Get Inputs in Power Automate Desktop from Microsoft Flow

In this post, we will send inputs from Power Automate Cloud to Power Automate Desktop (PAD). Here we trigger the PAD flow from the cloud by passing the inputs.

Prerequisites

1. On-Premises Data Gateway: The gateway is an enterprise-grade secure connection between Power Automate and your device (where your desktop flows run). Power Automate uses the gateway to access your on-premises device so that it can trigger your desktop flows from an event, schedule, or button.
2. Work or School account to login to both PAD and Power Automate cloud.
3. Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Enterprise, Windows Server 2016, or Windows Server 2019
4. Install Power Automate Desktop

Note: If your device runs Windows 10 Home, you can use PAD to create your desktop flows and monitor them on Power Automate Cloud. You can’t trigger desktop flows to run from the cloud on Windows 10 Home devices.

Create Power Automate Desktop Flow to Receive Inputs

We are going to create a very simple flow that gets the input and displays it on the message box. Launch the PAD and click on New flow.

Provide the name and click on Create. I am giving the name as InputsDemo.

When the flow is created, click on + under Variables -> Input / output variables on the right-side panel in the flow designer screen. Choose Input when you click on +.

Add the new input variable. Give the variable name and the data type. I have taken var1 as my variable and Text as Data type.

Once the variable is created, you can find it under the Variables panel.

Add a new action Display Message in flow designer.

Set the properties of your Message Box such as Message box title, icon, buttons, etc. Provide the variable name in Message to display.

This completes our flow. Click on Save.

Find your PAD flow in Power Automate Cloud

Log in to Microsoft Flow using the same credentials you used for PAD. Click on My flows and find your PAD flow under Desktop flows.

Trigger PAD and Send Input

We will now create a Microsoft Flow that sends the input to PAD and triggers it. Click on New flow in Power Automate Cloud and select Instant cloud flow.

Give a flow name and select the Manual Trigger.

Add a new step and search and click on the Action Run a flow built with Power Automate Desktop.

I will not go through creating a new connection. You can refer to my post, where we create a new connection and trigger the PAD flow.

Once the connection is created, choose the Desktop flow from the dropdown. Keep the Run Mode Attended. If you have an Unattended license then you can choose that as well. In Unattended, your computer should be locked for the flow to run. Give the value of var1.

Here is the final flow. Click on Save and Test the flow by triggering it manually.

Once, the flow is in progress, you will see the Message box coming up. When you click on OK, then the flow will complete.

You can always check your run history to find out how your flow has performed.

Thank you All!!! Hope you find this useful.

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