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Posted on by Atlantis1

Hello All.

I have a task in my daily work that i am thinking if power automate desktop can help with automation. I have no idea what kind of action that is suitable for this task. That´s why my heading is not so straight forward. Plz take a look at this.

These 2 subfolder contain A4-18 and C2-14 which indicate the material i need. We can assume that we only need to work with 1 case only. Let´s pick A4-18 to work with. I´ve extracted A4-18 data and store it in a variable. The next step is to pick A4-18 from a list in another application. In this list there are totaltly 53 different materials. The first 4 digits is material type and the last 4 is the batch number.

The way i pick the material in that list is to scroll the whole list and find the matching material. I then either dubble click on that material or 1 click on that material and then click 'OPEN' button. The application will load the material that i have clicked. unfortunately I can not use Ctrl+F function to find the matching. It would be great if there is a way to automation.

The second question is if i already have the application up and running, do i have to start the 'Run application' with that dedicated application and put it in the start of the flow before i can proceed to the material choosing automation?. I rather not to because it seems like everytimes i start 'run application' it start the app without any pre-defined setting. I don´t think it is because of PAD. It´s just the way my app works.

Thanksfull for any suggestions.

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Power Automate Desktop

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Very quick version. If you can’t get PAD to open the program the way you want. Have it open before the flow starts and use “focus window” later on to get to this screen. If you can get PAD to open it, then set it up like this:

(inside loop)
if loopindex is = 1
open program
endif

As for finding the text. If you can’t get Mouse click to text (OCR) to work, and there are only 53, I would catalog each image file to make this a simple if.

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VJR 7,635 on at

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Hi @Atlantis1

In the second screenshot you have shared, is "A2-18" text based or are they images?
Is this a web based or a desktop application?
Have you tried adding an UI element for the above material number and if yes what do you come up with?

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Atlantis1 74 on at

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Hi @MichaelAnnis
I tested to open upp an application (at home) first and start flow with ''focus window. It seems to work but i have to test 'focus window' action with the application at work to see the result. But right now it seems to work. Here is my 'focus window'
For the loopindex thing, this is what i come up with. No idea how to recreate your idea. Plz clarify.
the idea of making a catalog for each image file. Can you touch on it a little bit more how to create a catalog. Thanks.

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Atlantis1 74 on at

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Hi @VJR
Regarding second screenshot 'A2-18' is Text based or digit i believe. Because it is us who create a new material into the material list.
The application that i work with is a desktop application.
Can you clarify a little bit more about the third question?.

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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No, apologies. Assuming your logic for the entire flow is:

Get Folders
Loop 0 to Folders.Count increment 1
’Do something for each folder
End (Loop)

Then the open application would fall under:
If %LoopIndex% = 0
‘Open Application
End If

that way, during the “do something” portion, it only runs “open application” the first time.

as for cataloging the images:
you could save each image to its own file and then get the image file based on file name. You wouldn’t need the application.

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VJR 7,635 on at

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Regarding second screenshot 'A2-18' is Text based or digit i believe. Because it is us who create a new material into the material list.

- If it is a text based then you can add a UI element for that text.
This video shows adding Ui element for controls like text boxes etc. You need to do the same for the label that says A2-18.
- Then you need to pass to your selector a variable that will hold A2-18 as its value
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/build-custom-selectors

- Look for the attribute column that has the value A2-18 and change the Operator dropdown to Contains.
Meaning - PAD will look for those labels that will contains A2-18... in its text.
- On this Ui element use the click action in your PAD flow.
If PAD finds this element then it will click it.
And will not if it doesn't. Here you can add an error handler in case if it is not found you can continue.

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Atlantis1 74 on at

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Hi @MichaelAnnis
Wonder why 'Focus window' action it seems like it is a hit and miss thing. Sometimes it bring the application to the foreground sometime not. Yes, i started the desktop application before i run my 'focus window'.

saving each image to its own file: You mean i do it outside of PAD or inside of PAD.

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Atlantis1 74 on at

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Hi @VJR
Thanks for your inputs. I need more time to walk through all of the parts that you mentioned. I will definitely get back with more questions for support.
This is what i´ve done and get some error. Plz take a look. I start with Add a UI element to A2-18
This is how it looks inside Selector builder
When i edited selector to (see pic below) A2-18. I got error running flow.
I did miss 1 step because i don´t understand how to do it when you wrote. Then you need to pass to your selector a variable that will hold A2-18 as its value. Plz give me more details.

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Atlantis1 74 on at

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Hi @VJR
Wonder if you have time to take a look at my flow´s problem. Thanks .

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