RPA with Power Automate Desktop
In many organizations, employees spend hours each day on repetitive manual work: retyping data between systems, generating reports from legacy applications, or processing invoices in software without an API. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) offers a solution by deploying software robots that take over these tasks. With Power Automate Desktop, Microsoft makes RPA accessible to every organization, without needing to invest thousands of euros in specialized RPA tools.
What is RPA?
RPA is a technology where software robots mimic the actions of a human user on a computer. The robot clicks buttons, fills in forms, copies data, and navigates through applications, exactly as a human would. The difference from traditional integration is that RPA works on the presentation layer: you do not need an API. This makes it particularly suitable for legacy systems that do not have modern interfaces.
Building desktop flows
Power Automate Desktop offers a visual designer where you build desktop flows by dragging and dropping actions. The tool has more than 400 built-in actions for working with files, Excel, email, web applications, Windows applications, databases, and more. You can also use the recorder that captures your mouse movements and keystrokes and converts them into a repeatable flow.
A typical desktop flow starts by opening an application, navigates to the right screen, reads data from or enters data into it, and saves the result. The visual nature of the designer makes it accessible to business users, while the built-in error handling and variables offer sufficient depth for complex scenarios. Desktop flows can be integrated with cloud flows in Power Automate, allowing you to trigger RPA tasks from emails, forms, or schedules.
Attended versus unattended
Attended execution
With attended RPA, the desktop flow runs while the user is sitting at the computer. The robot takes over the screen, performs the tasks, and returns control to the user. This is ideal for scenarios where the robot does part of the work and the user makes decisions or checks data in between. Attended flows are available with the standard Power Automate Desktop license, which is free for Windows 10 and 11 users.
Unattended execution
Unattended RPA runs without human intervention on a dedicated machine or virtual desktop. Flows are triggered by a schedule or an event and run fully automatically. This is the most powerful form of RPA and suitable for high volumes and overnight processing. Unattended execution requires a premium license and a machine registered as a machine group in the Power Platform admin center.
RPA is not a replacement for system integration but a bridge. Use it to deliver immediate value while working toward structural integrations via APIs and connectors in the longer term.
Practical use cases
The most successful RPA implementations we see at Breathbase target tasks that meet three criteria: high volume, structured process, and low error risk. Concrete examples include transferring orders from a web shop to an ERP system that has no API, generating monthly reports from multiple sources, processing incoming invoices by extracting data and entering it into the accounting system, and updating customer data in legacy CRM systems based on data from Dataverse.
For each use case, it is important to first analyze and standardize the process before automating. Automating a bad process only produces a faster bad process. Document the current process, identify exceptions, and define how the robot should handle deviations.
Governance and scalability
As you build more desktop flows, governance becomes essential. Establish clear guidelines for who can build flows, how they are tested and approved, and how they are monitored in production. Use environments in the Power Platform to separate development, test, and production flows. Monitor flow executions centrally and set up alerts for failed runs. A good governance framework prevents RPA initiatives from growing into an unmanageable whole and ensures that the organization benefits from automation in a scalable way.
