Are you preparing for a Microsoft Power Automate interview? If you are, you’re at the right place. In this article, we will go through the most common Power Automate interview questions (and answers!) you’re likely to face when interviewing to become a Power Automate developer. Interview topics range from cloud flows to Power Automate for desktop, and more.
⏭️Skip ahead to Power Automate interview questions and answers
If you’re looking for a job as a developer working on Microsoft Power Automate, you’re on the right track. Since Microsoft announced that it was making Microsoft Power Automate for desktop free for all Windows 10 users (and now bundled for free with Windows 11), the demand for Power Automate — and consequently Power Automate developers — have been skyrocketing.
According to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Robotic Process Automation 2021, Microsoft Power Automate is ranked as a leader. This is what the report had to say: “Microsoft’s RPA value proposition includes RPA with API orchestration that can integrate multiple systems of record to automate routine data transcription work. Microsoft uses all the components of its Power Platform to create a single, unified, end-to-end platform that offers automation, integration, low-code application development and analytics capabilities in order to meet enterprises’ business process automation requirements.”
You’ll find plenty of opportunities furthering your career if you become an expert in Microsoft Power Automate, and we’re here to help.
Without further ado, below are the top 30 commonly asked Microsoft Power Automate interview questions and answers for developers.
Power Automate interview questions regarding product offerings
1. Which are the 4 key products under the Power Platform?
- Power BI
- Power Apps
- Power Automate
- Power Virtual Agents
2. What are the 4 value pillars of Power Automate?
The 4 value pillars are:
- automate at scale
- seamless and secure integration
- accelerated productivity
- intelligent automation
3. What is the key difference between Power Automate and Power Automate for desktop?
Power Automate is used mainly for the API-automation of cloud services and internal API services, otherwise known as Digital Process Automation (DPA). Power Automate for desktop, on the other hand, is used for UI-automation of legacy web, Windows and terminal applications, also commonly referred to as Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
4. What is an environment?
An environment is a space to store, manage, and share your organization’s business data, apps, chatbots, and flows. It also serves as a container to separate apps that might have different roles, security requirements, or target audiences. For example, you can have separate environments for development, UAT and production.
5. What is a solution?
Solutions are the mechanism for implementing Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) in Power Apps and Power Automate. The solution represents the package for all the different components that a business problem needs to be solved with. When you host your flows in a solution, they become portable, making it effortless to move them and all their components from one environment to another.
A solution is either managed or unmanaged.
- Unmanaged solutions are used in development environments while you make changes to your application.
- Managed solutions, on the other hand, are used to deploy to any environment that isn’t a development environment for that solution. This includes test, UAT, SIT, and production environments.
6. What are the different types of flow in Power Automate?
You can create 3 types of flow in Power Automate – cloud flows, desktop flows and business process flows.
- Cloud flows: Cloud flows are used when you want your automation to be triggered either automatically, instantly, or via a schedule.
- Desktop flows: With Power Automate for desktop, you can create desktop flows to automate tasks on the Web or the desktop.
- Business process flows: Business process flows provide a guide for people to get work done by defining set of steps for people to follow to take them to a desired outcome.
7. What are the 3 building blocks of a cloud flow?
The 3 building blocks of a cloud flow are trigger, action and conditions.
- A trigger is the event that starts a cloud flow.
- An action is the task that’s started when a trigger is invoked.
- Lastly, conditions inform the cloud flow to perform actions based on predetermined logic set in the flow.
8. Is Power Automate compatible with Windows 10 Home?
Yes, you can use Power Automate to create your desktop flows and monitor them on the Power Automate web portal. However, you cannot trigger desktop flows to run from the cloud on Windows 10 Home devices. In addition, other types of desktop flows (e.g. Windows recorder V1 and Selenium IDE) are not supported.
Interview questions about Microsoft Power Automate for desktop
9. What is the difference between Power Automate console and Power Automate flow designer?
The flow console is the central interface of Power Automate for desktop from which you can launch the flow designer to create or edit flows. You can also delete, rename, and run existing flows.
The flow designer contains all the tools required to design and debug a desktop flow. Additionally, any images, UI elements, or variables of a desktop flow can be accessed and managed here.
Find out more about the Power Automate for desktop interface! Check out our comprehensive Microsoft Power Automate for desktop interface tour.
10. Name all the panes contained inside Power Automate console.
- Workspace (including Main and Subflows)
- Actions pane
- Variables pane
- UI Elements pane
- Images pane
- Errors pane.
11. What are subflows and why do you need them?
Subflows are groups of actions, which may be referenced as a group within a desktop flow. Every flow contains the Main subflow – this is the subflow that is run when a desktop flow starts. Any other subflows may be invoked through the Run subflow action.
