🤖 How to use Microsoft Power Automate Desktop - Full tutorial

[@4ronf]

Thanks Kevin. This video (like many others you do) is a really eye opener. MS creates so many products yet fails to simply demonstrate how to use them and what benefits one can get by using them. You do a great job filling this void. Thanks a lot.

[@rockenOne]

Agree with this

[@minecraftpillow8592]

@@rockenOne pp00 pp 0 pop p0ppppppppp0p

[@SHRModding]

MS does demonstrate how to use it. there's a video on their yt channel. just doesn't get a lot of views bc who wants to go to MS to learn about its own tools right? lolz

[@Hulamonkeydancer]

MS always has tutorials on how to use their apps and software, yet they may not go into depth like Kevin does.

[@Hulamonkeydancer]

@SHRModding People who want to learn but don't take the time are called lazy ppl lol. Just bc something is convenient doesn't mean it will be a longterm solution.

[@Cyba_IT]

I wonder how many people have used this to automate their whole days workflow and subsequently just show up and watch KZbin videos all day. Hehe

[@stevemacherey]

Getting there 😉

[@memento316]

I hope I will one of them.

[@koklinda5406]

Lppllllllllllllliioyoollld

[@jaypeehernandez4029]

Soon

[@kaptainkaboom]

Funny you mention that cause I am soooooooo on my way. And no one in my office is smart enough to understand. Lol.

[@davidadams421]

It's also worth pointing out that these automations can run in remote compute instances; you don't _have_ to run them locally. You can also initiate them from the power automate website or from within flows. It is a full RPA solution. For example, when email received, save attachment, run PAD to transfer content to legacy app, confirm entry to sender.

[@Sandeep007219]

In your example, if mail is received and attachment is a zip file., can attachment be saved and unzipped automatically using flow.?

[@davidadams421]

@@Sandeep007219 Yes, extracting zips is a standard Sharepoint action. It called Extract Archive or Extract zip or something like that.

[@zaki97124]

Can't thank you enough for uploading this tutorial. I was very close to hiring an outside consultant to develop tools to analyze all the data we collect. But after watching this video I was able to develop two automation tools that allow me to process huge amounts of data. Even 3 months ago I was analyzing barely 5% of all data and essentially were flying blind. Now I can analyze nearly 100% of the data and stay ahead of any undetected failure modes! I have no background in software or programming. Your video did the impossible - it taught an old dog some nifty new tricks :)

[@zerocal76]

That's awesome for you man. This is one of the reasons I have a passion for tech! Just sucks very few ppl see tech that way but oh well, at least we do 😎

[@renatocorreaarrieche]

For multiple monitors, try to stick every UI elements in the same monitor to avoid unexpected behaviour. You can use a new virtual desktop to enforce it.

[@gregsedwards]

Wow, I am blown away. As a technology educator, I really appreciated how thoroughly you covered the topic, and how well you took a complex process and broke it into discrete concepts that could be easily understood by any audience regardless of their familiarity with the platform. I was already familiar with Power Automate on the web, but I wasn't aware of PAD. I can see this being extremely useful for the web QA work that I do. I would love to see more deep dive videos into advanced features of Power Automate for completing various tasks with this tool. I also really enjoyed your more subdued delivery in this video. While I like your energy, I think with longer-form videos, it's hard to keep that going for more than a couple of minutes, and some viewers may find it distracting. This felt like a quality Pluralsight or LinkedIn Learning micro course. Well done!

[@KevinStratvert]

Thanks for the note Greg, much appreciated! 👍

[@rjbush7955]

Finally. I've been waiting for years for Microsoft to create an app like PAD. I've had to use a mishmash of Task Scheduler, .BAT or VBS and VBA to automate the crappy small tasks that take ages to do manually. No more death by a thousand cuts.

[@MrThemusicman9]

I feel your pain, been using task scheduler with python scripts that always seem to throw a wobbler every now and then and when I have to resolve it, its not a straight forward thing

[@nilsfrahm1323]

To me, the Windows automation and ui is broken. Remember when vbs was advertised? Then they cripple apps because of security concerns. They make zip files downloaded from net blocked by default, file permissions to configure everywhere, elevation prompts, file in use locks, apps prompt for enabling macros or file from untrusted source, ui changes, 32bit 64bit variant, app folder location different based on version, network mapped drives not visible in elevated process, have fun automating that mess...

