How to Schedule Power Automate Desktop Flows?

Recently, I was working on a project where I needed to schedule Power Automate desktop flows that run on a daily basis.

The issue is…

There is no built-in way to schedule the Power Automate desktop flows. To schedule the desktop flow, you have to connect a Schedule cloud flow in Power Automate to the desktop flows.

So we need a workaround.

In this tutorial, I will cover how to connect desktop flows to the Power Automate cloud and schedule desktop flows from Power Automate.

So let’s dive in!

How to Connect Desktop Flows to Power Automate Cloud

To connect the desktop flows to Power Automate Cloud, you need to download and install the Power Automate desktop, which includes the Power Automate machine runtime that connects the desktop app to the Power Automate Cloud portal.

Here are the steps you needs to follow:

1. When installing the Power Automate desktop app, ensure that you select the “Install the machine-runtime app to connect to the Power Automate cloud portal” option in the Installation details window. Check out the screenshot below for your reference.

2. This installs the Power Automate machine runtime app along with the Power Automate desktop. Then, you can sign in with your Microsoft account to your Power Automate desktop.

Note:

You must register your machine to connect it to a cloud flow.

3. On your local system, search and open “Power Automate Machine runtime”.

4. On the Machine settings window, the environment will be automatically registered. You can also adjust the machine’s working environment using the drop-down menu.

5. Once your connection is fixed, a green notification will appear at the top of the app. Please refer to the screenshot below for your reference.

6. Now, open your Power Automate cloud portal, the registered machine should have to display under machines.
7. On the Power Automate Home page left-hand panel, click on More -> Machines.

8. You can refer to the reference image, where the registered machine is displayed, which is the one we have created now.

To connect a desktop flow to Power Automate, create a flow in the Power Automate desktop app.

Here, I’m creating a flow that will get the temperature of the USA from Google Chrome browser and display it in a message box. I wanted to schedule this flow daily.

Follow the steps to create Power Automate desktop flow:

1. Open your Power Automate desktop app, create a flow, and add the following actions to the workspace.
2. Under the Actions pane, search for the “Launch new Chrome” action, and drag and drop it to the workspace. Configure the parameters.
   • Launch mode: By default, Launch New Instance will be selected.
   • Initial URL: Provide https://www.google.com/
   • Window state: Choose Maximized from drop-down.

I have renamed the Variables produced to “GoogleChromeBrowser”. Then, click on Save.

2. Then, add another action named “Focus text field on web page”. Add UI element to it. This action will focus on the search field in the Chrome browser. Follow the GIF below on how to take the UI element.
   • UI element: Open drop-down, click on Add UI element -> Open Google Chrome -> Focus on Search Text area [Highlighted]-> Press Ctrl+left click as shown in UI element picker window -> Click on Save.

3. Next, add an action, i.e, “Populate text field on web page ” to the workspace designer. This action will add text that we input into the search bar of Google Chrome.
   • UI element: Follow the GIF below.
   • Text: Enter the value as “USA Temperature Today”

After adding UI elements and Text, click on Save.

4. After that, expand Browser automation-> Web Form Filling-> and then drag and drop the ‘Press button on Web page‘ action under the Action pane. This action will search the text, from the previous action.
   • UI element: Follow the GIF below.

5. Then, search for “Get details of element on web page” in the search box of the Actions pane. Drag and drop the action to the flow workspace. You need to add a UI element to retrieve the temperature details that will be displayed on the web page. Click on the Save button.
   • Follow the GIF to add a UI element.

6. Now that we have the details, let’s close the Chrome browser by adding the “Close web browser” action. The Web browser instance will be taken by default. Click on Save.

7. To display the details retrieved from the webpage, add a “Display message” action. Provide the parameters as below:
   • Message box title: Enter the title for the box.
   • Message to display: Click on {x} -> add variable from Get details of element on web page action [AttributeValue].
   • Message box icon: Select the icon as Information.

8. When you save and run the flow. It will display the message box with the Temperature of the USA. You can look at the image below.

Now, we have the desktop flow ready. Let’s schedule this flow to run in the Power Automate cloud.

Check out Variables in Power Automate Desktop

Schedule Desktop Flows from Power Automate Cloud

To schedule desktop flows from Power Automate Cloud, you need to log in to Power Automate Cloud using the same credentials as Power Automate Desktop.

Here are the steps to follow:

1. On the Power Automate Home, create a Scheduled cloud flow that runs daily.

2. Next to that, add a “Run a flow built with Power Automate for desktop” action. If you are adding it for the first time to the flow, it will ask you to create a new connection. Provide details below:
   • Connection name: Enter the connection name [That you have created recently].
   • Connect: Select Connect with sign in – Attended option.
   • Machine or machine group: Select the machine from the drop-down.

3. Then, provide parameters within the “Run a flow built with Power Automate for desktop” action.
   • Desktop flow: Select the desktop flow from the drop-down options.
   • Run mode: Choose Attended (runs when you’re signed in).

4. Now, save and manually test the flow. It will display the output in the display box, as you can see in the image below.

5. As we have scheduled the desktop flow, it will run daily at a specific time and display the output on the desktop.

I hope you have now learn how to schedule a Power Automate desktop flow that I have explained here step by step. I hope you found this tutorial helpful. If you have any questions or suggestions, kindly leave them in the comments below.

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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.