In this review - my attempt to show that it is a Power Automate Desktop and, perhaps, to interest those who have always been looking for something like this and find the application of the program in their tasks.
Installing Power Automate Desktop
You can download Power Automate Desktop from the official site Microsoft - https://flow.microsoft.com/ru-ru/desktop/. Installation process without noticeable features, but you may want to disable some options in the Setup Information dialog box, for example, the resolution of remote connections to start streams (so in the program you created the automation scripts created by you) over the network.
After the first launch, you will need to log in to your Microsoft account, in addition the program will be added to Windows 10 autoload.
Pay attention to the next 2 points: The Power Automate Desktop interface at the time of writing this article is available only in English. Also, on the above page you will find an e-book (also in English) to use the program. Some Russian-speaking materials can be found on the page: https://docs.microsoft.com/ru-ru/power-automate/
Features Power Automate Desktop
In the second paragraph of the article it was noted that this is only an attempt to show the possibilities of software - I am not familiar with him, it is sufficiently difficult, and in my understanding of many Power Automate Desktop elements there may be inaccuracies.It was decided to act on the following scenario:
- I am inventing a typical repetitive task.
- I try to automate it for half an hour, first seeing Power Automate Desktop.
- In the article, I tell and show how it happened and did anything happen to me.
The task came up with relatively easy: each time, starting, writing the next material on the site I perform the following actions in order:
- I create an empty document Word on the desktop and give him a name in accordance with the name of the future article.
- I open this document.
- Run Photoshop.
- We create a new document in it, in which I will fold screenshots in the process.
Creating a script (Flow or flow in Power Automate Desktop terminology)
It does not look difficult, it should turn out. We try to make Power Automate Desktop simplify this process for me:
- In this window, everything seems clear, just click "New Flow" and ask his name.
- Find out in the main window for editing the Power Automate Desktop stream, where the available actions are located on the left, in the center - the order of their execution, on the right - the variables that you can create themselves or they are created automatically during the execution of any actions.
- Where to begin? Learning Section Actions And I find item "DISPLAY INPUT DIALOG "(Show input window) in the section "Message Boxes" . Excellent, from this and start: the dialogue will ask me about the name of the future article. By dragging the dialogue to the central program panel. I configure, everything looks clear here: and, moreover, the introduced my text is automatically assigned to a variable that can be used in the future.
- The next idea was to create a file with the name of my article and prepared for Word, but this action in the section File I have not found. Yes, probably, I could do it through the section Cmd Session. , across UI Automation. Or even by transmitting mouse and keyboard in the section " Mouse and Keyboard. "But during the study of the File section another idea arose: I will take a blank .docx file from the backup folder and copy it to the desktop.
- And then renamed according to the text entered on the 3rd step, here everything is there. We do. To use the variable in the field, click on the icon with the image of the cross. After executing this command, a variable with a renamed file should be created, you can use to open it in Word.
- The next step is starting Photoshop through action System. — Run Application.
- Next I use the section UI Automation allowing Windows — Click UI Element Book clicks on the items of running programs to record actions in Photoshop to create a new empty file, it is not necessary to save it: upon completion of the article, I take the screenshots individually, processed and keep everyone, these actions I can not imagine how to automate.
- Upon completion, I create a command to run Word using the Run Application command by passing it as a variable name with the name of the renamed file. As a result, the whole flow looks like on the image below, we test by pressing the PLAY button at the top of the edit window.
- The article query window appears, the Word file is copied to the desktop and is renamed, Photoshop starts.
- Next - an error, at the stage of creating a new document in Photoshop, associated with the inability to find the window. After disabled this action (in the context menu of action, you can disable unnecessary) found that Word does not open the renamed file whose name is transmitted as a variable in the startup parameters.
- The first problem, as I understood, was related to the fact that the newly running PhotoShop window is no longer the same window in which the clicks were originally recorded. The second is that the variable with the renamed file is not really a string, but the list of ways to files in several rows with the line translation symbols, even if there is only one item (and with spaces, if they were entered in the article query window) and Word at startup did not want to process it, and how to extract the first element from the list I did not have time for allotted myself, I did not have time - "Standard" instructions of the 1st or 0th element in different brackets did not work (here in trying to debug The clipboard in the Clipboard section, though, I guess it was an excessive "crutch" and the necessary tools are present in the program, no wonder in the menu there is a Debug item). It was decided to simplify everything as much as possible.
- The final and already earned an option obtained 10 minutes after the appearance of the first errors and in less than 30 minutes from the beginning of the first step looks like this:
- I explain what happens in it: a dialogue is shown, where I enter the topic. Are taken empty, pre-prepared .docx and .psd files from a hidden folder, copied to the desktop, the files are renamed into my theme (the extension remains the same, I did not do anything for this), it starts Word and Photoshop, where as parameters The file names are transmitted, but with a slightly different way to specify the path, the string is created from the path to the folder of the desktop entered the topic and added file extension.
Not elegant, but it works. I am sure that, having spent more time for the development of Power Automate Desktop, it will be possible to detect more correct approaches to both the choice of action suitable for the task and to work with variables.
Important addition: Adding an article, I found two recording buttons at the top of the program window: Desktop Recorder and Web Recorder, designed, respectively, to record user actions on the desktop or in the browser and subsequent repetitions (inserted into the FLOW editable). Having tried, I realized that I could realize my "automation" 10 times faster, even despite the lack of acquaintance with the program.
As for the actions, they are not limited to work with files, command prompt, user interface elements:
- For a conventional reader of my site, it may be interesting to act from the System section - here we have the execution of scripts and turning off or blocking the computer, playing sounds, creating screenshots, changing the resolution and frequency of the screen update (for example, not so long ago the permanent reader asked before launching Games forcibly change the refresh rate and return when you leave it - I think it can be arranged here, although another solution has been found).
- You can work with Excel, Outlook and databases
- Extracting data from PDF and text recognition, XML files
- Data encryption and compression
- Connecting to sites and extracting data from them
- Connections are also possible to cloud services or, for example, FTP with the ability to automate work with files on the server.
- Of course, variables, conditions and branching, cycles are available, expectation of an event before performing the following action.
I hope among readers there will be those who will find the use of this excellent and now free software.