Exercise - Use the recorder to automate desktop applications

  • 10 minutes

Similarly to web-related flows, you can use the recorder to automate local desktop applications and Windows.

In this exercise, you'll automate a desktop-related task to give you a taste of the recorder's functionality in desktop automation.

  1. Launch Power Automate for desktop and create a new desktop flow.

  2. Deploy the Run application action and input excel.exe as the Application path:, Select Maximized as the Window style, and select Wait for application to load as the After application launch: option, as presented below:

    Screenshot of the Run application action.

    Tip

    You can search for actions by using the search input at the top of the Actions panel on the top left of the flow designer.

  3. Launch Excel, either manually or by running the flow. Once Excel is open continue to the next step.

  4. Select the Recorder button in the flow designer to launch the recorder. Then select Record and then Next, as we did in the last unit. Finally, to begin recording, select Record.

  5. Select Blank workbook in the open Excel window to create a new empty workbook.

  6. Select the entire first row, and then assign it a background standard color of Red.

  7. In this step, the recorder window should resemble the following image, but it doesn't need to be an exact match. Optionally, you can add comments to describe the purpose of your steps, as we've done at the end of the flow.

    Screenshot of the recorded steps.

  8. Lastly, press Done to generate the corresponding actions in the flow designer.

    Screenshot of the generated actions in the workspace.

  9. Once you have your flow built, you can test it. First close the Excel worksheet, then go to your Power Automate Desktop editor and select the Run button. Your flow should open Excel, open a blank worksheet, select the first row, then select the more options for background color and then select the color you trained it to select.

This was just a taste to see what recorder can do with running desktop actions. You can train it to do much, much more, just by recording your inputs.

Whether you're using desktop actions or web actions, it makes no difference to Recorder. All your recorded actions end up in the flow, saving you the time you would spend manually inputting each action into the flow.