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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Automate / Logging Flow Error and...
Power Automate
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Logging Flow Error and Flow Progress in Desktop Flow

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Posted on by 6
i, I have only two months of experience with Power Automate Desktop. We have several large bots that need to be migrated from Automation Anywhere to Power Automate Desktop. We would like to know the best way to log flow progress and flow errors within a desktop flow. Should we create separate desktop flows for reusable logging, or should we build two logging subflows (progress and error) inside the main flow?  Please note we are not using Cloud flow in this case, all the bots have to run on desktop.  Thanks.
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  • Suggested answer
    Michael E. Gernaey Profile Picture
    53,963 Moderator on at
     
    You have touched on the general Patterns (sub flows and separate flows) all for logging, error handling and capture or processing of the data into formats you want, so you are on the right track.
     
    The only feedback I would give is when you look at logging etc., there is more to it than simply error handling, meaning when you look a business processes there is visibility, tracking and monitoring and those are all different, and can be impacted by volume and velocity, as well as package size, cross-process visibility or tracking.
     
    Think end to end, making sure things cannot be injected more than 1 time or duplicate data patterns etc.
     
    But purely from a logging perspective, you have the proper patterns named. I would however look holistically at your flows, how you want to build them (parent/child patterns) and that will help you, especially with very large flows capturing errors or notifications or just being able to turn on debug mode for a short while etc.
     
    You are on the right track and happy to give more specifics when you have questions as you build them out.
     
    Cheers

    If these suggestions help resolve your issue, Please consider Marking the answer as such and also maybe a like.

    Thank you!
    Sincerely, Michael Gernaey
     
     
  • CU09122224-0 Profile Picture
    6 on at
    Thanks for your previous feedback @Michael E. Gernaey 

    I’m using “Run Desktop Flow” to handle my flow logging. For error logging, I plan to have a subflow that uses “Get Last Error” and then calls “Run Desktop Flow” to perform the actual error logging. I’ve been advised to keep both types of logging in two separate flows—I hope this is correct.

     

    We’re migrating this flow from Automation Anywhere, and the original automation contains nearly 600 lines. It’s quite complex, at least from what I can tell.

     

    My latest issue is figuring out how to simulate keystrokes in Power Automate Desktop the way Automation Anywhere does. I tried the UI element actions, but they didn’t work because the system is an old accounting application that relies heavily on keystrokes—like the Down Arrow and Up Arrow—to navigate to the button before clicking it.

  • Verified answer
    eetuRobo Profile Picture
    4,535 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at
    Usually you don't really need custom logging for Power Automate Desktop since logging is done automatically. When you run the flow it logs all the steps and sends it to Power Automate portal where you can see all the steps it took and if the flow failed it will also save screenshot when the error happened. 

    In make.powerautomate.com there is "Desktop flow runs" page. There you can see all the PAD flow runs and the steps those flow runs made with time stamps.


    So as long as you trigger the flow from cloud or start it from the Power Automate Desktop main console where you see your flows listed. (not from the flow editor, since that would be in debug mode and it would not save logs from the debug runs). After the flow is done it sends the logs to Power Automate portal and you can view the logs there. If you have Action logs v2 enabled you can see the logs while the flow is running (near real time) but I have had some bugs with it like multiple actions being recorded at the same time which makes the reading of the logs very difficult since the order is messed up. So I recommend sticking with aciton logs v1 (default) for now.

    Regarding the next question about send keys it should be pretty straight forward. You can get the arrow keys in the Send keys -actions "Insert special keys" -drop down


    If you need something like holding Ctrl and pressing A then its like so:


    Also with legacy apps make sure you try capturing UI elements with MSAA -capturing mode. Sometimes that can capture older applications ui elements better than the default modern UIA mode.

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