Breaking the deskflow into smaller subflows is paramount to good project design and allows you to create quality automation that is modular, maintainable, readable, flexible, reliable and extensible.
Impress your interviewers! Learn more about flow control in Microsoft Power Automate for desktop
12. What is the difference between Run subflow action and Run desktop flow action?
The Run subflow action triggers a subflow that is defined within the main desktop flow. On the other hand, the Run desktop flow action triggers another desktop flow—this so-called child desktop flow can receive input variables and may produce output variables. The parent desktop flow run will be paused until the called child desktop flow completes.
13. What are some of the common supported variable datatypes in Power Automate for desktop?
Text value, numeric value, Boolean value, list, datatable, datarow, custom object, mail message, file, folder and more.
Find out everything you need to know about variables in Microsoft Power Automate for desktop.
14. What is the difference between input/output variables and flow variables?
Input and output variables allow you to pass data to and from Power Automate for desktop, including between Power Automate cloud flows and desktop flows. In addition, you can use input variables to set values manually when the flows are triggered through the console. Flow variables, on the other hand, refers to all the variables that are used within the desktop flow itself to store data.
15. What are sensitive variables?
Within the Variables pane, users can mark both input/output and flow variables as sensitive. The values of sensitive variables will not be visible in the flow designer during debugging. Nor will the values be logged for desktop flows triggered by the Power Automate web portal or the console.
16. What are actions?
Actions are the basic building blocks of a desktop flow. Actions are categorized based on the following action groups – Variables, Conditionals, Loops, Flow control, Run flow, System, Workstation, Scripting, File, Folder, Compression, UI automation, HTTP, Browser automation, Excel, Database, Email, Exchange ,Outlook, Message boxes, Mouse and keyboard, Clipboard, Text, Date time, PDF, CMD session, Terminal emulation, OCR, Cryptography, Windows services, XML, FTP, CyberArk, Active Directory, AWS, Azure, Google Cognitive, IBM Cognitive and Microsoft Cognitive.
Want to know more about some lesser-known actions? Check out these Microsoft Power Automate tips & tricks that will surely impress your interviewers!
17. What are UI elements?
UI elements are used to identify and interact directly with windows and their contents without resorting to image recognition or absolute coordinates, as the latter methods are oftentimes less reliable.
Learn how to interact with windows and applications using UI elements in Microsoft Power Automate for desktop. It’s useful for things like automating data entry into your CRM or any other application.
18. Can a user perform work on the machine while a desktop flow is running?
It is not recommended for a user to perform work on the machine while the desktop flow is simultaneously running as this might interfere with the flow itself. To prevent any undesired human interferences, you can use the Block Input action to ignore mouse or keyboard input from the user while the flow is running. To re-enable user input, add another Block Input action to the flow, and set it to Unblock Input. Do note that for this action to function properly, you need to run Power Automate for desktop with Administrator rights.
19. Which are the browsers supported by Power Automate for desktop?
To automate web-related tasks, Power Automate for desktop provides the Automation browser that is preconfigured and works out of the box. Besides the Automation browser, the platform supports the four most popular browsers: Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox. These browsers need additional configuration or/and browser extensions to work.
20. What is Automation browser and what are its pros and cons?
To automate web-related tasks, Microsoft Power Automate provides the Automation browser that is preconfigured and works out of the box. Although the Automation browser is based on Internet Explorer, it provides some features and limitations that increase automation effectiveness.
Pros:
- Automation browser works out of the box, while Internet Explorer requires additional configuration. Security configurations may be unwanted in organizations with strict security policies that prohibit manual changes.
- The Click download link on web page action works with the Automation browser whatever the Internet Explorer version. For the actual Internet Explorer, the action requires version 8 or below.
- Automation browser suppresses all message dialog boxes that may pop up unhindered in the actual Internet Explorer. However, if this feature is undesirable, apply the (ShowDialogs) suffix at the end of the URL in the Launch new Internet Explorer action.
- Automation browser has a small performance advantage because it doesn’t load unnecessary elements and add-ons like the actual Internet Explorer does.
Cons:
- Automation browser doesn’t support tabs or opening links in windows. When the user clicks on a link, the browser opens it in the same window/instance.
21. What is UIFlowService?
UIFlowService is a Windows service that is installed with Power Automate on the desktop machine. By default, it’s set to start automatically and runs as the user NT SERVICE\UIFlowService which is created during installation. UIFlowService supports attended/unattended desktop connectivity to the Power Automate cloud service, either directly or through the on-premises data gateway.
