Adding loop to web & desktop recorder

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Posted on by spsn

Hi there,

I'm trying to automate web report extraction.

I already created the flow by using combination of web and desktop recorder. For some reason I cannot just use web or UI automation, but it works with recorder.

Now, I have to duplicate at least 10 of these because i need to extract the same report 10 times for different categories.

I tried to just duplicate the recorded flow and change the category text field, but it doesn't work and stuck at the launching on the 2nd Microsoft Edge.

I plan to create a loop, but I'm not sure where to start because the text field to be entered doesn't seem to enable me to pick up a value from an excel table:

Is there a way to actually make this work multiple times in 1 flow? Creating separate flow in different file for each category will defeat the purpose of automation.

Thanks in advance.

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Power Automate Desktop

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Riyaz_riz11 4,214 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

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Hi @spsn ,

you have to create a loop,
in that u need to pass the extractionvalue variable,
in loop u will get the currentitem so u need to pass that variable inside populate text

Regards,
Ahammad riyaz

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spsn 33 on at

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Hi Ahammad,

My question is, can you populate the text in that web recorder feature? normally, if it's just a UI Element, i can see it can be input, but to edd it in that web recorder input, is there additional step that I need to add first?
Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Based on your description, you have to capture your categories list in Excel and loop through it using variable. It'll look like something as this:

1. 'Launch Excel': open your Excel file with categories list
2. 'Read from Excel worksheet', retrieve 'Values from a Range of Cells' and capture the range with categories. This will give you %ExcelData% as variable
3. 'For each' CurrentItem in ExcelData (Value to iterate = %ExcelData%)
4. Your code here. In the 'Populate text field on web page' step of your figure, use Text = %CurrentItem% instead
5. End (of For Each loop)
spsn 33 on at

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Hi yasunm02,

Thanks for this. I tried but I have the below error when i tried to replace the text with current item.
Have you encountered this type of error before?
MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Check the advanced settings. I wonder if the recorder turned on sensitive/encrypted text for the “Fill a text field in a web page” command. Turning that off should get rid of that error.
spsn 33 on at

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The advance setting for the Fill text field in a web page command is as follow. Are you referring to this?
I tried the encrypt with AES command, but it require a password (I have no idea what password is that).
Is there any other advanced setting that I need to check?
spsn 33 on at

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I solved this issue by using 128 bit AEC password generator (any keyword will do) and set up the below parameter:
and add the decryption command by using the same parameter.
MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Sorry, I didn't have my computer in front of me to test. This is the setting I was referring to; obviously, it wasn't your issue since you were set to "text, variable, or expression."

I'm glad you got it to work. Very odd that it's telling you it must be encrypted.
Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @spsn
Sorry for the late.
I don't know why this message occurs. You already solved that, but I usually use a 'Trim Text' in CurrentItem when it happens.
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spsn 33 on at

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No worries. The easy way is to make sure that the read as text is enabled when read the excel file. That works fine for me too.