and so if I click on the plus new setup uh I go and do a quick search for Power automate desktop and there you go that's the one that I want it's an action I can just click on desktop flows and then that's the one action the only action there so when I go and click on it and the one that I want to select is which one is the desktop flow and then what is the Run mode so I'm going to pause over here because it's important that you understand that these steps need to be done on the cloud flow and then after this go ahead and actually create that desktop flow and in the desktop flow I'll actually show you the key steps that you want to run over there so now let's pause on this side let's go to our desktop flow and then we'll come back over here and finish of this part so in order to build the desktop flow there's some important information that we need directly from this Microsoft form first of all how many of these questions whose answers we need to send it to the desktop flow and in this case there is three of them there's a company name full name and email address but there's also that one additional thing and if you figure that out it is the ID of this form so we'll be sending that as well so the trick to do that is actually go and create a variable for each and every one of them and you want to go and create the variable in your desktop flow such that when the cloud flow connects to the desktop flow that connection of the four variables are immediately built that immediately on the cloud side you know that oh the desktop flow actually needs more those four variables let me send those four variable data information that's the important thing so let's actually go to the desktop flow and you'll see what I'm talking about so I'm going to go to my desktop flow I'm going to click on the plus new I'll go and give this a name I'm going to call that a power automate desktop with Microsoft forms demo um I'll click on create another window will open up it will take us directly into the desktop flow designer and then one of the first things I want to do is I'm going to close this co-pilot um is actually start creating some variables so on the right hover over there which looks like an X in the curly brackets click on it and the variables opens up and over here in the input and output variables start creating those variables so remember we actually not have three questions and we have the additional one for the form ID so I'm going to click on the side I'm going to click on input and now on this new input variable it's important that you fill in the variable name and the external name and you can do that a little separately so what here's what I mean uh in the input name I'm going to call that as VAR form ID but in the actual external name over here you can just call it as form ID and it'll start to make sense but you know the VAR and all of that the variable the naming convention apply that to the actual variable name but the external name you can give it as a natural language type of an external name so that everyday person can understand that so here's one okay the form ID now what there were three other things that we needed let's go take a look what those were there was the company name full name and email address so we need to add the variables for each of these as well so let's go back into our desktop flow and let's go and create the variables for that so I'm going to click on the input and over here there is the company name so I'm going to call this as the VAR company name all right I'm going to call it as company name uh but I'll just go and copy The Source it makes it a little easier and then in the external name go ahead and type in company name it's very very important that you do not forget to put in these external names otherwise in the flow on the cloud flow all you will get are these three different names over there you want to understand which one is which so don't forget to put in the external name all right so we've got the company name um now I'm going to go and get the full name so I'm going to go and put another input one uh this one is going to be War full name again go ahead and copy this over come over here to my external name and I'll go and paste that in and then the external name is going to be the full space name click on Save and then the last one was email address so again on the variable name put in bar email and then on the external name remove this new input and just type in email very very important that you do this all right click on it make sure that you save it so all of this is happening over here all right great now at least let me go ahead and show you the next steps that you have is actually start leveraging the Microsoft form action so on the top right on the search I'm going to start topping in Microsoft form form there is only one action which is the get response details grab it drag it and drop it over here pretty neat now on the form ID we need to actually go and put in that form name so go and get your form name mine is the new client request form go back into our desktop flow and there you go in fact you click on the drop down first because there's a separate search the search doesn't work up there the search works over here so I'm going to say new client request form go and grab that one but in the response ID this is where you go and put in our able which is the form ID that's what it is and I should have named that as form response ID so at least it starts to make sense but you get the idea that the form ID is the variable I sign over here cuz that's the information that is going to be pulled in from the form so just for the demo sake I'm going to actually going to save this over here because you'll actually see a very important step that is happening um in fact for just sake of example let me go and drop a full message over here all right so I'm going to say a message and in the messages I'll put a display message and in the display message I'll actually go and say uh Microsoft forms and over here I'm going to start displaying the information so the first thing that I'm going to display is directly the form ID so I'll select that one next I'll go and start putting the other information as well well one of them was the full company name so let's go grab that one um go ahead and again into the section go and put in the full name and then finally even the email address so I'll put that in over here so you can actually get all of it right over here all right so I'll go click on save that way the popup message will come up we'll be able to see that cool so I'm going to click on Save and again in this time you don't want to run it over here cuz it's not going to run you want to run this from the cloud site so let's go and add this desktop flow to that cloud flow cuz remember we need to still finish that so I'll go back into my cloud flow over here uh if this thing doesn't fill up that's fine you can always go ahead and just delete this off um that way it'll just delete the step make sure that you save it you don't lose any of your work this is where we left off the last time um it's saving and then now I'll go and click on on the new desktop one uh it should already remember which one we did over here open one there's the desktop flow that we already selected there's the action now I should be able to find the flow that I just created and there you go right on the top it is power automate desktop with Microsoft forms demo that's the one that we just created over here see that's the one so we got that so I'm going to click on this one and then my run mode for the sake of this example over there I'm going to go and say that attended when you're signing in leave that but notice the moment I went and selected the flow it went and gave us these three input variables and