Democratizing RPA with Power Automate Desktop : Boost Your Productivity by Implementing Best Practices for Automating Repetitive Desktop Processes / Peter Krause.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Krause, Peter, 1919- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Management information systems.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (308 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Birmingham, England : Packt Publishing Ltd., [2023]

Biography/History:

Krause Peter: Peter Krause looks back on more than 30 years of IT experience, during which he has experienced the entire spectrum from mainframes to client servers to today's software as a service (SaaS) services. In 2003, he witnessed the birth of Microsoft CRM, = the foundation of today's Power Platform. From that time on, Microsoft technology has shaped his professional life, where he has held roles in nearly every IT project. Peter is a certified trainer and works at Microsoft Corporation as a solution architect, where he helps enterprise customers successfully build their businesses in the cloud.

Summary:

Discover how desktop flows can interact with your everyday tools and automate tasks, freeing up time to do more important things Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Key Features Learn how Office programs can assist with automating recurring tasks Maintain superior work quality by including daily desktop and web applications in your flows Enrich your flows with additional AI-based information and integrate them with cloud systems Book Description Whether you want to organize simple files or perform more complex consolidations between different Office programs and remote-control applications that don't allow outside access, Power Automate Desktop helps meet these challenges. This book shows you how to leverage this workflow automation platform by explaining the underlying RPA concepts in a step-by-step way. You'll start with simple flows that can be easily recorded and further processed using the built-in recorder. Later, you'll learn how to use the more advanced actions to automate folder and file management and enable Office programs to interact with each other. You'll also get to grips with integrating desktop flows into other cloud environments and further enhance their value using AI. As you progress, you'll understand how flows can run unattended and how they are managed in the Power Platform, as well as key concepts such as creating, modifying, debugging, and error-handling UI flows. Finally, the book will guide you to use Process Automation Designer (PAD) in conjunction with your frequently used desktop systems to automate routine tasks. By the end of this book, you'll have become a Power Automate Desktop expert, automating both professional and personal tasks. What you will learn Master RPA with Power Automate Desktop to commence your debut flow Grasp all essential product concepts such as UI flow creation and modification, debugging, and error handling Use PAD to automate tasks in conjunction with the frequently used systems on your desktop Attain proficiency in configuring flows that run unattended to achieve seamless automation Discover how to use AI to enrich your flows with insights from different AI models Explore how to integrate a flow in a broader cloud context Who this book is for Whether you're a home user looking to automate simple tasks on your workstation or a business user or citizen developer seeking to automate more complex rule-based processes, this book will help you overcome the challenge. No knowledge of a programming language is required, but in the more advanced chapters, a general understanding of information technology, including basic programming language structures, protocols, and cloud concepts, will be helpful.

Contents:

Intro

Preface

1

Getting Started with Power Automate Desktop

What is PAD and what can it do?

Example 1 - automatic response letter processing

Example 2 - integration of a legacy application

What processes should be automated?

How it all started - robotic process automation

Microsoft Power Platform at a glance

UI flows demystified and their role in Power Platform

Connecting PAD to the cloud

Introducing Power Platform environments

Understanding the potential of PAD by looking at an example with MS Office

Summary

Further reading

2

Using Power Automate Desktop and Creating Our First Flow

Understanding the prerequisites for installing PAD

The Windows operating system

Microsoft account

Installing PAD

Creating our first flow

Artifacts of the user interface explained

The Power Automate container window

The designer window

Making use of the recorder

3

Editing and Debugging UI Flows

Details of the designer window/workspace

The parameters dialog

Global menu options

Using breakpoints

Working with subflows

Strategies for effective flow creation

Start simple

Split the whole task

Work on a single item before looping

Deactivate to test steps

Adapt to the available options

4

Basic Structure Elements and Flow Control

Technical requirements

Using conditionals

Starting with If and Else

Else If action

Special If actions

Conditionals with multiple branches

Handling repetitive tasks with Loop statements

The Loop action

Loop condition

For each

Additional action for flow control

Error handling

On block error

5

Variables, UI Elements, and Images

Variables and how to use them

Flow variables

Input and output variables

Variable types.

The % notation

Identifying and creating UI elements

How to use images with PAD

6

Actions for UI Automation

Why do we need UI actions?

Identify a window

Interact with a window

Extract data from a window

Fill in data in a window

UI actions in action

Microsoft Access database as a source system

Windows executable as the target system

Deconstructing the workflow

7

Automate Your Desktop and Workstation

Windows and desktop management

Controlling processes and services

Command-line sessions and scripting

Handling files and folders on your desktop

Operating computer peripherals

Workstation

Mouse, keyboard, and clipboard

Creating a PowerPoint system report by using mouse and keyboard actions

Final remark

8

Automating Standard Business Applications

Automating Microsoft Office

Automating Outlook with actions

Automating Excel actions

Working with SAP

Distributed user management with PAD

The Launch_SAPGUI sub-flow

The "Launch_Excel" and "Launch_Outlook" sub-flows

User data processing

Additional thoughts and automation options

Integrating mainframe scenarios

Browser-based business applications

Notes on this example

9

Leveraging Cloud Services and Power Platform

Power Platform and related services

Machine and Machine Runtime

Accessing a PAD flow from the cloud

Unattended execution (Run mode)

Managing lists, files, and folders with SharePoint

Working with IaaS offerings (Azure/AWS)

AWS actions in use

Working with Azure actions

10

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence

Technical requirements.

Introduction to cognitive services and artificial intelligence

An overview of cognitive services

AI in the context of business

Capabilities with optical character recognition

Exploring Microsoft Cognitive Services

AI-based image sorting

Google cognitive

Sentiment analysis in PAD

Working with IBM cognitive

Practical relevance to PAD

More ways to use AI

11

Working with APIs and Services

The use and automation of local network services

Accessing and managing local AD

Working with databases

Using local exchange and other email services

Working with web protocols and formats

FTP

HTTP

Working with web data formats

Using additional security features

Built-in data handling functionality

Date time actions

Actions for working with text

Interactive flows with Message Boxes

12

PAD Enterprise Best Practices

Chapter prerequisites

Typical requirements in enterprises

Hyperautomation

Development aspects

Installation and deployment

Scalability

Security

Governance and compliance

Microsoft best practices for hyperautomation

Enterprise automation scenarios with PAD

Calling web services within PAD

Providing scalability and reliability with machine groups and queues

Index

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Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Krause, Peter Democratizing RPA with Power Automate Desktop

ISBN:

9781803230382

OCLC:

1376935096