Companion site of the book
Power Automate Desktop Bible
2027 Edition
The general-purpose, hands-on guide for Citizen Developers - files, Excel, PDF, Outlook, web and desktop apps, errors, tests and sharing, every action set field by field and every flow run before it is printed.
Chapters
Getting started with Power Automate Desktop
Check your installation, then build a first flow that opens a new client folder - three subfolders, the kickoff checklist copied from Templates and a message when it is done.
Variables and data types
Name the client folder from two values set once and today's date - one change for a new client instead of six.
If conditions and decision rules
Route a purchase request to the right approval folder by an explicit rule - missing data first, then the amount thresholds of the purchasing policy.
For each loops: process files in a folder
File every training registration of a session found in the Inbox - a filter picks the right files, a loop handles them one by one, an empty upload is set aside and counted.
File and folder automation
Rename the morning's scanned mail with the date, file it in the month's archive folder, and never lose a scan to a name that is already taken.
Text actions, dates, and number conversion
Clean the lines of a web-form export before the CRM import - split each line, tidy names, keep phone digits, read dates and amounts as real values, whatever the visitors typed.
Excel automation: read and write worksheets
Read the quote follow-up list from Excel, compute the age of each quote, write the status it calls for in the worksheet, and save - Won and Lost are never touched.
DataTables, CSV files, and data consolidation
Merge the weekly stock exports of three warehouses into one checked file - one table built from CSV files, a merge that refuses an unexpected column, the total of pallets on hand.
PDF automation: extract text and tables
Feed the inspection register from the weekly PDF reports - the report number, warehouse and date read from the text, the failed checks counted from the table, one row per report, the PDF filed.
OCR: extract text from scanned documents
Read the delivery note number on each scanned proof of delivery with classic OCR, file the scans it could read, and set aside for a person the ones it could not - the signature is never checked by the flow.
PDF automation: merge and split files
Build one onboarding pack per new hire - the signature pages taken out of the offer letter and the confidentiality agreement, merged with the policy acknowledgment in a fixed order - and check each pack by reading its pages back.
Outlook automation: save email attachments
Save the certificates that approved suppliers email to the office manager into each supplier's folder, move the messages they came in to a 'Certificates filed' folder, and leave every other message unread and in place.
Outlook email automation: prepare messages for review
Prepare a personalized follow-up email for every quote at 'Send a reminder', the quote PDF attached, as a draft in Outlook for the salesperson to read and send; a quote whose PDF is missing gets no draft and a line to check.
IMAP and SMTP email automation: file proofs of delivery
Read a shared mailbox without Outlook - save the carriers' proofs of delivery in today's folder, move their messages to a Filed folder on the mail server, leave a message without its proof for a person - then send the day's summary by SMTP with the log attached.
Web scraping and data extraction
Read the shipment tracking table of the carrier's portal in Edge, wait until it is really loaded, extract it as a DataTable, count the exceptions and keep the day's copy in a workbook.
Web form automation with Excel data
Register every employee of a workbook on the training provider's portal - name, ID, course and session typed and chosen in the form, Register pressed - then read the page's answer and write the confirmation number, or the reason it was refused, back in the workbook.
UI automation for desktop applications
Key the week's transport requests from a workbook into Harbor TMS, an in-house Windows application with no import and no API - sign in, choose the customer and the warehouse in their lists, type the date, the destination and the pallets, tick Hazardous materials, press Save - then read the application's answer and write it back in the workbook.
Dynamic UI elements and robust selectors
Harbor TMS 4.0 renamed its fields and moved two of them; the chapter 17 flow stops on the first list. Rewrite the selectors of the elements that changed - a stable attribute, an operator, a variable, a second selector - so that one flow keys the week's requests in 4.0 and still in 3.1, and checks which version it is driving before typing anything.
Troubleshooting desktop flows
Dana's payment-run flow stops on an error this Monday, then, once that is fixed, finishes with a wrong answer. Read the error, look at the variables where the flow stopped, put a breakpoint, run action by action, and change only what the evidence points to.
Error handling, retries, and logging
Record the carriers' delivery confirmations in the register - a few files are bad, one is still held by the upload tool. The good ones are recorded once, the bad ones set aside with the reason in a log, the busy one retried, and a second run records nothing twice.
Subflows and input/output variables
Write the filing of scanned documents once, as a subflow with its inputs (which inbox, which files, which archive, which log) and its outputs (how many filed, how many left), then call it for the Admin team's mail and the People team's forms.
Testing reusable desktop flows
Before the Quality team relies on the filing subflow, prove it on four prepared cases - normal, missing inbox, empty inbox, invalid archive - each with its expected result and a line of evidence, and keep the cases to run again after every change.
Word automation with document templates
After each training session, fill the People team's report template from the attendance sheet - course, date, trainer, who came, who did not - and save it as a Word document and a PDF, the template left untouched.
PowerPoint automation with native actions
Every Monday, the weekly operations review builds itself - the title dated, one slide per warehouse copied from a model slide and filled from the week's workbook, a row with a missing figure set aside, the deck read back before it is saved as PowerPoint and PDF.
Share, export, and import desktop flows
Hand a flow to a colleague so that it works on their PC - its settings in a file beside it, no secret inside, its actions copied as text and pasted into their own flow - and know what sharing, templates and credentials add when your organization has them.
Attended vs unattended automation
Know which of your flows can run while nobody watches and what that takes - a machine, a signed-out session, a licence, a connection - and make one ready for it: no message that waits for a click, a log, a summary someone can check later.
Schedule desktop flows and understand triggers
Can this flow run every Monday at 7 a.m. by itself? The three ways to start a desktop flow - by hand, by a shortcut or run URL, by a scheduled cloud flow - what each one needs, and what to check after a run nobody watched.
Power Automate Desktop examples: an end-to-end project
The registration file of a training session, end to end - the forms read, a register, one PDF with every signed form, a summary from a Word template and a message to the trainer ready to review - built from the blocks of the earlier chapters.
Build a project for your own work
Turn a task of your own into a flow you can trust and hand over: choose the task, write what "done" means, start from the book's starter flow, test it on prepared cases, and leave a handover sheet.