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Introduction

2025.1.01+

Power Automate Desktop is a robotic process automation (RPA) tool from Microsoft that allows you to automate repetitive tasks on Windows desktops. Flowable integrates with Power Automate Desktop, enabling you to trigger and orchestrate desktop flows directly from BPMN processes and CMMN cases.

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For using Power Automate with Flowable you need a Power Automate Premium account as well as a Flowable Power Automate license. In case you do not have either of those licenses, you cannot complete the setup.

How It Works​

Flowable connects to the Microsoft Dataverse API to trigger Power Automate Desktop flows. When a process or case reaches a Power Automate service task, Flowable sends a request to execute the designated desktop flow, passes input variables, and waits for the result. Once the desktop flow completes, the output variables are returned to Flowable and the process continues.

Key Features​

  • Seamless integration with BPMN processes and CMMN cases through a dedicated Power Automate service task
  • Input and output mapping between Flowable process variables and Power Automate Desktop flow variables
  • Flow selection directly from the Flowable Design modeler with dropdowns for available flows and their parameters
  • Machine group support for executing desktop flows on dedicated machines

Prerequisites​

  • A Power Automate Premium account
  • A Flowable Power Automate license
  • Power Automate Desktop installed on a Windows machine with the machine-runtime application
  • An Azure Active Directory app registration for service-to-service authentication

Setup​

To connect Flowable with Power Automate Desktop, the following setup steps must be completed:

  1. Set up Power Automate Desktop — Install Power Automate Desktop with the machine-runtime application and register the machine.

  2. Create a machine group — Create a machine group in the Power Automate admin center and assign your machine to it.

  3. Create an Azure AD app registration — Register an application in Azure Active Directory following the Azure documentation. Store the generated client ID and secret.

  4. Create an app user — Create an app user in the Power Platform admin center following the step-by-step guide. Grant the following roles:

    • Basic User
    • Cxp Dataverse Datasource Services User
    • Environment Maker
    • Optionally: System Administrator (for access to all flows without explicit sharing)

  5. Share the machine group — Share the machine group with the service account.

  6. Create a machine connection — Create a connection for the machine group via the REST API using the service principal token. Follow this tutorial. Save the name and xrmInstanceUri from the response.

  7. Configure Flowable — Add the following properties to your Flowable Work configuration:

# Enable Power Automate integration
flowable.power-automate.registration-id=power-automate
flowable.power-automate.api-base-url=https://orgXXXXXXXX.crmX.dynamics.com
flowable.power-automate.default-connection-name=<connection-name-from-step-6>

spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.power-automate.client-id=<client-id>
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.power-automate.client-secret=<client-secret>
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.power-automate.scope=${flowable.power-automate.api-base-url}/.default
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.power-automate.authorization-grant-type=client_credentials
spring.security.oauth2.client.provider.power-automate.token-uri=https://login.microsoftonline.com/{tenant-id}/oauth2/v2.0/token

A full list of all Power Automate properties is available in the Work properties section.

Next Steps​

Once the setup is completed, Flowable Design will connect to Flowable Work to fetch the available flows. Flows can be executed as part of a BPMN process or a CMMN case.

See the Usage page for a step-by-step example of creating and running a Power Automate Desktop flow from Flowable.