Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

Hi everyone,

I have a Power Automate Desktop flow that runs correctly when executed locally.

Now I want to add a simple UI (like a button or form) so users can trigger this PAD flow without opening Power Automate Desktop.

What is the recommended way to do this?

Should I use Power Apps as the front end?

Does it always need a cloud flow in between to run the PAD flow?

Are there any other supported options to give a UI to a PAD flow?

I’m looking for the simplest and current best practice approach.

Thanks in advance!

Categories:

Connector development

Power Automate Desktop

General topics

Using flows

It depends on the case.

Can you describe what the flow does so we can give suggestions that would best meet the requirements for the users.
Does the PAD flow run attended or unattended?

Is the flow supposed to run on the persons own machine or in a dedicated machine for the automation (virtual machine for example)?

What would be the preferred/most natural way for the users (do they use sharepoint frequently)?

Power Apps is a good option for this. If you already have Power App that does things related to the process that PAD flow will automate then it could be smart to make the flow start from there. So add a button or logic that starts the PAD flow is user does certain things in that app.

You could add a button to excel or sharepoint that starts the flow with "For a selected item" or "When http request is received". Then the press of the button would start cloud flow that would then start the PAD flow.

Best practice is to have automation account, virtual machine only for the automations and Power Automate Process license (unattended for unattended mode which costs $150/month) so it can work in the background without any human interference.

If the flow is supposed to run on the persons own local machine then simplest way would be just to create desktop shortcut. This doesn't require cloud flow or anything else.