Hi everyone, Kevin here. Today I want to show you
how you can use Power Automate Desktop. With what I like to call PAD, you can automate repetitive
and mundane tasks. Basically, the type of tasks that you would hope to never have to do as part
of your daily job. To help you understand what you can do with it, I want to share just a quick
example. Let's say that my boss comes up to me and says, Hey Kevin, I'd like you to transfer
data from this one legacy system over here, it's really old. And I want you to transfer all of the
data over to this other legacy system over here, which is also very old. Now at first glance, it
seems like it should be straightforward enough, but when I dig into it, I start to realize
that these truly are legacy systems and there are no APIs and there's no programmatic
way to transfer the data between these. So, it starts to dawn on me that probably the
only way that I'm going to be able to do it is to manually go through and copy the data from one
system and then paste it into the other system. Now at this point, I’d probably start looking for
new work, but luckily with PAD, I could have the computer do all of this for me. With PAD, I could
basically go through and tell it step-by-step what I want it to do. Copy this field over here
and then paste it in this field over there. It's kind of like using a macro in Microsoft Excel, if
you've ever done that before, but instead of being limited just to Microsoft Excel, you can write
a macro across any application on your computer. In a sense, it's somewhat magical and extremely
powerful. We're going to start with how you can get PAD, then we're going to run through a simple
example and at the very end, we'll finish off with a more complex example just to help you understand
the capabilities and what you can do with PAD. All right, well, why don't we jump on the
computer and let's get started. We're going to start off with how you can get PAD, but before
we do that, I do want to call out two caveats. To be able to use PAD, you need either Windows
10 Professional or Enterprise, and you also need a work or school account. If you have those, you
should be able to follow along with no problem. To get started, let's head to the website,
office.com, and once you land on the website over on the left-hand side, click on Sign In. Once
you sign in, that'll drop us on the office.com homepage. Down on the left-hand corner, you'll see
an icon for All Apps, let's click on that. This opens up the All-Apps page and right over here
on the right-hand side of the page, you'll see an icon for Power Automate, let's click on that.
This will drop us on the Power Automate homepage. To get the desktop app over on the left-hand
side, let's click on the icon that says Create. This will drop us on the Create page, and right
up in the top right-hand corner, you'll see a dropdown menu for Install. When we click on this,
we can install the Power Automate Desktop app. Go ahead and click on this and run through the
installation process. Down below, there's also a second option for an on-premises data gateway.
What this allows us to do is when we set up automations in the desktop app, if we want it
to connect to any automations that we might have on the web, we can use a gateway to create that
bridge between the two. For today's tutorial, I'm going to look exclusively at the desktop app. Once
you finish installing PAD, go ahead and launch the application and you'll land on the screen that
looks like this. In the top left-hand corner, we can kick off a new flow and in a moment, we're
going to do that. Down below, you can also see all of your recent flows. This is where you could also
run, stop, rename, any of your existing flows. In the top right-hand corner, especially if you
have a lot of flows, you can search through your list and here you could choose the environment
where you want to view all of the flows or the environment for where you want to create a flow.
I'm going to leave it in the default environment. We're now all ready to kick off our very first
flow, so let's go up to the top left-hand corner and click on this text that says New Flow. This
opens up a prompt and we need to give our new flow a name. For this example, it's going to be really
simple. We're just going to launch an app and then we're going to close an app. I'll type that in as
the flow name. Next, I'll click on Create. This drops us into the PAD Designer and we're going to
be spending most of our time here. This is where we build our automations. I want to orient
you to the experience just so you understand what's where. Over on the left-hand side, we have
a pane with all of our different actions and there are many different actions you can choose from.
In fact, there are over 300 different actions. An action is an instruction that you want the
computer to execute on your behalf. And just to show you some examples of what you can do, here
if I click into File, you can do things like copy files, move files, delete files. Here if I jump
into, let's say, Web Automation, you can launch a web browser. You could go to a specific website.
