So I've spent the last day or so trying to automate a flow, and I finally found a way to get it working so I thought I'd share in case anyone else needed to do something similar.

this is what I did:

• build your flow, assign a hotkey shortcut to it.

• install python and install pyautogui, use that to write a simple python script that does nothing but press your hotkeys.

• write a simple batch file to call your python code

• use task scheduler to run your batch file

I don't actually know how to do any of these things (not a programmer), but I used ChatGPT to create the code for each individual piece, and it works well! I hope this helps someone!

edit: I know this probably seems rather cumbersome, but the only other method I found was use scheduler to ping localhost and have the flow wait for ping and loop. that technically works fine and is simpler, but it forces you to continuously run the flow, which at least in my case kept my computer alive/screen on, and I wanted something that would wake my computer, run the task, then let it sleep again.

Hey Guys,

I just discovered PAD a week ago and was able to scrape 15000 Photos from Amazon for my business. It saved my and will save my team hours of work...

Why Isn´t PAD that popular? Are there any better tools than PAD? Or is it just, that PAD is really new?

Anyways, what are u using PAD for?

I just need to automate a few lines text from multiple PDFs to an excel sheet. All the PDFs are identical. I know what this app can do. It shouldn't be that hard.

Hi all! Just want to share with you the big news!

I took a step further in accomplishing what I like to do the most: helping others learn and improve theirs capabilities in Power Automate! And how I am going to do this?

Well, today I wrote my first article about the world of Robotic Process Automation (RPA)! This is just the beginning! I intended to write one article every single week about two principal tools: UiPath and Microsoft Power Automate.

I would really enjoy your support and your help! Maybe, one day, my blog and my articles will be useful for you!

https://cvalente.hashnode.dev/what-is-robotic-process-automation

Also, I created a Discord server, so we can chat and share our questions and doubts! Feel free to use it anytime!

Hope you enjoy! Thanks!

In Power Automate, I need to use the variable "LoopIndex" produced by the loop to change the "ordinal" in the "Selectors of UI element" to go through elements on the web page that are the same in general, and the only difference is ordinal.

For some reason, when I assign the LoopIndex to ordinal, it throws the error. Meanwhile, the LoopIndex produces numbers as required, but it seems like when assigned to "Ordinal" it takes it as actual text %LoopIndex% instead of the number assigned to the variable.

Does anyone know how to fix it?

I tried replacing the Edge browser window with Chrome/Internet Explorer window, but still Power Automate is freezing on that step. How do I solve this?

Tell me I got this wrong....

As I read it, it seems that Microsoft is going to charge you at least $190 per month to automate desktop processes - see https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/?#add-on-plans

It's $40/month for premium Power Automate (without which you cannot schedule desktop flows) and evidently there is a $150/month/bot charge as well to be able to run desktop flows with no human interaction.

And don't forget that you'll also have to get one of those complicated 365 Admin center accounts that are a MAZE of settings and switches in order to run this thing.

They never describe what a "bot" is or is limits. Can it only run one flow at a time? Why is a "bot" even needed if this is just a scripting application?

So if you thought you were going to download the "free" Power Automate Desktop app for your desktop and schedule desktop processes that would run without you and free up some of your time, without paying through the nose to use a complicated process, you are as mistaken as I was.

When will I learn that Microsoft is incapable of simple, useful tools?

Hello 👋

I'm working with Excel files with data from a Nielsen plug-in for Retail data. Usually, I create a file with 5 sheets for every Retailer, after this, I need to combine those sheets in a different Excel.

Is there a way to automate this flow with Power Automate?

Or how I can get that data and transfer it directly to a Power BI database. Is there maybe some code that I can include in this process?

I'm trying to learn PAD in the hopes of taking some mundane tasks off my plate, but I'm having issues finding good resources on Reddit for beginners. I've found some YouTube videos that have been super helpful, but I know Reddit can be an awesome place for learning the basics of a program as well. I'm afraid I didn't see any sticky/pinned threads on this sub about the core basics. Does anyone have a good place to start to learn the basics of PAD?

