How to get started with Microsoft Power Automate Desktop in less than 15 minutes

parent 1 / admin / April 21, 2021 / Tutorial

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has been one of the fastest growing segments in the enterprise software market in the last few years, according to leading market research firm Gartner.

And this trend is only expected to accelerate further, as enterprises pivot towards digital transformation, including the digitalization and automation of critical business processes, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.

The emergence of a new class of citizen developers (and their army of digital workers) took on a new significance with the announcement by Microsoft on 2 March 2021 that Microsoft Power Automate Desktop will be available to Windows 10 users at no additional cost.

With cost commonly cited as a reason for the lack of enterprise-wide RPA adoption, this move by Microsoft is turning out to be the watershed moment that heralds the era of a robot for every employee. And in this era of hyperautomation, any task or process that can be automated will be.

Against this backdrop, there has never been a better or more urgent time for everyone to learn what RPA is. Regardless of whether you are an employee at a Multinational Corporation or Small and Medium Business, or if you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, you ought to know how you can leverage this technology at work.

Hence, in this blog post, we are going to share how you can get started in Microsoft Power Automate Desktop in less than 15 minutes. Let’s go.

Watch the video below, or scroll past it for step-by-step text instructions.

Downloading Microsoft Power Automate Desktop
Installing Microsoft Power Automate Desktop
Install Microsoft Power Automate Desktop extensions
Signing in to Microsoft Power Automate Desktop
Creating your first Microsoft Power Automate Desktop flow
Conclusion

Downloading Microsoft Power Automate Desktop

Firstly, go to this link to download the Microsoft Power Automate Desktop installer.

Prior to installation, do ensure that your device meets the following hardware and software requirements:

	Minimum	Recommended
Storage	1GB	2GB
RAM	2GB	4GB

Hardware requirements

	Supported Versions
Operating System	Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Enterprise, Windows Server 2016, or Windows Server 2019
.NET Framework	Version 4.7.2 or later

Software requirements

Installing Microsoft Power Automate Desktop

Once the download has been completed, double click on the installer file, i.e. Setup.Microsoft.PowerAutomateDesktop.

You should see the screen below. Click Next to continue.

In the next screen, select the features that you want to install. We recommend you to install the WebDriver and ChromeDriver for Microsoft Edge. Also, do take note that you need to accept Microsoft’s terms of use before you are allowed to proceed with the installation. Click Install when you are ready to proceed with the installation.

You may receive a prompt asking if you want to allow the app to make changes to your device. Click Yes to proceed.

You should be seeing a screen displaying the progress of the installation.

Once the installation is completed successfully, the following screen will be displayed:

Depending on your preferred choice of browser(s), click on the relevant link(s) to install the Power Automate extension(s). This step is necessary so that you can use Microsoft Power Automate Desktop to perform web automation within your preferred browser.

For example, when you click on the link for Google Chrome, a Chrome browser will open and you will need to click on the Add to Chrome button.

When prompted, click on Add extension.

When the Chrome extension has been successfully installed, you will see the following notification:

Do likewise for the extensions for Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox as required. When done, click on the Launch Power Automate Desktop button to open the app.

Signing in to Microsoft Power Automate Desktop

When you first launch Microsoft Power Automate Desktop, you will be requested to sign in. Click on the Sign in button.

Enter your email address and click Sign in.

Enter your password and click Sign in.

You will be prompted to choose your country/region, and if you want to receive the occasional promotion emails. Next, click on the Get started button.

When you see the screen below, it means that you have successfully installed and signed in to Microsoft Power Automate Desktop.

Creating your first Microsoft Power Automate Desktop flow

You may be wondering what a flow is. In the Power Automate universe,

To create a new flow, click on the + New flow button. Next, give your flow a name and click on the Create button.

A new window should open – this is the Flow Designer, Power Automate Desktop’s development environment where you can build flows and perform debugging. To develop a flow, you can drag and drop in the main workspace any of the available actions that you can find on the Action pane on the left.

Our first desktop flow will be “Heather”, a simple bot that greets us “Good Morning!” To get started, type “Display message” in the search toolbar on the top of the Actions pane. The action “Display message” will be highlighted in the search results below. Drag and drop this action into the main workspace.

In the dialog box that opens, enter “My First Desktop Flow” and “Good Morning!” into the Message box title and Message to display fields respectively. Then click on the Save button.

