Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

1. Difference between Cloud vs Desktop:

Power Automate Desktop (PAD) is utilized for tasks performed on a local computer. It automates repetitive actions such as form completion, data copying and pasting, or program opening and closing. For instance, it's ideal for handling interactions with legacy systems lacking APIs, like old-school ERP systems. To use PAD, an executable needs to be installed on the local machine.

PAD is also suitable for automating workflows occurring solely on the local PC, such as updating

on-premises Excel spreadsheets,
managing HR or customer data,
executing CMD commands,
extracting clipboard text,
interacting with email messages,
running PowerShell scripts, and more.

Power Automate Cloud, accessed via the web, allows the creation of cloud flows. This platform offers access to over 1000 cloud connectors and templates, enabling automation across various modern systems with web APIs.

Examples of tasks achievable with Power Automate Cloud include

posting messages to Microsoft Teams,
managing files in SharePoint or OneDrive,
automating approval processes,
creating tasks in Planner,
retrieving weather updates,
updating Dataverse rows,
interacting with ServiceNow, and more.

2. License:

You can use both power automate cloud and desktop if you opt-in Power Automate Premium license - $15 (per user/month) and you can use same credentials for both web and desktop.

And also desktop flow works on two flavors(Attended/Unattended). Please look at the below table and link

Link: Attended and unattended scenarios for process automation - Power Automate | Microsoft Learn

In case if you want to run your bots in unattended mode you have to buy Power Automate Process
$150 per bot/month.

Read link for license - Power Automate Pricing & Subscription Plans | Microsoft Power Automate

3. Co-Pilot:

Co-Pilot is available for both Power Automate Desktop and Power Automate Cloud. In Power Automate Cloud, you can provide prompts for Co-Pilot to automatically generate flows based on your requirements. Once generated, you can fine-tune the flow and fill in any required parameters to ensure it functions correctly and of course it will not help you on out of the box use cases.

For Power Automate Desktop, there are some limitations with Co-Pilot's flow creation capabilities. Instead of automatically generating flows, Co-Pilot in Power Automate Desktop provides guidance on which actions to use to achieve your goals. For instance, if you want to read an Excel file, Co-Pilot will suggest steps such as using the "Launch Excel" action followed by other necessary actions.

Additionally, Power Automate Desktop supports multiple scripting languages including PowerShell, JavaScript, DOS, Python, and more. You can leverage Co-Pilot to generate equivalent code snippets in these languages based on your specific use case.

I hope this clarifies things for you!

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

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