do you see that it actually went and gave us the correct name the form ID the company name so it's very important that you actually start doing that variables correctly because over here when I double click on one of them this variable name makes sense while in the desktop floor but the external name is what helps when you're calling that from the cloud flow so kind of get used to that and think about that in advance to plan and make the overall process a lot more easier especially in the future when you come back and do some troubleshooting okay form ID well what's the form ID that form ID is the response ID right over here when a new response is submitted so I'm going to select that response ID what is the company name well the company name is part of the form see the company name full name email address that's what we're seeing over here so for the company name I'm going to select the company name full name I'm going to select the full name and then the email address I'm going to basically select this email address so we are going to take all this information from Microsoft for in the cloud flow and I'm going to send it now into the desktop flow so I'll click on Save over here and what I'm going to do next is I'm going to pretend like I'm filling out the form that should trigger the cloud flow and in this final step it will also trigger out the desktop flow so let's actually go and see how that all works all right so at least let me go fill up this form I'm going to do a preview for the company name I'm actually going to go and say puppy power Incorporated uh full name it is uh Finn Christian all you know Finn is actually my dog and for the email address I'm just going to say Finn Chris at PP in.org I'll go and click on submit which means the form has been submitted which means the next thing that's going to happen is this flow will trigger any second there it's already going and triggering it's actually running and I'm going to keep my hands up over cuz any second now you will see a desktop flow run and a popup message will come up so let's wait for that there you go the desktop flow is running and I can see that another tab opened up and it's blinking so if I actually go over here you can see that now there is this pop-up window so it gave me five which is the form ID gentan gave me the company name gave me the full name and and it also went and gave me the email address remember these were the four things from the cloud that we pushed it over to the desktop so I going to click on okay and the other good place to verify that your Cloud flow ran is going to the my flows the cloud flows and over here this is the one that we just ran so if you can see now even the desktop flow ran successfully we saw the cloud flow ran but here's the desktop flow also that run successfully with the connection reference of Microsoft forms so now that you understand how to leverage this Microsoft forms action in your power automate for desktop top flow what I want to show you is a full end to endend example now before I go and do the demo I got actually go and make sure I do some cleanup so this is the demo that we just created I'm going to go and delete that so I'll just go and click on yes it is deleting it and then the other thing that I want to do is go to our Cloud flows also which is back which is my flows Cloud this is the one that I'm going to go ahead and delete so let me go and click on that uh click on the ellipses I'll go and click on delete right there and then the full demo that I have I need to go ahead and now turn turn that on so let me click on it and go and say turn on all right so that way I actually have everything set up this is now the full end to endend demo that I'm going to do and just to give you an overview of what my full nend to example is um I have the cloud flow and the on premises desktop flow somebody's going to go and fill up a Microsoft form that Microsoft form is going to trigger the cloud power automate flow that sends the information directly to my desktop power automate flow and the desktop automate flow will automatically go ahead and actually put the information into a legacy desktop application that I have full into an example so let's go now fill out that Microsoft forms so here I in my Microsoft form I'm going to click on the preview so company name I'm going to go and put in my company Christian family Consulting Service Incorporated a full name that's me Daniel Christian and I'll go and put in my email address so everything is good go and click on submit and the form is filled out so I'm going to now go and keep my hands up over here because the next that's going to happen is the cloud flow and we were almost so close to building the cloud flow same thing triggers the form and it sends the information from the form to my desktop flow my desktop flow is a little bit more advanced but I've got so many other videos doing that so that flow is currently running and there you go you see that took the information went to my accounts in my accounts are new entries put in these are the three fields that we put in by the my hands are still up it's still running saves it and then goes it and runs it you see that that that is pretty awesome let me just show you those two flows quickly um I'll come over here to my cloud flow first uh in the cloud flow this is the one that we went and actually looked at right over here on the edit side very similar to what we already just created first right the form was submitted form details came in and then these were the actual four things we sended as variables to the desktop flow so we actually built this this exactly the same thing uh the only difference is in my desktop flow is when I go and click on the edit I've got some additional actions over here that actually goes ahead and opens up the Legacy application so now that we're in the desktop flow Studio you see the first thing is that get response details but on the top right you will see that I also have those four variables that I created as input variables after that these are all the steps that I went and created to go ahead and open up that Legacy application and then go ahead and actually populate those thingss click on the save button and then go and close it and this is how the desktop flow ran so wasn't that awesome you can now go ahead and fill out an anonymous form on the cloud built using Microsoft forms take that data and enter it into a legacy desktop application using power automate for desktop and remember this could not be done before but now that you have that Microsoft forms action in your power automate for desktop you can go ahead and do that as well just make sure that your power automate for desktop version is updated enough to see that Microsoft forms action hopefully this video got you excited hope hopefully your wheels are turning so now you can also go ahead and build such Solutions and as always keep using power automate desktop hello hello hello so if you like this video go ahead and click on that subscribe button and smash that like button also if you have a few extra seconds can you go and put in a comment either say something nice or give me ideas for my next video and until then see you

Channel: Daniel Christian

Views: 1,431

Keywords: Microsoft Forms Actions In Power Automate Desktop Flow, Daniel Christian Power Automate, Robotic Process Automation, Attended Automation, microsoft forms tutorial 2023, microsoft forms actions in power automate desktop flow, Cloud flows trigger desktop flows, rpa desktop automation, power automate desktop rpa, rpa desktop, Power Automate Desktop new feature, business analyst end to end process, end to end customer experience

Id: mRT17yGvTho

Length: 19min 53sec (1193 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 11 2023