Direct connectivity is the way of connection where a machine connects directly to the cloud. In this Power Automate Desktop tutorial, we will see how to connect Power Automate Desktop with Power Automate Cloud using Direct connectivity.
The On-premises data gateway for Power Automate Desktop is deprecated, which is mostly used to connect the desktop application to the cloud.
Here, Direct Connectivity comes to light and makes our work easier, we don’t need to install the software in our local system to connect the desktop application to the cloud. We simply need to register our machine on the currently selected environment, by signing in with the current version of Power Automate Desktop.
So, in this tutorial, we will cover the topics below:
- Register machine Power Automate Desktop
- Create a desktop flow connection
Register machine Power Automate Desktop
Here, we will see how to register a machine in Power Automate Desktop.
Before registering a machine, make sure you have followed the below requirements:
- Power Automate machine runtime must be installed. This can be installed when you are installing Power Automate for Desktop.
- Power Automate for Desktop has the latest version or the version of Power Automate 2.8.73.21119
- If your desktop is running Windows 10 Home or Windows 11 Home, then you cannot install Power Automate machine runtime.
- To connect Power Automate Desktop to the cloud, you need to have a Power Platform environment with a recent version of the MicrosoftFlowExtensionsCore solution and a secure machine with trusted admins.
If you fulfill the above requirements, you can only register the machine and create direct connectivity between PAC and PAD.
1. Open Power Automate Cloud, click on More from the left navigation -> select ‘Machines‘
2. Now you will navigate to the Machine page, where you can see the Machines that have been registered before, or by clicking on +New, you can register the machine.
3. Next, click on +New -> select Machine option, it will ask you to set up a new machine; from here select ‘Launch it now’.
If you don’t have the latest version, select the ‘Get the latest version option; it will download the latest version of Power Automate Desktop.
4. Now, it will ask you to Open PAD.MachineRegistration.Host?, so click on the button ‘ Open PAD.MachineRegistration.Host’.
5. Now, it will ask you to sign up to power automate machine runtime once you sign up with a Microsoft credential.
6. It will ask you to select the Machine runtime environment if the machine is not registered. PAC will use this environment to trigger the desktop flows.
7. Once the machine is registered successfully, you can see the Machine details like Machine name, description, and Machine environment.
Once we register the machine, we will create a connection for desktop flow actions in Power Automate Cloud.
Create a desktop flow connection in Power Automate
Here we will see how we can create a desktop flow connection in Power Automate Cloud.
1. In Power Automate Cloud, click on More options and select Connections.
2. Now connection page will open in Power Automate, here you can see all the connections defined for the action. We will create a new connection for desktop flows, for this, select ‘ +New connection.
3. In the search area, search for desktop flows, and you can see the connector.
4. Now click on it, and the Desktop flows connector window will pop up and provide the information below.
- Connect: Select the option ‘Connect username or password’.
- Machine or machine group: Select the Machine name.
- Domain and username: To get the domain and username, open the command prompt as administrator. Then write the command ‘whoami’.
- Password: Now provide the password, that you used to log in to the desktop. Not the pin, if you are using PIN to log in to the desktop.
Now, you have successfully created the connection for desktop flows.
This is how we can create a connection for desktop flows in Power Automate.
Conclusion
In this Power Automate Desktop tutorial, we saw how to register a machine and create a connection for desktop flows in Power Automate Desktop. I have explained how to connect Power Automate Desktop to Cloud using Direct connectivity.
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After working for more than 15 years in Microsoft technologies like SharePoint, Office 365, and Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI), I thought will share my SharePoint expertise knowledge with the world. Our audiences are from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc. For my expertise knowledge and SharePoint tutorials, Microsoft has been awarded a Microsoft SharePoint MVP (9 times). I have also worked in companies like HP, TCS, KPIT, etc.