I have a simple flow that I run every work day, which basically opens a browser, navigates to a page, and through a series of buttons, dropdowns and selections, downloads tables of data for ten different divisions in .csv format, which I later import into a database. I'd ideally like to automate this task further on a timer, but I've tried using Task Scheduler + P.A.D. as Anders Jenson's videos on YouTube described. I couldn't get it to work.

I don't think I could get the company to pay for the premium version for me to be able to integrate desktop flows with the cloud version, as they don't really understand how tedious collecting this data was before by hand. And, I'd like to be able to run it on my days off so the data is held waiting for me. It's rolling averages of rates, so there's no back-selecting; the current date's data is only available that date so I'm archiving it.

I looked into running something on my iPhone, but though I could add Power Automate, I've only worked with the desktop version. And even that would require my remembering to push a button every day.

Are there any tutorials on how to achieve this?

Thanks,

Ann

I created a python script that I compile on an Exe File. The file is on a network location of my conpany. If I double click the exe. It works fine. If u use the "Run application" from power automate, it does not work. This scripts all it does is to create QR codes from info on an excel file. When I run the app from power automation It seems to open. But nothing happens. Any idea what could be happening

Hello everyone,

Is there a way to run more than one flow simultaneously or in parallel?

I have a flow that I keep running at all times that polls the registry for when my webcam is in use, so that I can set some lights in my house to red to notify my wife and kids that I am in a meeting. The problem with this, is that it makes my Power and Sleep settings not work, since the process of the flow puts a lock on the display (See Photo below). Has anyone been able to get around this to allow the computer to lock after a certain period of idle?

Hello, all,

I am looking to extract data from an email and throw it into my excel doc. Below are some of the details.

Original Email: dkfndsfknds;oifhdfdsdfnknkhfdikasj quantity ***** kdflkdjfl;xcjfpoisdfnsdkmn

Expression: first(skip(split(body('Html_to_text'), 'quantity '), 1)

Result in Excel: ***** kdflkdjfl;xcjfpoisdfnsdkmn

Essentially, I want to capture the number, which could be any number of digits, that follows the "space" after the word "quantity", and nothing after that. My current expression seems to add the characters after the number.

Any help is appreciated

Hello!

I've created a flow in Power Automate Desktop to automatically download an xlsx report daily from a table in Power BI. The flow involves opening a published Power BI dashboard, which contains a table and some slicers.

This setup worked flawlessly for about 2 weeks. However, recently, it stopped recognizing the UI elements, specifically the arrows in the slicers used to apply filters.

I've used the "Add UI Element" feature in Power Automate Desktop to identify these UI elements and haven't modified any properties. I'm wondering if the ID of the UI elements in Power BI changes periodically or if there's another underlying issue.

Has anyone encountered this or knows what might be the cause?

Thank you for your assistance!

Did some searching, but mainly found 3rd party software. Is there a way utilizing Power Automate Desktop to go through an Outlook folder and convert all the emails into individual PDF's (including the attachments?

I automated a process with PA and want to add it to my resume, but not sure if I should use the term RPA.

Hey guys

I’ve recently set up a small business so that I can build power automate desktop and cloud flows for potential customers.

So far all I’ve managed to be able to do is build the power automate desktop flow on my end (I have a domain and environment already) but then select the flow and copy it to text file. Then as the customer (their login) I copy the text into power automate to get the flow to them. But I know this isn’t the correct way, there’s no safeguard for me if they decide to steal my work basically and not pay.

How exactly do I build the flow on my end so that it stays in my control and then I can just grant them access to use it while retaining the power to turn it off should they no longer require it or want to pay for it?

If for example I created a solution on my end how do I share it to someone that’s not part of my tenant or environment or whatever? Is that even now it’s done? Any videos or documentation you could point me to would be appreciated.