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UI Flows D365 Saturday Amsterdam
- 2. UI Flows in Action Ben den Blanken
- 3. Who am I? Microsoft technology expert Principal Developer @ CRM Partners Blogger Ben den Blanken
- 4. UI Flows in action! Robotic process automation for Power Automate
- 5. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Power Automate is an intelligent digital process automation (DPA) service
- 6. Bridging Automation Across API and non-API based apps Non-API apps Power Automate bridges automation across systems Modern Systems
- 7. Introducing RPA with Power Automate: Automate Apps with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Capabilities Record the Task Automate the Task Execute the Task
- 8. When and why should you use UI Flows? The target app has no API The scenario requires to use the user interface UI Flows (or RPA) for automation is fragile Changes to the interface can break your flow Consider creating API’s / Upgrade your apps
- 9. Power Automate With Attended and Unattended RPA Automation whether you’re logged in or not Human initiated Logged in Runs automatically Can log into system or machine High volume back-end processes Attended Unattended Interactive acceleration
- 10. Power Automate for desktop apps or web apps
- 11. Getting started: Install UI flows on your device Desktop App Browser extension Selenium IDE (optional) On-premises data gateway (optional)
- 13. What did we see? Time registrationOutlook Excel Map appointments to excel table for time registration data Retrieve appointments made by planning Run a UI Flow to enter time registration
- 14. Demo Scenario 2 Legacy desktop application Create contact record
- 15. What did we see? Common Data Service Power Automate Flow & Model-app UI Flow Create contact in legacy app and retrieve the unique identifier On demand flow Update the CDS record with legacy unique identifier
- 16. Roadmap UI Flows (Wave 1) Solution support (jun 2020) Advanced error handling (september 2020) Advanced editor capabilities like scopes, conditions, loops (september 2020) Secret management (september 2020)
- 17. General Available April 2nd! Attended per user +$25 on top of base Power Automate per user plan. With AI Builder credits* Unattended per bot $150* *All pricing information provided is intended solely to be a non- binding estimate as of the date this guidance is provided. It does not constitute an offer by Microsoft. The actual pricing will be reflected on the EA Price List, when this offering becomes available.
- 18. Wrap-up UI Flows Integrates nicely with Power Automate. RPA is fragile. Some bugs / limitations. Bugs get resolved quickly
- 19. Questions? …
Editor's Notes
- Hi welcome! Let’s start with introducing myself, My name is Ben den Blanken, I’m a father of a daughter and twin boys who just turned 1. I’m a microsoft technology expert focusing on the Power Platform. Currently employed at CRM Partners as principal developer. CRM Partners is part of FellowMind with sister organisations in Germany, Finland and Sweden. FellowMind sees technology as the enabler of better human connections
- Allright first a few questions for you. Who has heard of UI Flows? Show of hands? And who knows what RPA or robotic process automation is? Who of you already has worked with UI Flows? I will tell you what RPA and UI Flow is and show you how with examples.
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- Why would you use UI Flows? First and foremost when the target application you want to interact with has no API or connector. Primarely these are old applications, but you could also use a UI Flow when you haven’t been granted API rights but can connect to the app yourself. I’m not promoting rogue IT here, just thinking outside the box ;-) Another option is when you want to specifically want to use the user interface instead of a connector. For example when you want to automate a regression test. Of course there are other tools more suitable for this, but they are also a lot more technical. There is a negative side though. UI Flows or better RPAs are fragile. Changes to the user interface can break your automasion. Furthermore you will encounter legacy apps or websites with unexpected behaviour. I will show you an example of this in a minute. You would have to work around those. So do consider creating API’s for those apps, or even upgrade your legacy apps to more modern applications. Now this is not my advice, but that of the product team themselfs. Using UI Flows is so to say a last resort.
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- To get started with UI Flows you would need to install a couple of applications. The desktop app for recording desktop UI Flows A browser extension for connecting the Power Automate environment to your desktop recording The Selenium IDE for chrome or the new chromium based edge. This is optional but you would need it for recording web applications. On-premises data gateway. Also optional but needed for automating attended UI Flows. Now this sounds like a lot of technical steps before you can use it, but quite frankly when you start creating a UI Flow the guidance of what you need to install and why is very good. I had installed all of these without problems or needing to look at documentation.
- Demo time! So the scenario first, as a consultant I am scheduled to work for different clients during the week. This is entered in my Outlook agenda. After I’ve worked I have to enter the hours worked into a web application so finance can send the invoice. It would be very helpful if I got some assitance in entering, sadly there is no API available. Thank god for UI Flows ;-)
- To recap: We have used the DPA side of Power Automate as much as possible and only used UI Flows where needed.
- Scenario 2. I wanted to show you the interaction with a legacy desktop app, but sadly I do not have one available inside our organization. Luckily I’m a developer so I’ve created one myself ;-) In this application we can create a contact and a unique number is generated. I will record a few steps, but the playback I will show you of a prepared UI Flow.
- What did we see? Desktop application where you can see the interaction between legacy apps and a modern app. With a bit of imagination you can see this for a real world scenario.
- UI Flows integrates very nicely with Power Automate. I loved how the variables interacted with Power Automate. The desktop recording has a similiar feel to Power Automate. The installation proces works fluently. RPA is fragile. I’ve showed you an example of what you can encounter with the web application. There are some bugs at the moment, especially regarding localization settings. Remembering to change the keyboard can be quite frustrating.
- We sturen de antwoorden op de vragen na bij de slides, Mocht u verder willen praten over het onderwerp, behoefte hebben aan wat hulp bij het analyseren van uw huidige situatie maar ook het in kaart brengen van het potentieel van deze oplossing dan maken we graag een afspraak.