[@nilsfrahm1323]

Oh, did I tell you about Windows ribbon controls? Office apps have ribbon controls, but third party apps use custom ribbon menus made by other companies, some are c++ controls. This may break automation, as they are not standard. There are apps that do direct rendering in windows, you cant identify the controls, also grids with virtual mode, in which visible data is rendered on the fly as you navigate, that wont be extracted easily from an app. Apps are made in multiple languages, some have controls made in different languages in same app, will run into problems. So this automation will run nicely only with some builtin apps.

[@timpullen9752]

Thanks Kevin. Especially thank you for not having pad music in the background.

[@Failure_Is_An_Option]

I'll second that.

[@nadunur]

Yeah

[@gregwaugh8069]

That was the single most helpful thing I have ever seen. I was thinking of automating a lot of processes as we are about to start our marketing and with photos and meta data stripping and resizing and tagging photos this will be just wonderful. There will be a learning curve but I can see how powerful this is.

[@driesvdc2]

Fantastic! Before I saw this video, I did not even know of Power Automate Desktop

[@jorgeoteo]

Extremely instructive! I'm embarking on automating as many chores as possible in my job and this video will be the cornerstone of that effort-- thank you!

[@siddharthghosh1406]

I appreciate you uploading this video, Kevin. Thank you! As an RPA developer, I'd love more such videos from you on advanced concepts in Power Automate Desktop.

[@Tkourtog]

This was the most useful video for a long time now. Thanks for sharing Kevin

[@whats-better]

The perfect introduction for IT Pros and end users. Intro cannot be better than this. Thanks a lot kevin for taking the time to prepare the video.

[@KymDupuis]

Certainly one of the best video for anyone who wants to get started with PAD for the very first time! Good Job Kevin!

[@KevinStratvert]

Thanks for the note Kym!

[@iduncanw]

Sensational tutorial, clearly explained and demonstrated and skipped over areas of duplication like copying each value. This is how all tutorials should be 👍

[@SavageGothamChess]

Wow. This is a great video. I never knew how to create a simple flow and launch it. 6:35. Thanks. PAD is going to be very helpful in various tasks.

[@mikeverdi]

Thanks so much, Kevin. This is extremely helpful and gives me something new to play with.

[@InteractiveDNA]

I design AI and I had to understand and read human feelings to write my code, and based on this video, you seams to be going through hard times. I can see that clearly. I hope I am wrong and I wish you the best. Great Tutorials!

[@iliassoukallaris7274]

Wow!! Just speechless. Thank you Kevin for this, I am absolutely blown away! Haven’t used power automate before but what you covered here is incredible. I am a sys admin and my mind is just thinking of how many tasks I can automate with this. Well done!

[@MetaJamm]

Come on sys admin) Do you even know about AUTOIT, or power of the power shell? You can actually parse files right from comand prompt. It have loops, search, variables and logic, you can extract data, pipe it from one command to another, search, take process id's, checksums, save, open etc. For short automation tasks is the best way doing job, without implement extra software. Also as admin you can instantly apply it on any machine of your network.

[@iliassoukallaris7274]

@@MetaJamm relax there superstar, powershell is not new and actually requires some scripting knowledge and skills, power automate is a new way to do automation without needing to know coding, and this video demonstrates it very well. You found an opportunity to show your superiority online and straight away attacked, hope your insecurities are satisfied now, you have been ackdowledged for your genius mind, salute!

[@MetaJamm]

@@iliassoukallaris7274 This is not attack, maybe just a slightly biting) Sorry if i being offensive to much. Pease!

[@lovely-shrubbery8578]

@@MetaJamm thanks for mentioning autoIT, wasnt aware of it but been very curious about scripting in windows for automation etc

[@mariamaissatomansaray4665]

I never regretted watching any of your videos... Your usefulness in the world cannot be measured...

[@vinodunny]

I think one thing that needs to be called out is that you can use PAD only if you have a Power Automate with RPA license. A free or basic plan will not allow you to create Flows in the desktop app.

[@Stayner]

Thanks, I was coming to say that.