You could also extract data from that website. Here too, up above, let's say I have a specific
action in mind. Rather than navigating through this list, I could also just type it in. So, let's
say I want to launch an app. Let me type in app. And here I see an action for run application. So
I could run any application on my computer. So once again, you have a massive number of actions
that you could choose from. In fact, if there's some step that you can take on your computer,
chances are you can turn that into an action. Once we start going through and we start selecting
different actions that we want the computer to take, it'll add them to the main canvas over
here. And this will show us a list of all of the different actions that we want the computer to
take. And once we start adding them to this list, we can save it. We could run through the list. We
could also stop running through it. And over here, we have two more different actions. So over here,
you can go through and you could select different actions you want to add to this list. Or as an
alternative, you could open up the web recorder or the desktop recorder. What this will do
is when the recorder opens, you can click on different buttons on your screen. You can
navigate to different places on your computer, and it'll record all of those different steps
that you take. So it's an alternative to going through and selecting actions on this menu. Over
on the right-hand side, there are three additional panes. We have variables right here. You can
pass in variables into your flow that you create. You could also get output back from this
flow. You also have something called flow variables. And as we start building our very
first flow, we'll see exactly how this works. Down below, you also have different UI elements.
These are basically things that you're clicking on on the screen. As we go through the example,
we'll pull in some UI elements and you can see how this works. Down below, you also have images. And
if you capture any images as part of your flow, you'll see them here. All right, well, now that
we've walked through the basic interface here, it's time to start pulling together our
first flow. For the very first flow, we're going to keep it pretty simple. I want
to launch Excel, then we'll show a message box, and then we'll close Excel, just to show
you just the basics of how PAD works. Over on the left-hand side, we want to choose an
action that launches Excel. Here, I see a category for Excel, so I'll expand that. And one of the
first options here is to launch Excel. So here I could click on that and I could drag it over onto
the canvas. And here you'll see that my first step is launching Excel. This opens up a prompt where
I could specify exactly how I want it to open. So I could have it launch with a blank document,
or I could choose an existing document. I want it to open a blank document, so I'll choose
the first option here. I could also decide whether I want the instance to be visible or not. So do
I want Excel to open so I could see the window, or do I want it to stay in the background? For
now, just because this is a simple example, let's leave it so it's set to visible. Down below,
I also see that it's going to produce a variable called Excel instance. So if I want to reference
back this open instance of Excel, I can reference that variable. So this will add our very first
flow variable over here on the right-hand side. Everything looks good here, so I'll click on Save.
Back on the canvas now, we see our first step for launch Excel, and once again, I now have my flow
variable with the Excel instance. So Excel is going to launch, and why don't we click on Run
just to see how this works? I'll click on Run. This will now start executing my flow, and
as we can see, that launched Excel. So, look at that. We have our first flow taking shape.
As the next step in this flow, I want to show a message prompt. So over here on the left-hand
side, once again, I could navigate through here and find a display message, or I could go up
here to search, and let me just type in message. Right down here, I see that I can display a
message. Now I could click on this action, and I can drag it over to the canvas. You'll see
this line appears, and that denotes the place where I'm going to put it in this list.
So I could place it after launching Excel, or I could place it before launching
Excel. I want to place it afterwards, so I'll release it right there, and now I could
type in the details of my display message. Let me go ahead and I'll type in a title and a
message to display. I just typed in the message box title, launched Excel, and for the message
to display, you successfully launched Excel. Here I could go through, and I could select
different details of this message box, but all of this looks fine, so I'll leave it as is.
Down below, here I'll also see that it's producing another variable or another flow variable,
and this is whether the button was pressed. Now display messages, it's not really that useful
in this scenario. I'm just launching Excel, then I'm showing a message, but you can use display
messages if let's say you want to see the value of a flow variable or an input or output variable
as you're running your flow, these displayed messages can be very useful for that. So I
typed in all the details here, let's now click Save. Now I have both of my steps, and once again,
I can click on Run to see what it looks like. Here I see Excel launches, and then I get a
message telling me that it launched Excel, and great, it looks like it was successful.