The action that you have just configured is now displayed in the main workspace:

To test this flow, click on the Run button. The following message box should be displayed:

Click on the OK button to end this flow. Congratulations! You’ve just created your first flow in Microsoft Power Automate Desktop. Before you exit, do remember to click on the Save button to save this flow.

Conclusion

There you have it. We have discovered how to get started in Microsoft Power Automate Desktop in less than 15 minutes.

Specifically, we have learnt how to download and install the software. And we have created our first RPA bot called “Heather” who does morning greetings.

Happy automating.

~~~

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Is Power Automate Free? 8 Things You Need to Know

parent 1 / admin / April 7, 2021 / Licensing, Microsoft Power Automate, Tips & Tricks

You may have heard some good things about Microsoft Power Automate, and you may be wondering—Is Power Automate free? We’ll get to the answer in a while. In addition, we will also be covering 8 things you need to know about Microsoft Power Automate licensing and pricing.

Is Power Automate free?

Well, yes and no. Here’s the short answer: only part of the Power Automate platform is free. Specifically, Power Automate Desktop is available to all Windows 10 users for free, as recently announced by Microsoft on 2 March 2021. But the full-fledged Power Automate platform is not free.

And although Power Automate Desktop is free, it does have some restrictions, which we will explain later on. We will also discuss everything about licensing and pricing that you’ll need to know as you contemplate whether to upgrade to a paid subscription.

Check out how you can make the most use of the free Microsoft Power Automate Desktop with our free Microsoft Power Automate Desktop tutorials and blog posts.

What’s the difference between Power Automate Desktop and Power Automate?

Power Automate Desktop is part of the Power Automate platform.

Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow) is a cloud-native, low-code automation platform that brings together UI- and API-based automation with AI. Enterprises can use Power Automate to automate workflows and business processes to enhance operational efficiencies.

With Power Automate, you can automate mundane, menial tasks, and free yourself up to focus on higher value and more interesting work. There are 3 types of flows that you can create:

Cloud flows are a series of actions that can be triggered by an event, via a schedule or on-demand. Power Automate enables you to interact with the various services through the use of more than 200+ data connectors. Cloud flows are API-based automation.
Desktop flows are used to automate tasks involving desktop and/or web applications. You would use desktop flows (UI-based automation) instead of cloud flows if there are no existing connectors available to connect and interact with the required web applications. This is where Power Automate Desktop comes in. Do note that you will need to download and install Power Automate Desktop in order to create desktop flows.
Business process flows consist of a series of stages and steps that guide users to get work done in a consistent and streamlined manner.

Now, let’s address some of the burning questions that you might have regarding Power Automate pricing and licensing.

Free Microsoft Power Automate Desktop restrictions
Overview of Power Automate Licensing and Pricing
So how do you decide which plan to purchase?
Not all plans come with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) functionalities
Both the “per user” and “per flow” plans come with service limits
Not all types of flows need to be licensed
What can you use the AI builder for?
Limited Power Automate capabilities are also included within Power Apps, Office 365, Dynamics and Windows licenses
Conclusion

1. Free Microsoft Power Automate Desktop restrictions

The free version of Power Automate Desktop is meant for individual users to make their work more productive at a personal level. This means that many capabilities that make it easier to coordinate automation at an enterprise level are not available for free.

Some examples of the restrictions on the free Power Automate Desktop include:

You can only access your flows from your desktop. This means no access from the Power Automate platform—Microsoft’s online portal for flows. Being able to access the flows online is handy because it allows you to start your flows on the go—from any web browser and even your mobile device.
You can’t collaborate on desktop flows with your colleagues
You can’t combine desktop flows with cloud flows. Combining with cloud flows is useful because it allows you to use API integrations where they are available, and APIs are a more robust and efficient way of passing data from one app to another.
You can’t use AI builder to extract data from documents. If you deal with a lot of semi-structured or unstructured documents in your daily work, you would probably want to be able to extract data intelligently and automatically from your documents.
You can’t schedule your flows, i.e. no unattended RPA functionality. This means you have to be present to trigger your flow manually. Want to run a report every day at midnight while you’re sleeping at home? You’ll have to pay extra for that.

Now that you have some idea of the kind of features that you may have to pay for, let’s have a look at Power Automate licensing and pricing.

2. Overview of Power Automate Licensing and Pricing

	Per user	Per user with attended RPA	Per flow
Licensing scheme	Unlimited flows per user	Unlimited flows per users	Unlimited users per flow
Cloud flows and business process flows	Included	Included	Included
