Power Automate Desktop Flow Examples [5 Practical Examples]

In the last tutorial, I explained how to install Power Automate Desktop. We will learn a bit more in this tutorial. In this tutorial, I will explain five practical examples of Power Automate desktop flow.

Power Automate Desktop Flow Examples

Now, you can follow these desktop flow examples to get started with the Power Automate desktop.

You can create desktop flows from both the Power Automate and the Power Automate desktop app.

Example 1: Save Excel File Data to Text File in Power Automate Desktop

Below, I have an Excel file named ‘Customer Contacts’ with details like First Name, Last Name, Department, and Mobile Number in one of the folders of my local system.

I wanted to save the Excel file data into a text file.

Follow the steps below to create the flow using Power Automate desktop.

1. On the Power Automate desktop app, create a flow.
2. On the Flow designer workspace window, drag and drop “Launch Excel” from the Action pane. Configure the parameters below:
   • Launch Excel: To select an existing file, choose and open the following document from the drop-down.
   • Document path: Choose your Excel file from the select file icon or paste your file path.
   • Make instance visible: Select the toggle button.
3. Then click on the Save button.

4. To read the Excel data, add one more action, i.e., “Read from Excel worksheet”. Provide the parameters like:
   • Excel instance: It will be taken automatically.
   • Retrieve: Select the desired option from the drop-down.
5. Click on the Save button.

6. Search for the “Write text to file” action in the Actions pane, and drag and drop it. Set the properties:
   • File Path: Click on the “Select File” icon. It will direct you to your local documents. Provide a file name with a .txt extension and click the “Open” button.

• Then, the File path will be added. You can look at the image below.

Check out Extract Tables from a PDF using Power Automate Desktop

Example 2: Concatenate Two Variables from User Inputs

This example will show you how to concatenate two user input variables in a Power Automate desktop flow.

By following Example 1, you learned how to create a flow in Power Automate Desktop and add actions to it. Here, I will start directly from actions.

1. On the left navigation, expand the variable section, and then drag and drop the “Set variable” action. Then provide the below information. After that, click on the Save button.
   • I have renamed the variable produced to String1.
   • Value: Here, I have taken the variable value as the text “Power“.

2. Similarly, add another “Set variable” and provide the value like “Automate”. You can change the variable name if you wish. Tap the Save button.

3. Now, expand the Message box section, and drag and drop the “Display message” action to concatenate both variables. Then provide the below information.
   • Message box title: Provide the title for the message box.
   • Message to display: Provide the below code.

%String1 + String2%

4. Now, save the flow and click on the “Run” button to run the flow. You can see the Message box will pop up and display the combined strings.

Check out Connect Power Automate Desktop to Cloud using Direct connectivity

Example 3: Get Current Time in Power Automate Desktop Flow

In this example, you can learn how to get the current time in Power Automate desktop.

Create a Power Automate desktop flow and follow the steps below.

1. On the left navigation, Actions will be there, where you can add to the desktop flow. Search for and add the ‘Get current date and time’ action. Provide parameters below:
   • Retrieve: Select the current date and time
   • Time Zone: Select the desired time zone.

Then, click on the Save button.

Since the datetime variable isn't in a text format, the flow converts it to text and selects only the time from it. 

2. Then, add the “Convert datetime to text” action. Specify the parameters below and click on the Save button.
   • Format to use: Select a format from the drop-down.
   • Standard format: Choose format option.

3. To display the time, add a “Display message” action. Configure the parameters below and click on the Save button.
   • Message box title: Provide the Title for the message box.
   • Message to display: Enter your display message.
   • Message box icon: Select the Information option from the drop-down.

4. When the flow runs successfully, it will display a message box with the current time. You can have a look at the reference image.

Check out Power Automate startsWith() Function

Example 4: Subtract Two Integer Variables in Desktop Flow

In this, you will get to know how to subtract two integer values in Power Automate desktop flow.

Create a Power Automate flow and start adding actions to it.

1. Expand the variable section and then drag and drop the “Set variable” action. Then provide the below information:
   • I have changed the variable name to Num1.
   • Value: Provide the value as 10.

2. Add another Set variable action and provide the variable name and value to it.

3. Expand the Message box section to do a subtraction operation between 2 numbers. Then, drag and drop the Display message action to the flow. Then provide the below information.
   • Message box title: Provide the title of the message box.
   • Message to display: %Num2-Num1%.

Then change the variable name to ‘Subtraction’.

5. Now, run the flow by clicking on the Run button. A message box will appear with the result.

Example 5: Format Date in Power Automate Desktop

I wanted to format the current date in a specific format, “dd-MM-yyyy”, in Power Automate desktop flow.

Create a flow and add the following actions to it.

1. On the Actions pane, expand the Date Time section, then drag the “Get current date and time” action. Provide the below information.
   • Retrieve: Select the Current date only option.
   • Time Zone: Please provide the time zone according to your requirements.

Then, click on the Save button to save the action to the workspace.

2. Then, drag and drop the ‘Convert DateTime to text’ action to the flow area. Then provide the below information.
   • DateTime to convert: Select ‘currentDateTime’ variable by clicking on {x} variable icon.
   • Format to use: Select the Standard.
   • Standard format: Select a short date format.

3. After that, save and run the flow. Now, you can see that the output is formatted in dd-mm-yyyy format.

I hope this article is helpful to you. This tutorial has covered examples based on Power Automate desktop flows.

You may also read the following tutorials:

• Add Multiple Users To SharePoint Group Using Power Automate
• How to Create SharePoint List Items Using Power Automate?
• How to Delete SharePoint Folders Using Power Automate?

Bijay Kumar

After working for more than 18 years in Microsoft technologies like SharePoint, Microsoft 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 (12 times). I have also worked in companies like HP, TCS, KPIT, etc.