Back in the main designer, I now want to add another step where I close Excel. Back over here
in Actions, I can click on Excel, expand that, and I see the option to close Excel. I could click on
this action and pull it over into the main canvas. Now, once again, we see that line there, and I can
choose where I want this action to take place in the flow. Now, I wouldn't want it to happen before
I launch Excel, it only makes sense at the end, so I'll drop it right down here. This opens up
a prompt where I could specify how I want to close Excel, and at the very top, it says Excel
Instance. Basically, which instance of Excel do I want to close? Now, remember earlier on when we
originally launched Excel, it generated an Excel Instance flow variable. Here, we specify that
variable here, so whatever variable is produced in the first step, here, we're referring back to
that variable right here, so we're going to close the same instance that we opened at the beginning.
Down below, I could also indicate how I want it to close, and for now, I'll just say do not save
document, but I could also save the document if I'd like to. All of this looks good, so let's
click on save. I now have three different steps showing up in my flow. If I wanted to modify any
of these steps, I could simply click on the item, and I could drag it to a new position, so maybe
I want to launch Excel, then close it, and then show the message. Here, I'll move that back to
the second position. I could also click on one of these steps, and I could press Control C to copy
it, and then I could press Control V to paste it, so this way, I could copy one of my steps, and
maybe I want to paste the display message to the end again. Now I have a full flow, so
let's click on run to see how this works. Here, it launched Excel, and I also see my message
prompt. When I click OK, it'll now close Excel, and once again, I see the message prompt. Let's
say maybe I don't want one of these steps anymore. I could click on that step, and then I could press
the delete key, and that'll remove it from my list of actions that I want the computer to take.
All right, we've now completed our very first, very simple flow. It's not the most useful flow.
We simply launch an app, show a message, and then we close the app, but it shows you some of the
basics of how you could use different actions to start building a flow. Now that we're all
done, let's click on save, and let's go back to the main interface, and we'll build another flow
that leverages some UI elements. Right up here, I'll click on X, and here we are back on the
main screen. On the main screen, let's go to the top left-hand corner and click on new flow. For
this one, I want this to leverage the calculator, so let's call the flow calculator. We're now
back in the PAD designer, and it should now look familiar. This is our second flow that
we're going to pull together. This time, I want to launch an application, and then we'll use
the desktop recorder to capture some UI elements. Up here, I want to launch the calculator app, so
let's go up to actions in the top, and then let's type in app. Here, we want to run an application,
so I'll take this action and pull it over into the canvas. This opens up a prompt where we could
specify the application that we want to run. Now, I already looked up the application path for the
calculator, and it's located in this location, so if you want to follow along, feel free to type
in this location. All of the other settings look fine, and once again, one thing to call out
is we're producing a variable called the app process ID, so if we ever need to refer back to
this app or this instance of the app that's open, we're going to have that in our flow variables.
Once we're good to go, let's click on save. The first step launches the calculator, and to
make sure that it's working properly, let's click on run. Here, we can see that it launches the
calculator app, and we now have the calculator available to us. Next, I want to capture some
UI elements using the desktop recorder. This also shows you how you can use the recorder to
capture some of the steps that you're taking. Here, I'll click on desktop recorder. The main
designer screen disappears, and now we have the recorder over here. Now, let's just do a very
basic example. Maybe I'll just do two plus two. So here, I can click on start recording.
