Run Desktop Flows From Power Automate Cloud

to run desktop flows from Power automate Cloud we need to configure the machine where the desktop flow should run we go to Power automate cloud and here I search for Runner flow built with power automate for desktop I choose that we need to fill in the machine or machine group domain and username and passwords and these are all things that we need to find on the machine where we want the desktop flow to run so I go to the machine where the desktop flow should run here it's a virtual machine but it could be a desktop it could be a server anything you want your desktop flows to run on you will install this what you do in that machine is you go to a browser you type in google.com and then we search for Power automate desktop install and click enter pick the second link actually it's the first link after the sponsored content that is here install power automate we click that scroll a little bit down and under install power automate using the MSI install choose download the power automate installer that will download the installer you can see it up here in the right corner we will wait a bit until it finish once it's finished we run this executable and that will set up power automate desktop here it is I press open file it will take like 20 to 30 seconds so don't worry about this is stalling the installation will start eventually I'll fast forward here and there it started while I drank my cup of tea here I just press next and we need to talk about what we need to install you don't need to install the power automate for desktop and that is if you want to build your flows on these machines you should install it but since we only want to run the flow here we don't need to install this what you need to install is the machine runtime app to connect to the power automate Cloud portal this is the application that lets us connect your cloud with your desktop flows in case you don't see it and that is because you have a Windows home edition you need to update to the Windows Pro you can do that very easily through one of these code shops online they are completely legal you can get a code for around 15 anyway we continue here you say by selecting install you agree to Microsoft's terms and use I'll click install this will also take a little bit of time so I'll fast forward the video till this installation ends that's it we have installed the machine runtime in case you want to do browser automation on this machine you should enable the extensions for Microsoft Edge and if you want Chrome you need to install Chrome and enable those ones as well we are not going to use the browser extensions for this exercise so I can just click launch app here and in a few seconds you will see that our machine is connected we just need to log in and that will be it here it is it says getting machine ready and here I need to pick an environment to register this machine to I can click this drop down and since I only have an understanding default environment on this account I'll just connect to the energy instant default and here again it will take a couple of seconds maybe 20 and while we are waiting for that now we can see that we are connected we can see that this machine is called anas demo VM that is just the name of this machine in the environment on the Samsung default that's great one thing that we need to do on this machine I can let me close the browser here so I have this one home I again go to the start menu here I press CMD for command prompt I press enter now you type in who am I and this will get us the domain and username and these are things that I chose when I set up this virtual machine if you have a desktop machine you'll probably chose another domain and username so here I just copy this what you do is Mark it Ctrl C now we're done here on this virtual machine so I can close down the command prompt again and let me minimize this we're going to come back to our machine a little bit later because we want to test that this works but what I can do now is that I can here you can see the desktop flows we need a machine we cannot find it since we just created it but I can press refresh here and that will get us the machine that we just created so I picked that one the domain and username delete what's already there press Ctrl V that was the thing that we just copied then we need a password this is the password where the Windows password of that machine I'll type in mine and I actually think I will just copy paste it I have it somewhere on my other screen that is here I just passed it in and then we will create it now we on this is my password saver now we are connected so let's test the connection let's talk about the settings what we need to pay close attention to first of all we need a desktop flow let's build a really simple one that can test that we have the connection from Cloud to desktop and from desktop to Cloud so I go to my power automate desktop and this is on my developer machine which is this machine that we're working at right now here I take new flow let's call this flow capital and I'll click create we'll create a really simple flow with only let me drag it in from the other screen it opened over there this is a really simple flow with just one action but we have some input and output variables which we can use to test that there's two-way communication so what you want to do is to go over to the right two variables click this plus we will have an input and an output variable so the input variable we will say country this is a variable that will come from cloud and go into our desktop flow and that will be a country and I also call the external name country so the variable name is called country here in power automate desktop and in Cloud we also call the country but you could have different names for those we will not give it a default value and the data type will be text I'll click save let's