Desktop Flows and Process Mining | Guided by A Guide to Cloud

What are desktop flows?

Simple explanation

Imagine hiring a robot to use your computer for you.

You show the robot exactly what to click, what to type, and where to copy data. Then you press play and the robot does it — over and over, perfectly, without getting bored or making typos.

That is what a desktop flow does. It automates tasks on your actual PC: clicking buttons, filling in forms, copying data between apps, even working with old software that has no API.

Cloud flows vs desktop flows

Cloud Flows vs Desktop Flows
Feature	Cloud Flows	Desktop Flows
Where they run	In the cloud (Microsoft servers)	On a local Windows machine
What they automate	Cloud services via connectors	Desktop apps, legacy systems, UI tasks
Need a PC running?	No — runs in the background	Yes — the machine must be on
Built with	Power Automate maker portal (browser)	Power Automate for Desktop app
Trigger types	Automated, instant, scheduled	Triggered by a cloud flow or manually
Best for	Email, SharePoint, Teams, approvals	Old software, data entry, file manipulation
Licence	Included with M365 (standard connectors)	Power Automate Premium for attended/unattended

The power combo: cloud plus desktop

The real magic happens when you combine them. A cloud flow can trigger a desktop flow as one of its actions.

Carlos at Greenleaf Health uses this combo:

Cloud flow trigger: When a new patient record is added to SharePoint
Cloud flow action: Call a desktop flow on the office PC
Desktop flow: Opens the legacy patient management system, enters the patient data into the old form fields, clicks Save
Cloud flow continues: Sends a confirmation email to the admin team

The legacy system has no API and no connector — but the desktop flow can interact with it through the UI, just like a human would.

Desktop flow actions

Desktop flows use actions — individual steps that perform a task on the machine. Here are the key action categories:

Action Category	What It Does	Examples
UI automation	Interact with desktop app elements	Click button, fill text field, select dropdown, read value
Excel	Work with Excel spreadsheets	Open workbook, read cell, write to range, close Excel
File and folder	Manage files on the local machine	Copy file, rename folder, move files, delete, create
Web automation	Control a web browser	Open browser, navigate to URL, click link, extract data
Email	Send and manage emails	Send email via Outlook, retrieve emails, save attachments
System	Run system-level tasks	Run application, run script, get environment variable
Variables	Store and manipulate data	Set variable, increase, create list, generate random

Attended vs unattended desktop flows

Desktop flows can run in two modes:

Attended: Runs while a user is logged in. The user can watch it happen and interact if needed. Think of it as a helper working alongside you.
Unattended: Runs on a machine without anyone logged in. The flow logs in automatically, does the work, and logs out. Think of it as a night-shift worker.

The exam may ask about this distinction. Unattended flows are ideal for overnight batch processing, while attended flows are useful when a user needs to provide input mid-flow.

Power Automate apps

Power Automate is not just one tool — it is a family of apps. The exam expects you to know what each one does.

Power Automate Apps
App	What It Is	Used For
Maker portal	Web-based designer (make.powerautomate.com)	Build and manage cloud flows in a browser
Power Automate for Desktop	Windows desktop application	Build and run desktop flows (RPA)
Mobile app	iOS and Android app	Run instant flows, approve requests, monitor flows on the go
Copilot in Power Automate	AI assistant in the maker portal	Describe a flow in plain English and Copilot builds it

Exam tip: The mobile app is not just for monitoring. You can actually trigger instant flows and respond to approval requests from your phone.

Process Mining

Process Mining is a feature in Power Automate that helps you discover and analyse your business processes before you automate them.

Why does this matter?

Before automating a process, you need to understand it. Where are the bottlenecks? Where do people waste time? Which steps add no value?

Process Mining answers these questions by analysing event log data from your systems.

How Process Mining works

Import event logs — data from your systems showing what happened, when, and in what order (for example, timestamps from an ERP or CRM)
Visualise the process — Process Mining creates a visual map of the actual process, not the ideal one
Identify bottlenecks — see where delays happen, where steps are skipped, or where rework occurs
Prioritise automation — focus your Power Automate efforts on the steps that waste the most time

What is task mining?

Task mining is a related feature that works at the individual user level. Instead of analysing system logs, it records what users do on their desktops — which apps they open, what they click, where they copy-paste.

This helps identify repetitive manual tasks that are good candidates for desktop flows. Task mining watches the human, then suggests what to automate.

Process Mining = analyses system event logs (big-picture process)
Task Mining = records user desktop activity (individual task level)

Carlos uses Process Mining

Carlos suspects the patient intake process at Greenleaf Health is slower than it should be. He imports the event logs from their scheduling system into Process Mining and discovers:

The average intake takes 45 minutes, but it should take 15
60 percent of the delay comes from waiting for insurance verification
Staff re-enter the same data into three different systems

Now Carlos knows exactly where to focus: build a cloud flow for insurance verification and a desktop flow to eliminate the triple data entry.

🎬 Video walkthrough

🎬 Video coming soon

Desktop Flows and Process Mining — PL-900 Domain 4

~10 min