So the recording is now on, and I'll go over to the calculator, and here you see that it
highlights one of the UI elements on my screen. So here, if I hover over the number two, you see
this red rectangle around it. Here, I'll click on number two. Over in the recorder, you see that
it now captures that action. So it says I pressed the button, and it was the number two. I could
pause the recording if I want to do something in the meantime, and then resume recording,
but for now, I'll keep recording going. Next, I'll click on the plus icon, and here too, you
see another step was just added. Here, I'll click on two again. So we'll click on two plus
two, and next, I'll click on equals. So here, all of my steps have been recorded. Next, let's
click on finish. Back within the Flow Designer, here, I can see that we launched the application,
and I see all of the steps that I just recorded. It goes through two plus two equals, and then
we get the result. So here, if I run it now, this will launch the calculator, and now it goes
through and adds two plus two, and it gives me four. So once again, it's copying all of the
different mouse clicks that I made, and here, I could see all the steps that it went through. As
I clicked on the different buttons on the screen, PAD created UI elements for me. Here, I'll go
over to the right-hand side, and remember when we oriented ourselves to the experience, there was a
category called UI elements. Here now that I could see that it identifies the window calculator, and
it pulled out the button two. Here, I could click on it, and I could see exactly what that looks
like, and then I could see plus, and I could see equals right here. If I want to add additional
UI elements, once again, I could go back to the desktop recorder, and I can capture UI elements
that way, or I could click on this button that says add UI element. When I click on this, this
once again opens up my screen, and here I see the calculator. So let's say I wanted to do three plus
one. Here, I could click on three, and if I press the control key while clicking on it, here it adds
a new UI element. Next, I'll click on one, and I've already captured the equal sign, so there's
no reason to click on that again. So now I've included three and one as additional UI elements.
Next, let's click on done. This drops me back into the PAD Designer, and within the UI element
screen, I now see that for the calculator window, I now have three and one as additional buttons,
and I could leverage these UI elements as part of my flow. So previously, I took two and I added it
to two, but let's change it to one plus three. So here, I'll select the first button press, and when
I click on that, here it's currently referencing the number two, but I can now change that to,
let's say the number one, and here you can see the UI element that corresponds with the number
one. So I'll select that and then click on save. Here for the number two, I can double click on
that, and here too, I'll change it from two, and this time, I'll change it to the button three,
click on select and click on save. Now, instead of adding two plus two, it's going to add a one plus
three. Here, if I run it, let's see how it works. Here, the calculator adds one plus
three, and that gives me four. Back on the main screen, to get this flow here, we
use the desktop recorder, but I also want to show you how you can set up this same exact flow using
the actions over on the left-hand side. For now, let's select all of these different items and hit
the delete key. So once again, you can very simply delete any of the steps in your flow. Over on
the left-hand side, there's a category called UI automation. UI stands for user interface. The
easiest way to think of this is this is any clicks on Windows, any clicks on buttons, those
are all referred to as UI. Over here, there's an item called click UI element in window and on
the calculator, we want to click on different elements within that window. So here I can select
that item and I'll drag it over into my flow. This opens up a prompt where I can specify which
UI elements to click. Right down here, currently it's blank, so let's click on this dropdown. And
here I see that I've already added UI elements for the calculator app. We use the desktop recorder to
capture some of these UI elements. You could also go over to the pane over here like we did before,
and you could add UI elements this way as well. Also, let's say you want another way to add
UI elements. You could also click on this, add a new UI element. And this, once again, will
open up the same exact screen where we could add additional UI elements. Now I've already captured
all the UI elements I want, so I'll simply click on this dropdown list. And once again, we'll do
two plus two. Here I'll select the button two and then click on select. Here you could specify the
click type. We just want this to be a left click, but you could choose all different types of
clicks. Once you select that, let's click on save. And so far, this will open the calculator. It'll
click the number two, but then we want to add, and then we want to have another two, and then
we want the equals. Here I'll click on that action, and I can copy and paste it. So here now
I have another step. Here I'll click on this next step, and here I want it to add. So I'll go down
and let's choose a UI element for plus, then click on select, then click on save. Here I'll paste in
two again, and let me just make sure that's after the plus. And then I could paste in one more
step, and I want this to be the equal sign. So here I'll go in and choose the UI element
for the equals press. Then I'll click on select, save, and if I click on run, this will be exactly
the same as the flow that I created with the desktop recorder. So just another way to create
the same exact flow. Now you could use either the desktop recorder, or you could simply add the
different steps depending on which one you prefer and which approach you think is easier. Here let's
run it and just verify that it works the same way. You probably never thought adding
two plus two would be so exciting, but we just automated our computer again. So far
we've been looking at some of the fundamentals of how you can create your very first flow in PAD.