also create an output variable that will be the variable that we send from desktop up to Cloud and here I click the plus say output and let's just call this answer it's also give it the external name of answer the data type will again be text so now I've created these two I will create one action and then we're done go over to action and then find a display input dialog what this does it prompts the user for something and then it stores the input of the user in a variable first of all we don't want a title this is will be really simple flow and here I will say what the capital of and then we will use the country variable remember we created it over here we're sending from Power automate Cloud so I'll just find it here clicking the X on the variable picker double clicking the country and here I'll have a question mark then we're going to save the answer from the user in the answer variable so go to variables produced first of all we will not use the button pressed so best practice is to deactivate it so it doesn't confuse ourself and this user input we will click this X and choose the answer instead we will click save that's it that's our little simple flow and remember we also call the flow Capitol then click save so we can actually work with it in cloud and this flow we created here on the developer machine but this can run across all our machine remember we just created the machine runtime on our virtual machine so now this flow is done I can actually close power to my desktop over the flow if I want we're not going to use that anymore so now we can fill in here and again I click this drop down and again I cannot find the flow I just need to press refresh here then Capital will show up it might take again 5 to 10 seconds that was and we can see Capital down here so I picked that then we need to talk about what run mode we want we can choose between attended and unattended attended means that we need to have a human in the loop or at least we need to have a Windows machine that is locked in unattended that require a unattended license that is probably around fifteen hundred dollars per year so that it is rather expensive but that lets you run your flows when you're not logged in so I can schedule it in the night on my virtual machine and don't have to think about it let's go with attendant and here you can see that when we picked the capital then this country input automatically shows up that was because we had this variable coming in and incoming variable in power automate desktop and that means that we need to give it a value or we can have it a null value but let's give it a value when we run here one other thing that I want to show you is if you click these three dots you can see your connection right now I only have the connection to the demo VM that was let me just show you again that was this virtual machine where our flow will run in 10 seconds maybe 30. if I want want to add more machines I can just add new connections and I can also find the connections I can show you that a little bit later but right now let's try to test this to see it works what's the capital of to say India so that is the flow I want to run this is a quite hard-coded flow we triggered it manually and we hard code in the value but imagine that this is a part of a much more advanced flow this is just to test the connection now I will save my flow and then we will test it so we're saving here we're testing I'll just manually test the flow I'll click test and here you will see that we are already signed into desktop flows I will click continue then I will run the flow then we will go to the machine where these flow is actually running that will be my virtual machine and again there'll be a little bit of delay before it will start here on our virtual machine it will again take 20 to 30 seconds before we start here so don't worry we you're not doing anything wrong if it just takes a little bit of time now you can see with power automate desktop is starting here in the background if I minimize this you will have the display input dialog this flow works or at least it starts at our machine what's the capital of India I'll say Mumbai lovely City then I'll click OK and the flow is done here because that's the only thing we did here on our virtual machine so what I do now is that I go back here you can see that our flow is still running in power automate Cloud now our flow ran successfully and if I go here to Runner flow build with power domain desktop you can see that is the input that we provided and we actually got the answer back from power to Mid power to my desktop machine which was Mumbai so we have two-way communication we can now start to do more advanced flows I promised you to show you a few more things and that is here in the cloud now this is done if I go over to data I can go into connections and here you will be able to see your connections if I scroll a little bit down you can see that this is the demo VM this is the connection that we made seven minutes ago um you can find it here and here you can delete or edit it giving it a new name or something the last thing I want to show you is in monitor and if you go to machines here you will find the machines that you created where this is our newly created machine in case you want to network and get help with power automate desktop Solutions you should join the I love automation Discord with more than 6 000 developers helping each other it's completely free your invitation and guide is right up here

Channel: Anders Jensen

Views: 10,869

Keywords: Power Automate, Power Automate Cloud, Power Automate Desktop, desktop flows, how to run desktop flows from power automate cloud, run desktop flows from power automate cloud, run power automate desktop from cloud, anders jensen, power automate tutorial

Id: QxiP3J1sqWc

Length: 14min 7sec (847 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 28 2023