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Microsoft Power Automate desktop is not picking up the UI Elements within the Pane

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Posted on by Ghafoor

Hello Community!

I am trying to set up an automation in desktop flow. I want to populate the line items inside the pane. However, my automate application is not identifying the UI elements within the "Pane". I want automate to register the UI elements throughout such as "Item Description" and "User Tag Number".

Any suggestions on how to solve this, would be much appreciated.

Many thanks!!

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Power Automate Desktop

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trice602 16,162 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi @Ghafoor ,

Short answer is don't use the screen recorder (if you tried that). Recapture the UI elements, inspect and test. Repair if needed.

Having said that, you will need to provide more information, such as your desktop flow, the error and/or the UI element details for a more detailed response.

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Ghafoor 20 on at

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Hi @trice602

Thank you for your response.

Just to clarify, I did not use screen recorder.

I used the ‘Add UI element’ tool. The UI element that shows up is the ‘Pane’ and not the individual cells inside the pane. How do I get the elements inside the pane to show up?

I want to set up a ‘Populate the text within the field’ for each line item/ UI element within the field.

Many thanks

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trice602 16,162 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi @Ghafoor ,

Understood. There's not a quick fix here but for starters make sure you are on the latest version of PAD and you have updated your browser extensions recently.

As an absolute last resort, if you can get PAD to pick up the field "item description", select it as the anchor and then send keys {Tab}{Tab} to get to your desired field. That said, there's a ton of people that may freak out by recommending SEND KEYS but it is an option and solution offered by Microsoft. I will share I try to never use SEND KEYS but in the rare cases where I can't select a field but can select a nearby anchor field, again, Microsoft does offer this as a work around, and it does work and is pretty reliable.

I do have a flow that has been running 24/7 in production that uses the anchor field before my field and I {Tab} to get to my field.

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Deenuji_Loganathan_ 6,250 Moderator on at

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@Ghafoor

This is typical approach for UI Automation.

If your UI element is not showing during element inspection or recording then understand the technology stack of your target application. If its build on Java based stack then try to install required java extensions.

Please refer the below link for more details - Automate Java applications - Power Automate | Microsoft Learn

If installing Java does not resolve the issue, you can opt for image recording. This option is available in the recorder settings. Click on the three dots at the top right to access the settings and enable image recording for your automation.

As a last resort, you may use the 'send keys' method, although it is less preferable.

Thanks,
Deenuji Loganathan 👩‍💻
Automation Evangelist 🤖
Follow me on LinkedIn 👥

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Ghafoor 20 on at

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Hi @Deenuji

Thank you for response.

I didn't follow the Java suggestion, I'm unable to identiy if this application is java based stack. However, I used the image recording and I can get text in the line items now. Hopefully when I set up my iterations it works.

Thank you so much!!

Ghafoor

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Deenuji_Loganathan_ 6,250 Moderator on at

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@Ghafoor

Very glad to hear that. If I've helped solve your query, kindly mark my response as the solution ✔ and give it a thumbs up!👍 Your feedback supports future seekers 🚀

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