Now I want to switch gears and we're going to look at a more advanced example. If you want
to follow along with this one, I've included all of the sample files in the description of
this video. Here at the Kevin Cookie Company, and yes, I was able to incorporate the
Kevin Cookie Company into this tutorial, we have a whole bunch of cookie order forms.
And these order forms are all different Word documents. If I open up one of the order
forms, you can see the type of information that's contained within. I have the order number,
the customer name, the cookie type, the quantity, and there's some additional information on here.
Now I want to take all of this information from each one of these different order forms and I want
to consolidate it or aggregate it into this order tracker that I have in Excel. Now previously, I'd
have to go through each individual Word document. I'd have to copy out the information and then I'd
have to paste it into Excel. But of course, that takes a long time. It's a lot of manual work and I
really wouldn't enjoy doing that. So instead, why don't we use PAD to extract information from each
individual Word document and place it into this Excel sheet. Now in this example, I only have five
order forms. So there aren't really that many and you could do it manually, but let's just imagine I
had a thousand order forms or 10,000 order forms. It would be a lot of manual work. Within PAD,
just like we've been doing all along, let's go to the top left-hand corner and click on new flow.
This opens up the prompt and for this, I'll say order form in Word to Excel. Once you've finished
typing in the name, let's create our flow. We're back in the PAD designer and as a very first step,
I first want to get all of the files that are in the folder. So here, if I go back to my desktop, I
have all the cookie order forms within this folder called cookie order forms. So, the first step is
going to be to retrieve all of these files. To retrieve all of the files, over on the left-hand
side, we have an action category for folders. When I expand this, I see all these different
actions that I can take on a folder. Now, I want to get all of those files from within
the folder and the very first action here is get files in folder. That sounds exactly like what
I want to do. I'll click on this action and then drag it over onto the canvas. This opens up a
prompt and I can select all of the different parameters. Here at the top, I can specify
the folder that I want to get files for. Over here, I could click on this and I could hard
code the folder that I want to get files for. Here, I have the folder on my desktop, so
I'll select desktop and right down here, I see my cookie order forms. I'll click on
that and then click on okay. Down below, I can also apply a file filter. Let's say I had
different file types in there or maybe file types that were unrelated to the order forms, I could
filter them out. Down below, I could also specify whether I want to include subfolders. I don't have
any subfolders, so I'll leave that checked off. Down below, here you'll see that it produces
a variable and this variable is a list of all of the different files that are contained within
that folder. Just like we've seen earlier in the other examples, it'll add a flow variable over
here and we'll be able to leverage that later. All of this looks good, so let's click on save.
It's now added the first step to the flow and it's going to get the files in the folder. Here too, we
can see some of the specifics of what it's doing. So it's getting files in this specific folder.
Here, we can see the filter that's applied. So it's just going to fetch all of the different
files within that folder and then it's storing them in this variable. And here again, we can see
the variable over on the right-hand side. Next, I want to launch Microsoft Excel. So just like we
did in the earliest example today, let's go down to Excel and then let's click on launch Excel.
Here, I'll drag it over and that'll be the second step of our flow. Here, it says launch Excel, but
we don't want to launch with a blank document. We want to launch with our order tracker. So
here, I'll click on the dropdown and I'll select open the following document. When I select that,
I can choose a document path and I'm going to hard code this as well. I'll click on select file and
I have the file sitting on my desktop. So I'll navigate there, select the order tracker and then
click on open. Back on the main screen, I could also select whether I want to make the instance
visible. I'd like it to show up as it's running through this. So, I'll leave that toggled on.