[@henrikhansen2228]

You can use programs like Mouse Click which can do the same. Microsoft is just late to the show

[@mueez89]

That's not true. PAD can be used stand alone. Only integration of PAD with online flows with requires a premium license.

[@mueez89]

PAD is free for all windows 10 users

[@Stayner]

@@mueez89 now it is, at the moment of the video was released it was not.

[@gneto.r]

2023 and this is still usefull, the advanced bit about dealing with files is really good. Just missing some testing so see if everything is working after each part, but this probably was adressed already after so many years. Thanks!

[@maxwellasare7248]

That was so crazy! I was always looking for how to automate with python. But this one goes up to my expectation! Thanks in numbers!

[@S2KPHD]

I remember using scripting and Excel Macros to automate tasks, but this GUI program makes it easy for non-programmers to accomplish the same thing. Kudos to MS!

[@taherassaid]

Thanks for the great tutorial I've got a few questions 1) when opening each Word document in the loop, what's the purpose of renaming the file? why not just simply use the "currentfile" variable? 2) why close/terminate Word when done reading data from each file, only to run Word again for the next file? I believe there's a way to close an open word document without closing the entire process. It should be noticeably faster.

[@JonathanJournal]

same questions here. I would also like to know at which steps that does the 'delete'? as original file get deleted

[@PramodChauhan]

@@JonathanJournal In Rename File (Point no. 4) , he selected owerwrite

[@aidyn006]

This is completely amazing...with this I've just turned 6 hours worth of work (copy->paste->email x 300) into 30 mins (I could maybe cut that down even more but giving that this is new to me I want to spot check the outputs) you are AWESOME

[@peppigue]

Never heard of this before. It's actually a great intro to programming logic for people with no experience in it.

[@shanesmith1731]

That will be my use of it. I like how it breaks it down into categories.

[@jayantpohani2179]

The way he explained this is off the charts! Excellent job.

[@jabbermacy]

Looks like the recent announcement that it's basically free now will get you a lot more views of this video

[@sergeziehi4816]

Yes Jeffrey... I just came today from getting to know this big new from MS

[@pcampane99]

Where is it free?

[@neilwalker4277]

No it's not, it pretends it's free but visit the pricing site and you'll find there's no free version to compare. What you get is the complete edition for a trial period then it ends and you're left with a shell of the application. The kicker being they won't let you not have the premium and they won't tell you what is in the 'free' version. Shoddy, underhand marketing.

[@pcampane99]

@@neilwalker4277 that is precisely what I thought it would be. Thanks

[@pcampane99]

@@steves9250 would you mind putting that site?

[@michaeleaves8554]

Kevin, I must say a massive thank you, but not just for this video but for all your tutorials.

[@abdullahkamikura5370]

I don't know its exist until you post this video. Great job! Awesome!

[@lalalandd123]

i genuinely cant tell who this channel is for some videos will be like "i teach you how to plug in your mouse and keyboard" and some will be like "how to learn machine code in 20 minutes or less"

[@ManishMoothedath]

You sounded a little different this time. Not the usual energetic voice. Awesome video!!

[@bjones5640]

I agree with Manish. Hope you are okay Kevin. Your energy seemed low today, but great video as usual! Get some rest.

[@networkn]

Personally, I prefer it. Not if it's because he's under the weather though :-)

[@KevinStratvert]

Thanks for the note! I got a bunch of feedback from viewers that I spoke too much in a presentation voice, so I tried a more conversational tone, although I'm not quite sure if this is it. I'll keep experimenting to see what works the best.

[@NathanMonkMusic]

​@@KevinStratvert I also noticed this but thought you were just adjusting your voice to suit the microphone. In my opinion, you should find a sweet spot between this voice and the old voice.

[@Eternal_Tech]

@@KevinStratvert While different people will have different preferences, my preference is for your presentation voice. After all, you are presenting and not having a conversation while speaking in these videos.

[@kapetannemo]

Your lessons and tutorials are very valuable and done extremely professionally. I am from Serbia and I follow you regularly. Thank you Kevin for selflessly sharing your vast knowledge and experience online.