22. What are exceptions and how do you handle exceptions in Power Automate for desktop?
Exceptions are events that occur while a flow is running. These events disrupt the expected flow of actions, and cause it to fail if they are not handled properly. Exceptions occur when an action cannot run as intended, and may be caused by various factors: incorrect inputs, unexpected values, software/hardware failures, unavailable resources, etc.
Exception handling is the mechanism that allows Power Automate for desktop to handle and recover from unexpected circumstances and issues that might occur while a flow is running. Exceptions can be handled at the action-level – most actions’ properties contain an On error button which allows access to the action’s exception handling settings. In addition, it is possible to apply exception handling to an entire block of actions through the On block error action.
The options available for handling errors include retry action, set variable, run subflow, continue flow run (i.e. go to next action, repeat action and go to label) and throw error.
23. How do you debug a desktop flow?
It is common to have to debug desktop flows due to changes in the system/applications, data formats and/or process requirements, or if a desktop flow cannot run because it contains errors.
The following tools can be used to debug a desktop flow:
- Reviewing the errors in the Errors pane
- Adding breakpoints in the flow
- Running a desktop flow action-by-action, or run from a specific action
24. What are some of the best practices when creating desktop flows?
Some of the good design principles include:
- Modularity – Separation of concerns with dedicated subflows allows fine granular development and testing
- Maintainability – Good structure and development standards
- Readability – Meaningful names for variables, UI elements, etc
- Flexibility – Keep environment settings in external configuration files
- Reliability – Exception handling and error reporting
- Extensibility – Ready for new use cases to be incorporated
25. How to share or export a desktop flow?
There are 3 ways to share or export a desktop flow:
- To replicate a desktop flow, edit it through the flow designer and copy the actions within a subflow. The copied text can then be sent directly to other users or saved to a text file for easier sharing. The receiver can simply paste the text to a flow designer and run it.
- Share the desktop flow directly through the Power Automate portal. There are the two permission levels you can use when you share desktop flows: co-owner and user.
- Export a solution that contains the desktop flow. The receiver can then import the solution into any environment that meets the prerequisites.
Check out our article on how to share your desktop flow in Microsoft Power Automate for desktop to learn how to share your desktop flows, step by step.
26. What are data loss prevention (DLP) policies?
Power Automate offers to administrators the option to create and enforce DLP policies that classify desktop flows action groups as business or non-business and mark actions or action groups as blocked. That way a non-business action can’t be combined with an action that has been marked as business so as to avoid data exposure outside the organization.
Power Automate Interview Questions on Process Mining and Task Mining Features
27. What is Process Advisor?
Process Advisor allows you to gain a better understanding of your business processes so you can optimize them. It can also help you improve how you work by finding opportunities for automation. Process advisor offers task mining and process mining capabilities to do this.
28. What is the difference between task mining and process mining?
Task mining enables you to understand how your company performs its process tasks through monitoring recorded user actions. You’ll gain insights from this data that will let you know how processes are performed and identify tasks that can be automated.
Process mining allows you to take the event data from your system of records and visualize the processes happening in your organization. Process mining provides novel insights that can help you identify automation opportunities, and address performance and compliance opportunities.
Power Automate Interview Questions on AI-Enabled Features
29. What is AI Builder?
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 intelligence to automate processes and glean insights from your data in Power Apps and Power Automate. With AI Builder, you don’t need coding or data science skills to access the power of AI. You can build custom models tailored to your needs, or choose a prebuilt model that is ready to use for many common business scenarios.
Check out our video on using the AI Builder for invoice processing
30. What are some of the prebuilt AI models that is available in Power Automate?
Some of the prebuilt AI models include business card reader model, category classification model, entity extraction model, ID reader model, key phrase extraction model, language detection model, receipt processing model, sentiment analysis model, text recognition model and text translation model.
More resources for your Power Automate interview preparation
Besides preparing to answer Power Automate interview questions, you should also sharpen your technical hands-on skills. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and check out our various blog posts, where we post tutorials on Microsoft Power Automate, including basics like Variables and Text Manipulation Actions in Microsoft Power Automate for desktop, as well as more advanced topics like Dynamic Selectors, Web Scraping, and Extracting PDF invoices and much more.
All the best for your Microsoft Power Automate interview!
So, there we are! We’ve covered the top 30 frequently asked Power Automate interview questions and answers for Microsoft Power Automate developers.
Are there any questions you think might be asked during your Power Automate interview that you don’t know the answer to? Post it in the comments below and we might be able to help.
Otherwise, you might want to brush up on your technical hands-on Power Automate skills by revising with the help of the tutorial videos on our YouTube Channel and tutorial articles on our blog.
We hope these top Power Automate developer interview questions (and answers!) have helped you, and all the best for your interview! 💪