Here, I'll see that it produces a variable called Excel instance and that'll add it over into flow
variables. This all looks good, so let's click on save. Now that I have Excel open, I want to go
through each individual order form in my folder and I want it to scrape out all of the details
and I need it to go through document by document. To do that, I need to use something called a loop
and over on the actions menu, there's a category for loops. If I expand that, I see a few different
types of loops that I can use. Now, I want it to go through my folder and for each file within
the folder, I want it to pull out the details. So I want to set up a for each loop. I can click
on this action and I'll drag it over onto my canvas and I'll put it after launching Excel. This
opens up a prompt where I can specify the value I want the for each loop to iterate over. Now, once
again, in the first step, we got all of the files in a folder and then we created a variable with
a list of all of the files and that variable is called files. So I want it to go through that list
of all of the files. Over here, I can click on the select a variable icon and here I could select
the list of files. So, I'll select this variable. You'll see here, there's a percentage sign, files
and a percentage sign. This is how PAD denotes a variable. Down here as well, I see that not only
is it going through this list of variables, but it's also creating its very own variable called
current item. So when the loop runs for the first time, it'll pull out that one document and it'll
store it in current item. When it goes through the loop again, the current item will be the second
document that it goes through. So each time the loop goes through, this current item will update.
All of this looks good, so let's click on save. We now have the loop showing up in the canvas and we
can add steps within the loop. So whatever steps I have within the loop are going to be repeated for
each document within the folder. As the first step in our for each loop, I want to take the current
item and I want to rename it extract. We're going to use this one file to extract all of the order
details. The reason for this is we're going to identify UI elements and we want to make sure that
they're the same across all files. To rename the file, let's go over to the left-hand side and
click on file. And here we see an action for rename file. Let's click on this and then let's
drag this within our for each loop. This opens up a rename file prompt. And first I could select
the file that I want to rename. Now I want it to rename every single file that's within the
list. And so right now it has the current item. I'll click on select variable and I'll select the
current item. So each time the loop goes through, it'll rename the current item. I'll select that.
And for the new file name, I'll type in extract. Down below, I could also decide whether I want to
keep the extension. That's .docx and I do want to keep that. Down below, it also says if the file
exists. Now, every time it runs through this loop, it's going to rename the file to extract. So it's
going to exist the second time it runs through all the way up through the last time it runs. So
here I'll click on this dropdown and I want it to overwrite the existing file. So, I'll select
overwrite. And down below, let's click on save. Now that I have a renamed file, I want to open
Microsoft Word so we can extract all of the details from the Word document. Now I need to
launch the application. So let's go over to the left-hand side under actions and here I'll type in
app. Here, the action is run application and let's pull that over and we'll do that after renaming
the file. This opens up a prompt where we need to specify the application path of the app that we
want to launch. And I'll show you a quick trick how you can get the application path for pretty
much any app on your computer. To find where an app is stored on your computer, simply go down to
your task bar and within the search field type in Word. This is the application that we want to
open. Here I see Word up here. I can right click on this and then we can open the file location.
This opens up File Explorer with the location of the shortcut. Now the shortcut is not going
to launch the application. So once again, we can right click on the shortcut and then open
the file location of that. When we click on this, this will navigate us to where the EXE is and this
is exactly what we want. To copy this path now, press the shift key on your keyboard together with
the right mouse button. This opens up a context menu and right down here we can copy this as a
path. Let's click on this. Back now within PAD, we can paste in the application path. I'll paste in
what I just copied. The one thing you want to make sure you do is remove these quotes from the path.