[@side54723]

Suggestion : You may talk about licence cost to be able to cover everything. Great video. Thank you I also prefer your previous voice style :) keep it up

[@jeevasaeyan]

Thanks for the wonderful tute. Now that Power Automate is free for all since March 2021, for this to work a) Protected View must be disabled in the Trust Center for the Word Documents b) PC might have to be restarted if it does not run the first time after modification Keep up the good work man!!

[@SolisMatica]

HAHAHAH.... * "At this point I probably start looking for new work!!!"* .....I almost fell out of my chair laughing and you say it with such a straight face! Love these edutainment videos!

[@erinfield1943]

1. Opening Excel and displaying a message that says "Congrats, you opened Excel", then closing Excel. 2. Running the calculator through the recorder and doing 2+2= (adding UI elements) 3. Running the calculator through the UI automation flow on left-hand column (same 2+2 example) 4. a) Get files in a folder b) With a loop, scrape data from a Word cookie-ordering template and write to an Excel spreadsheet

[@rebeccai]

Hi Kevin. Really great demo thank you. Might be worth mentioning that this is a paid licenced product. I needed to sign up for a trail to follow it. Seems like an extremely useful tool. I would love to see some videos based around SharePoint Online, also how power automate can be used with SharePoint Online. Even a video around how SharePoint online and Teams work together - I'm wondering where one stops and the other begins! Thank you for your hard work.

[@barteczekz]

Yes please! I'd like to join to this request. Especially now with the Lists available.

[@KevinStratvert]

Thanks for the suggestion! I've added this to my list. Stay tuned. Cheers!

[@michaelshelnutt3534]

One of your best videos. You sound more natural instead of your normal computer voice. The video edits are a nice touch too.

[@KevinStratvert]

Thanks for the note Michael!

[@herwigsyen804]

Thanks, that was a very useful introduction!

[@The1Corrupted]

I love that Microsoft makes cool things and tells NO ONE. Just like Power Toys.

[@philippebruno8039]

Very interesting video, I was so happy to learn about this... but the fact that it does not work with personal accounts is a real bummer.

[@AlphaLegionXX]

I know. What I did was create a trial account for E3,it lasts 90 days (as opposed to E5 which lasts 30-60 days I think). Doing that to test PAD and Power Bi

[@prokorshopal4865]

0:02 - Hi Kevin! 👋 37:11 - Definitely a thumbs up from me, so 608th like from me! 👍 37:25 - Really enjoyed it! ☺️ Bye and cheers!

[@leifholmstedkruse3980]

Thank you, very well documented. This feels like you stepped up and did do it for a little more advanced audience. This however is also a more complex topic, where it is good to point out that it is good to have a backup of your documents before running the PDA for the first time - in case we do a mistake :-)

[@KevinStratvert]

Ha, yeah, this was definitely a more involved video, which is why I didn't drop one on Monday 😁 Good point on the backup... alternatively, create the extract file in a different folder so it doesn't affect the source files.

[@NilavraBhattacharya]

Thank you for the tutorial. Mind blowing! I have a related question: why did we need to rename all the word docs to “extract”? Couldn’t we have opened winword.exe using the currentItem loop variable, and extracted the data?

[@joelvallette1916]

@@NilavraBhattacharya I've asked myself the same question so I tried disabling that step to see what's broken, and it turns out the UI elements capture uses the window's name (i.e. "Extract.docx - Word") as a filter to figure out where to capture. I tried variabilising this using "%CurrentItem.Name% - Word" but with no success yet. Maybe that's not something you can do...

[@rohbrown]

That was a brilliant example of practical use of PAD

[@CVTejas]

This is an amazing walk through. I wish more people had the skills to walk through products like this as you are not just telling us where to click, you explain why.. and that's so simple, yet so uncommon.

[@elmoalso]

That is an outstanding Tutorial. The MS documentation makes it very difficult to figure out exactly where to start and my prior attempts left me scratching my head (and without any solutions).It looks like I'll have a brief demo for Proof of Concept to show to peers and suits for using PAD to do automated testing in a couple days. Thanks!

[@SayPianoPlease]

This is such a great and comprehensive video - thank you so much! I've been binging through your content since I've been working a lot more in the Microsoft environment and you've been a huge help!

[@imbk245]

Makes non-programers feel like geeks. Very good video btw. Thanks.

