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How to Run Flow In Background (Power Automate Desktop)

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Posted on by BA-Freedom

Using Power Automate Desktop, I built a new flow, and used "record" to help automate clicking buttons on the web browser.

I am unable to do other work while the flow runs, or the flow will have an error.

Is there a way to run the automation and do other work at the same time?

Thank you.

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Rhiassuring 8,690 Moderator on at

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Hi there,

No - the RPA works as if it is an employee. It takes control of the computer it's running on. With RPA, usually you'll want to create a VM and have the bot own that instance and run over there, so you don't collide with it.

R

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BA-Freedom 23 on at

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Thank you, how much would it cost to create a VM? How can it be done? And which license do I need for PA ($15/mo or $40/mo)?

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Rhiassuring 8,690 Moderator on at

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For VM costs...

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-ca/pricing/details/virtual-machines/windows/#pricing

How can it be done...

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/quick-create-portal

License needed for PAD... it depends! Do you need this flow to only run when you click a "go!" button, or, do you need it to be triggered and/or run on a schedule? The prior is cheaper than the latter.

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BA-Freedom 23 on at

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Thank you

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sandbeach123 2 on at

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Hi thanks for the answers!
One more question regarding this.
Is it possible to run Power Automator Flows in a VM inside my own computer with say VMware or some Windows tool?
I ask that because my computer has a lot of free resources (RAM, CPU) so it won't be a problem for me to run more Windows 11 instances in it.
Thanks,

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Rhiassuring 8,690 Moderator on at

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Um ... I'm not sure if my knowledge of these things is high enough, because the sentence "a VM inside my own computer" doesn't make sense to me, but who knows, maybe there is a way to split a computer and have activity happening in a VM you connect to and .... I don't know. I'm paging someone way smarter than me. @VJR

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VJR 7,635 on at

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Hi @sandbeach123 ,

I didn't go through the entire thread but I hope you are referring to a scenario where you have your own local computer. Then through Citrix or Vmware you connect to another VDI/VM.

And you want to have Power Automate Desktop installed on the VM and run bots there while you work on your local computer? If so, the bots run properly till the time the VM is locked out. Meaning, as soon as the VM is locked out (eg; 10 mins as per settings) then the bot finds it difficult to detect UI elements and so on.

Someone who experienced this notified this observation to me.

But if you have a dedicated machine for running bots then you can run them on these VMs via unattended automation from the Cloud Flows where you configure these VMs by giving their credentials, machine name etc and then the login/logout to those VMs automatically happen without any issues.

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