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
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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