[@jeanahuynh]

Great video Kevin, would love to see 1) how this can be done with sending emails monthly to various recipients based on assignment names in an excel spreadsheet and 2) the web flow as well. Thank you!!!!!

[@SoloBoomerGamer]

I am glad that I have Power Automate, even though it is buggy and crashes multiple times everyday.

[@kousikadhikary]

I always thought of a software like this. Didn't know they went ahead and made it.

[@Topscor-uu7fb]

I am applying for a new job that if I have proficiency in automation, it could be an great advantage, look forward to finish this video.

[@storymode9085]

Well i know where my spare time is going, great video.

[@jabiel1210]

26:52 to use shift + right click to copy the path was mindblowing

[@jerodriguez1147]

This must be Microsoft’s answer to UIPath or any other RPA solutions out there.

[@ivangutowski-smith5590]

I love and extensively use power automate within the browser, seeing how the desktop version works is really interesting.

[@oscargreat]

My wife thought I was cheating on her but as I explained to her it was *clearly* Power Automate Desktop who wrote those flirtatious emails on its own.

[@warwatch]

Hahaha

[@fantasytrain42]

And did the divorce papers arrive by automation

[@oscargreat]

@@fantasytrain42 Fortunately she understood the situation and told Power Automate Desktop to not interfere in our relationship. I'm happy because it's not funny being singled out like that being innocent and all. Do you think I should sue Microsoft?

[@ankitadas4082]

Thanks, kevin. You explain it very well in short and crisp way!!!

[@waffleMccoy]

This is one of the greatest things that ever happened

[@joseacarrasm]

One of the best tutorials I had saw in KZbin.

[@JustBlankNoInfo]

Oh wow, Kevin! Fantastic Video! Hats Off!

[@NICO898ful]

"Merci" Kevin. "Thanks" from Paris, France. A very useful vidéo. Excited to get new videos about PowerAutomate in the future

[@yanbu30]

Hey Kevin, thank you for putting this together! You just earned a new subscriber. 🥳

[@joseafonsoalves2155]

I was having problems trying to extract data from excel and the tutorials in Microsoft's documentation didn't help, since they required me to have Office 365 to see their examples. Thanks for the video. With it I was able to learn about the 'Display Message' and figure the way to iterate over excel rows. Also that 'Application Process' thing. I wanted to open a Word document but when I searched for 'word' or 'text', nothing showed up, and I wondered why did it have Excel but not Word. It turns out I had to start an application process and point it to the word executable. Thanks so much for this video!

[@philont3427]

You changed your voice and pace ? This sounds a bit less enthusiastic than before :-( But content is great as always !

[@KevinStratvert]

Thanks for the note! I got a bunch of feedback from viewers that I spoke too much in a presentation voice, so I tried a more conversational tone, although I'm not quite sure if this is it. I'll keep experimenting to see what works the best.

[@philont3427]

@@KevinStratvert hi Kevin. As far as I’m concerned, I would say keep your "enthusiastic" tone, this was your signature so to say. Speaking slower makes the video a bit "boring". Again this is my personal feeling 😬😉

[@michaelshelnutt3534]

I like the conversational tone. I can’t stand listening to a computer voice

[@asatyammis]

Hats Off to Microsoft for such an amazing application (with a good UI)... Being a programmer usage of the site seems easy to me. 😉😉😉

[@Anisabell2]

Great video, Kevin, as always. Seems really useful, I'll definitely try it. You're the best 💯😎 One thing though...are you OK? You seem a little out of energy, sad even... I mean, your voice does.

[@KevinStratvert]

Thanks for the note! I got a bunch of feedback from viewers that I spoke too much in a presentation voice, so I tried a more conversational tone, although I'm not quite sure if this is it. I'll keep experimenting to see what works the best.

[@kristian4805]

Power Automate is so much more than I thought it was!!, thanks!. My head is spinning with ideas.. power automate, AHK, powershell, etc.

[@NMalteC]

Cool, we did this at IBM on 3270 terminals in the 80's.

[@kenchang3456]

Boy, I'm glad you're continuing your MS related videos. Thanks a bunch!

[@rmartin275]

@26:55 "Copy as Path" !?! How did I not know this was a thing!?

[@motttta]

Thanks to youtube recommending me your video, I wasted my whole saturday automating stupid things. Really cool app.

