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Anyone using Power Automate for Test Automation?

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Posted on by LogicSmith

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Is anyone here using Power Automate to create Automated Tests? I have been a test automation developer for >20 years, using a variety of tools. Judging from the Actions possible here, it looks like Power Automate could be a more capable automation tool than most on the market today. About the only thing I see it lacking is a way to write test run results back to Azure DevOps test cases. That plus a few other needed features like common sub-flows and better debugging. Is Microsoft actively expanding this product?

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RoboHeart 65 on at

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Hi @LogicSmith

to be honest, I never did it with PAD but I used other tools like UiPath, Robocorp, etc.

Theoretically, it should be possible with a combination of PAD and a PA cloud flow if you transfer the results in supported xml format.

E.g. create a pipeline in AZ DevOps --> add a step what is calling a PA cloud flow --> cloud flow triggers PAD --> PAD runs the tests and sends results in the wanted xml format to cloud flow --> cloud flow sends results back to the pipeline --> pipeline moves the xml content into a file in $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory) --> Publish test results in the format you defined

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LogicSmith 225 on at

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Thanks! I'll keep this handy, but it will probably be fall before we attempt to integrate that closely with DevOps. I am accumulating a list of things that should be fixed/added/enhanced, and will eventually post those. In the meantime, I'm certainly having fun learning how to do test automation with this tool.

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LogicSmith 225 on at

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3 weeks later... I have three types of automation - some flows that navigate through our web app, some that run and verify console apps, and one that calls a web API. All are currently desktop flows, and run locally on my laptop. So, as far as proving the concept, got that done. They're expanding me to Premium hopefully this week, so I can explore branching out. So, looking at what tools I need to do test automation:
Run browser, other command and windows applications
Read browser screen/page, get and put data
Read Windows UI screen, get and put data
Access HTTP calls to send data to/from APIs
Read Excel/PDF exports to verify they match the on-screen data
Trace and log results
Report back to Azure on results
I've managed to do everything except that last one, but expect to do that with Premium, and if not, maybe build a custom connector to that database or something. So, so far looks great, using the tool successfully in a way that may not ever have been intended.

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Stanza 21 on at

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hI @LogicSmith ,

Do you have any examples on how to achieve this ?
I'm trying to get my head around just logging into a browser app ie D365 using MFA and it has prove to be quite a challenge so far 😞

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LogicSmith 225 on at

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Basically I created a new desktop flow called Login. It expects a URL, user name, and password, and browser type. It will then fire up one of the 3 browsers to the URL.
At this point it gets tricky. I have to drive the entire login process from the keyboard - apparently stuff on that page is pretty dynamic and changes every refresh. So I stuff the Enter key to start the process, wait some number of seconds, stuff the user name, wait, stuff the password, stuff another Enter key. At that point I return - the calling flow is responsible to verify the page is indeed up and logged in. I had to completely rewrite it for our new version as it gained the ability to let you login with Google or Facebook ID.

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perrilove 26 on at

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@LogicSmith How did you handle Google MFA?

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momlo 1,527 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Hi @LogicSmith
Take a look at creating a dynamic/custom selector to manage dynamic pages - this will get rid of the waits in your flow.

When it comes to using PAD for manual tests - well basically all RPA automation are kind of manual test, they execute what users need to execute, and if you build test case scenario ingestion and then test reporting (or integrating with DevOps) you are all set up.
I did not go the route of DevOps integration but all my flows are created "dynamic" meaning I can reconfigure them/run different scenarios without changing a line of code - just changing the input parameters or configuration file that each of my automation.

I would say one's imagination is the limit here 🙂

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LogicSmith 225 on at

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So far I have not needed to use MFA, which is good because I have no idea how to automate that. Especially if it uses something like an RSA token or Google Authenticator on my phone.

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LogicSmith 225 on at

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Yeah, except for the part where PAD actively works against me. Microsoft has thrown so many roadblocks into using PAD for test automation that we ended up switching to Selenium IDE for our web UI automation. It always seemed the locator tags would fail often. I have better control over that in Selenium IDE, and I can either run my tests from a CMD line, or from Selenium IDE, or even export them to C#. That last bit is what we will use probably to run from Azure DevOps, as our developers are all C# users and can help us solve any remaining problems.

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jagdeepsingh210 4 on at

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One of my customer is looking for OCR for invoicing reading
Can you please help me if the option and feature is available with the Microsoft Power Automate. IF yes, which one? Also please name me the correct license for it.

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