Here I'll delete those. Down below, we also need to enter in a command line argument to open up
the file that we just renamed. Down below, let's enter a forward slash, a T and then type in the
document location. For the document location, we also need to enter quotes at the beginning and at
the end. Once we're all done, let's click on save. As a next step, we want to create some UI elements
within our Word document. So let's minimize Power Automate and let's go back to the cookie order
forms. For now, let's take one of our order forms, let's copy it and paste it and then let's rename
the copy file extract. Next, let's open up the new file called extract. Back within PAD, we need to
indicate some UI elements that we want to scrape from the Word document. Over on the right-hand
side, just like we did in the earlier examples, let's click on UI elements and then down below,
let's click on add UI elements. This opens up the add UI elements prompt and I also have my
Word document here that we just created called extract. Here, we want to pick out all of the
data that we want to extract from this document. Here, as I hover over the different elements, I
can select which elements I want to copy. So here, I want to take the order number all the way down
through the desired delivery date. Now, once again, to add a UI element, I press the control
key and then I click on an area of the screen. So here, I'll get the order number, I want to get
the name, the cookie type, the quantity, how they heard about us, the preferred delivery method and
also the desired delivery date. So here, I have all of my UI elements. Let's click on done. Back
within PAD, within UI elements, I can see all of my UI elements now. Right now, they have mostly
unfriendly names that are hard to understand. Over here, I know this is the order number so if
I go over to the ellipsis on the right hand side, I can click on that and I can rename the elements.
I'll go through and rename all of them. I've now added UI elements and I've renamed them for all of
the different elements that I want to scrape from my Word document. Next, I want to extract data
from the window. So over on the left hand side, under UI automation, if I click on this, there's
a category for data extraction. When I expand this, right here, I see an option for extract
data from window. This is what I want to do, extract data from a Word window. Here, I'll click
on this option and I'll pull it in underneath run application. This opens up a prompt to extract the
data from a window and essentially what I'm doing, I'm taking one of my UI elements, I want to take
the value of that UI element and I want to save it as a variable. So here first, I need to select the
window. So here I see my window with all the UI elements. First, I want to select the order
number. I'll pick that as one of the UI elements, click on select. Down below, I can decide where I
want to store the extracted data and I don't want to just put it in an Excel sheet yet. Instead,
I want to save it as a variable. So I'll select a variable and down below, it'll show me what
variable will be produced and currently it's called data from window. Now that's not really
that descriptive. I can click on that and I can give the variable a new name. Now I have to leave
the percentage sign in front and in back because that's what makes it a variable but here I can
modify the middle of it. So here I'll call my variable order number. So, it aligns with my UI
element. That looks good and next let's click on save. I've now created my variable and here you'll
see it'll extract the record from that UI element and it'll save it as order number. If I go back
over here on the right-hand side, I can click on variables and here now I see that I have a new
variable that I created called order number. Every time it runs through all of these files, when
it runs through the first file, the order number will match the first file. When it goes through
the second file, it'll match the second file. Now I want to go through and do the exact same
thing for all of the different UI elements. I want each one of these UI elements to be stored
as a variable. So I'll go through and do the exact same thing, extract the data as I did with order
number and I'll do it for each one of these. I now have variables for all of my UI elements. I now
want to pass the value of the variable into Excel. But before I can do that, I need to find the first
available row in Excel and luckily PAD can help me with that. Over on the left-hand side, I have a
category for Excel. I'll expand this and here at the very bottom of the list, there's an action for
get first free column slash row. Let's click on that one and pull it into the canvas. This opens
up a prompt and first I need to select the Excel instance. And here the Excel instance, when I
launched Excel earlier, it created a variable called Excel instance and here it refers back to
that. This will produce its very own variables. Here I'll get one variable with the first free
column and another variable with the first free row. That's perfect. Let's now click on save. I
now have all of my variables. I also know what the first free row is in the Excel sheet. The pretty
much the last thing I need to do now is write to the Excel worksheet. And I still have the Excel
category open here and one of the actions is write to Excel worksheet. Here I'll select this item
and drag it over as the next step on the canvas. This opens up a prompt where I could define how
I want to write the data to the Excel worksheet. First, I need to choose the Excel instance.