Attended desktop flows (including Power Automate Desktop)	Not included	Included	Not included
Unattended desktop flows	Not included	Not included	Not included
AI Builder	Not included	5,000 service credits per month	Not included
Usage limit	5,000 daily API requests per user	5,000 daily API requests per user	15,000 daily API requests per licensed flow
Typical use case	To support the adoption of automation across the entire organization	Similar to per user case, but with additional RPA capabilities	To support the implementation of flows that are used by a large number of users
Price	US$15 per user per month	US$40 per user per month	US$100 per flow per month
Minimum purchase	N/A	N/A	5 flows

The table above refers to full-fledged, general purpose Power Automate capabilities. Licensing is supported on both a “per user” basis as well as a “per flow” basis.

You can download the detailed Microsoft Power Apps and Power Automate Licensing Guide here.

3. So how do you decide which plan to purchase?

Generally speaking, you should purchase the “per user” plans if you need to support the adoption of automation across your entire organization. In this case, you just need to know the total number of users, and not have to bother with tracking how many flows are activated within your organization.

On the other hand, if you have a (small) number of flows that are used by a large number of users within your organizations, it might be more cost-effective to purchase the “per flow” plan. In this way, you do not need to license each and every user who might trigger the flow knowingly or unknowingly.

4. Not all plans come with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) functionalities

RPA functionality (including Power Automate Desktop) is only available through the “per user with attended RPA” plan. This supports use cases whereby the user will manually trigger the attended desktop flows. This plan provides for desktop flow authoring, bot orchestration and management.

If you require the desktop flow to run autonomously, i.e. without user intervention, you need to purchase additionally the “Power Automate unattended RPA add-on”. The number of add-ons required depends on the number of bots, which in turn depends on the number of concurrent flows that you need to run. Alternatively, if you can serialize your flows to run sequentially, then this add-on is not necessary. The “Power Automate unattended RPA add-on” is priced at US$150 per bot per month.

Please also note that any services or applications the unattended bot accesses must be licensed separately. For instance, if the bot is accessing Windows or Office, the “Microsoft 365 – Unattended License” must also be purchased in addition to the “Power Automate unattended RPA add-on”.

5. Both the “per user” and “per flow” plans come with service limits

Specifically, there is a daily cap of 5,000 API requests for the “per user” and “per user with attended RPA” plans. Similarly, there is a daily cap of 15,000 API requests per licensed flow for the “per flow” plan. To increase the daily service limits, you will need to purchase the “Power Apps and Power Automate capacity add-on”. Don’t say we did not warn you!

6. Not all types of flows need to be licensed

Only top-level flows that are activated need to be license. “Child” flows that are triggered by another flow do not need to be additionally licensed. Yay!

7. What can you use the AI Builder for?

AI Builder is a Microsoft Power Platform capability that provides AI models that are designed to optimize your business processes. AI Builder enables your business to use AI to automate processes and glean insights from your data in Power Apps and Power Automate.

Have a look at how Power Automate’s AI Builder works in this invoice processing example.

The AI Builder can support use cases like forms processing, text classification and recognition, sentiment analysis, object detection, language detection, key phrase extraction, receipt processing, and more.

The “per user with attended RPA plan” comes with 5,000 service credits per month. Service credits are deducted when AI Builder services are used, and do note that different use cases burn down the service credits at different rates.

Additional AI Builder capacity can be purchased for $500/month per 1,000,000 service credits. Do note that the AI Builder service credit capacity is pooled on the tenant level.

8. Limited Power Automate capabilities are also included within Power Apps, Office 365, Dynamics 365 and Windows licenses

Limited Power Automate use rights are included with select Windows licenses (namely Windows 10 Pro, Windows Enterprise E3 and Windows Enterprise E5) to create and execute personal desktop automation for attended RPA capabilities in Power Automate Desktop.

Do note that usage is limited to non-production purpose and localized on the Windows machine only. Unlike the “per user with attended RPA” plan, you would not be able to manage or monitor your desktop flows from the Power Automate platform, or to trigger a desktop flow from another flow for example.

The free Microsoft Power Automate Desktop is Certainly Worth Trying

We have reviewed the key aspects of Microsoft Power Automate licensing and pricing. The Power Automate Desktop software that is “bundled” with the Windows 10 Pro license does appear to be rather attractive, allowing users, particularly citizen developers to start instantly, and at no cost.

On the flip side, the licensing structure might be somewhat confusing to someone new to Microsoft, especially with regards to the various add-ons you might need to purchase in order to fulfil your use cases. As they always say, caveat emptor!

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