Set up in Power Automate
Creating and running automation systems in Microsoft Power Automate requires that you have access to make changes to the environments in your tenant and that you have the appropriate licenses and permissions. If you don't already have admin access to a valid tenant, you might want to start a free trial. Also, you'll need a Power Automate user plan with an attended robotic process automation (RPA) license to complete this module. You can sign up for a free trial if you don't already have this license.
In this unit, you'll complete two tasks:
- Set up a trial Power Automate environment. An environment is a space to store, manage, and share your organization’s business data, apps, and flows.
- Set up the Contoso Invoicing application, which you'll use throughout the Automate processes with the Robotic Process Automation and Power Automate for desktop learning path to help you explore and learn the concepts and actions that are available in desktop flows.
If you've completed the Build your first Power Automate for desktop flow module, you can skip to the next unit.
Create a trial environment with a database
After you've successfully signed in to a valid tenant, go to the Microsoft Power Platform admin center. You'll need to create a trial environment with a database. Select Environments and then select your automatically created environment: Demo (default).
If you're using an existing tenant rather than creating a trial for this exercise, you can use the default environment or create a new one to keep it separate from your existing solutions.
Now that you're in your chosen environment, add a database by selecting Add database. In the next dialog, you can specify the requested values but can keep the defaults. Select Add. You might be prompted to sign in again before creating your database, after which, your database should provision appropriately.
Creating your database might take up to one minute; afterward, you can continue to the next steps.
If you're using a trial environment, consider setting up a profile in your browser to prevent you from being signed out of your existing Microsoft account.
Software installation
The following exercises will require various software to be installed on your computer. The following steps will guide you through the download and installation of Power Automate for desktop, the required extensions, and the Contoso Invoicing app.
If you have already installed Power Automate for desktop, ensure that you're running the latest available version.
Power Automate for desktop
Go to Power Automate and sign in with the account that you used to create your environment and database. After you've signed in, select My flows > Install > Power Automate for desktop.
When the download completes, select the file to open and run the installer. Select Next and, on the next screen, select the final checkbox and then select Install. This action will install Power Automate for desktop and the browser extensions for Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome.
When the installation is complete, select the link of your preferred browser and then follow the instructions to enable the extension. After the extension has been enabled, you can launch the Power Automate for desktop app.
After launching the app, sign in by using the account that you used to set up your environment and database.
Contoso Invoicing app
A major benefit of using desktop flows is the ability to take actions on desktop applications. For the flow that you'll create, you'll use an invoicing application to explore the concepts and actions that are available to you in desktop flows. After you've completed the module, you can use what you've learned to run desktop flows on your own applications and automate existing processes.
Download the Contoso Invoicing app, extract the contents, and then install the application and explore the elements.
If you don't have a desktop app that's created to define inputs and outputs, do so now by following this module or on your own.