And once again, when we launched Excel earlier, we got a variable for Excel instance and here
I'm going to refer to that variable right here. Next, I need to specify the value I want to
write. First, I want to write the order number. So here I'll select a variable and here I can see
all of the different variables available to me. If I scroll down a little bit, I see a variable
for the order number, so I'll select this item. For the write mode, I want to write it into a
specific cell. For the column, let's jump back into the Excel sheet to see which column we
want to write it to. Within the Excel sheet, I can see that the order number is the first
column, so we want to write to column one. Back within PAD, for the column, I'll enter one.
Down below, I could also specify the row and I want to make sure I enter this into the first
available row. So here I'll click on the select variable and here I can go down and I'll find
a variable for the first free row. Here it is, I'll select this variable. All of this now looks
good, so I'll click on save. I've now added my step to write to the Excel workbook and it's going
to write the value of order number and here you can see all of the details. Now, I'm going to
go through all of the other variables and set up something similar to this and I'll specify the
specific column that these other variables should go into. I've now gone through and I've added an
action for each one of these variables. So for the order number, the customer name, the referral,
I'll go through and I'll write each one of these to a specific column and an open row within the
Excel spreadsheet. As the last step of the loop, now that I've copied all of the data into the
Excel sheet, I want to close the Word document. This way I could open up the next document
in Word. Over on the left-hand side, under the system category, here you see the option to
terminate a process. I'll click on this action and then I'll drag it over to the very bottom of my
loop. This opens up a prompt where I can specify what process I want to terminate. First, I have an
option to choose a process name or a process ID. Earlier when we launched Word, that generated a
process ID, so I'll select process ID and here if I click on select variable, I can select the
app process ID that we got earlier. I'll click on that item and then click on save. Here, back in
the main view, if I scroll up just a little bit, here again, we see when I launched Word. If I
double click on that, here again, we can confirm that it produced a variable called app process
ID. We've now finished entering in all of the different steps of our flow and our automation.
Before we click on run up above, let's take a quick moment to review all of the different steps.
If I go up to the very top, first, we're going to get all of the files. So these are all of the
order forms that are contained within this folder. It's then going to take all of those files and
store it as a list within this variable called files. Next, we'll launch Excel and we're
going to open this order tracker sheet. That's when we kick off the loop and we're
going to go through every single order form that we stored in files. Here, first, we're going
to take the current item and we're going to rename it extract. Then we're going to launch that file
in Word. Then we're going to go through and we're going to extract all of the data from the Word
document. We'll find the first available free row in the Excel worksheet and then we'll write
all of the data into Excel. Then at the very end, we'll terminate the Word document and then the
loop will just continue again where once again, we create the next document, we open
Word again with the next document, and then it'll keep going through until it goes
through all of the different documents. Now, one more thing to clean up before we click on run, we
created an extract file so we could get all of the different UI elements. Let's delete this file
before we click on run. Back now in PAD, we are ready to kick off this flow. In the top left-hand
corner, let's click on run and let's see it work. Here now you can see it open up the Excel
document. It'll go through and open up each of the Word documents. And here you can
see it start populating the Excel file. And there it is. All of those separate Word
documents are now consolidated into one Excel spreadsheet. This was just a basic example showing
you how we can bring data from Word to Excel, but with PAD, you can really connect any application
together. We didn't get into it today, but you can also take these desktop flows that we created and
you can also connect them to web flows. So all in all, PAD is extremely powerful and also versatile.
Before we wrap up, one thing I want to call out, especially if you're using multiple monitors,
you really have to be cautious. When I pulled together this flow using multiple monitors, my
UI elements just weren't working properly. When I switched back down to one monitor, identified
all the different UI elements, then it seemed to work as I expected. So just a word of caution.
All right, well, that's how you could get started using Power Automate Desktop. If you found
this video helpful, please give it a thumbs up. To see more videos like this in the future,
make sure to hit that subscribe button. Also, if you want to see me cover any other topics,
leave a comment down below. All right, well, that's all I had for you today. I hope you enjoyed
and as always, I hope to see you next time. Bye.