[@mitz5398]

kevin did u change your map. It sounds different

[@fbifido2]

@7:22 - the Advance & Variables, has more options, you skip over ??? what is "On error" to the left of Save ??? you did not show the folder after you tested your flow? was there just one file left call "Extract" ???

[@fearlesscoder7059]

Incredible!

[@piusatirene718]

Simplified Best Tutor ever

[@pierrickdefossez3157]

This is again amazing and extremely useful Kevin! A question though: how would you process with a form in word (or else actually) that uses check boxes and radio buttons? How to turn them in a meaning variable in excel?

[@andit716]

Check boxes can write true or false in chosen cell, you can use that.

[@NewNew-gv1sh]

đón chờ những ca khúc tiếp theo của Phúc, càng nghe càng thích giọng ca của Phúc ❤️

[@talasilajayanth]

Also make a video on how to use Microsoft access and what's the use of it I have 365 but I never use access

[@KevinStratvert]

Video on Microsoft Access is landing in an hour and a half 👍

[@talasilajayanth]

@@KevinStratvert thanks for remembering and thank you for the video

[@BroadcastersBlog]

You are one of the best content creators on KZbin. By far. The speed of your narration is excellent. Plus the content is concise. I have attention deficit disorder and am slower digesting information as I am now in my 70s. I do have a question Is it possible to use Power Automate with Microsoft Office online apps?

[@fortunemokone342]

Hey Please make a video on how to use Microsoft Azure 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@KevinStratvert]

Thanks for the suggestion! I've added this to my list. Stay tuned. Cheers!

[@NathanMonkMusic]

@@KevinStratvert Great! I would have suggested this if I didn't see this comment.

[@otavnas]

Thanks Kevin, you teaching in a didactic way.

[@mareksmeijers1238]

so handsome this guy

[@Black_Swan_77_]

Effectively explained, you have left no stone unturned, thank you so much for the tutorial.

[@bublb2992]

you sound different now. i just watched your videos last month.

[@KevinStratvert]

Thanks for the note! I got a bunch of feedback from viewers that I spoke too much in a presentation voice, so I tried a more conversational tone, although I'm not quite sure if this is it. I'll keep experimenting to see what works the best.

[@bublb2992]

@@KevinStratvert hope your doin' good. keep up the good work Kev. we have a lot of things to discover hehe

[@khizarlaique2190]

I often used Automate in Androids, So Glad something like that came to windows too... :D

[@myweeklybibleverse4009]

"The Greatest Commandment" Illustration by Ethan Ajo.. I liked the way the child use drawing and animation in his comics.. check it out..

[@MarioLopez-eu8tj]

2 days ago 995,000 subscribers now 1 million, Congrats!!.

[@sudeepsd4695]

Every time you are bringing a interesting topic That's made me not to skip your videos. Thank you kevin...

[@alexmendez9627]

I was able to run it from Windows 11 Home edition. I am very excited to learn how to use it! Thank you Kevin for such helpful video.

[@TinaNguyen-t8m]

Very Helpful and easy to understand. Thanks a lot Kevin

[@ardxb123]

Kevin you are the sweetest cookie.

[@neenav1999]

Thanks Kevin for keeping this video. As a beginner, this info is very useful for me. But the video was running very fast with so much info. If you can cut down the speed and make the info simple for the viewers, then lot of people like me follow better.

[@miguelb3749]

Thanks a lot for this example. You’re a Genius!!

[@kevindrever676]

I think i am going to use this, not sure just how, but this is so powerful. I can see it being blocked by security teams though!😊

[@sriramsubramanian2385]

Yeah you sounded little low in energy today. But great content... Awesome step by step instructions...

[@KevinStratvert]

Thanks for the note! I got a bunch of feedback from viewers that I spoke too much in a presentation voice, so I tried a more conversational tone, although I'm not quite sure if this is it. I'll keep experimenting to see what works the best.

[@marcojimenez9735]

@@KevinStratvert i like the conversational tone 🙂

[@RussellSmith]

Great introduction to Power Automate Kevin! Especially the more advanced example at 18:47​. I need to start using this with Microsoft Lists.

[@yudapramana7040]

loud and clear kevin, Thanks.