Run Desktop flows Attended and Unattended mode

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Posted on by CU05120143-0

I’ve been trying to figure out how to run my desktop flows in both attended and unattended modes. I created a machine in Power Automate Machine Runtime, and I’m triggering scheduled flows from a cloud flow using Run a flow built with Power Automate for desktop.

The flow runs as expected, but the issue is that it seems I can use the desktop flow in either unattended or attended mode, but not both. Is there a way to configure it so the same flow can run in both modes? If so, could someone explain how to set it up?

Thank you!

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Power Automate Desktop

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eetuRobo 4,484 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Can you explain your goal? What is it that you want to accomplish with running the flow both attended and unatteded? Do you mean that you want it to sometimes start the flow unattended and other times start it in attended mode?

I haven't tried it but I assume you can use "Enter custom value" to the Run Mode and have it be variable that has either Unattended or Attended value in it depending on some logic in the cloud flow.

Why do you want to switch it and not have it be unattended at all times? Usually if you have Unattended license then you would test and develop with Attended mode and then have it run in production in Unattended mode.

Or if you mean running the attended and unattended at the same time then I think you have misunderstood what those modes are.

Attended mode means that there is user session active on the machine while the RPA will run the automation. So you need to be logged in to the machine when the Power Automate Desktop flow starts.

Unattended mode means that the RPA will do the flow without anyone else being singed in on the machine. So you cannot be logged in to the machine when the Power Automate Desktop flow starts

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CU05120143-0 2 on at

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Hi @eetuRobo, my goal is to be able to run desktop flows in both attended and unattended modes. The reason for this is that our on-prem server is often used during the day, and if a flow is scheduled to run while someone is logged in, it can cause the flow to fail. Since I have multiple flows that need to run during business hours, it’s important that they can execute regardless of whether a user is logged in or not.

What i ended up doing is just on the same flow, if initial action(Unattended mode) fails, to run same action, but now on Attended mode.

I haven't had a chance to test it but i guess it will work, i just wanted to look for other alternatives.

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eetuRobo 4,484 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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But would it not cause issues for the flow (or the user that is logged in to the machine) if it runs attended while someone is logged in and does some work on it? Since the person logged in might interfere with the flow run and there for the flow might fail.

I haven't really had automations that run on a server that is also used by other users so might be that I am missing something.

Great if you found a solution that might work. The flow might still fail if user logs in while the flow is running or someone logs out just after the unattended run fails. But those cases could be rare in your case so it might work just fine.

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@rtdlov 16 on at

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Hi,

You can try to run the same desktop flow action in parallel from the same cloud flow or from another cloud flow.

I never tried it but it seems one of them will fail for sure, thus will be hard to maintain, troubleshoot or make an exception and in general it is not a good solution.

Regards,

Artjoms

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