This is my second post discussing a large PDF processing automation project. In the first post, I focused on how to bring data into PAD from Excel, transform that data from a table to a list, and remove nulls from the list. Now, I want to talk about how I use OCR in Power Automate Desktop to translate PDFs to text and look for specific keywords. Check out this post for the details.
Read More »The Power of OCR in Power Automate Desktop
Many of my automation projects revolve around getting data out of PDFs. I’m working on a large PDF processing project right now that will generate several how-to posts. I think this will be a fun way to show the details of a large automation project. In the first post, I’ll focus on how to bring a column of keywords into PAD from Excel, transform that data from a table into a list, and remove nulls. This lays the groundwork to search PDFs for keywords using OCR, which I’ll dive into in the next blog. Check out this post for the details.
Read More »How To Search PDFs for Keywords in Power Automate DesktopThis week, I ran into a problem when I moved a solution from our DEV environment to QA. A PAD flow I was calling from Power Automate started failing with the error ‘Failed to Assume Control of Chrome’. When I ran only the desktop flow, it worked fine. When calling PAD from Power Automate, it didn’t work. Based on the reviews of the Power Automate extension in the Chrome store, this has recently become a common problem. Read on to find the solution that worked for me.
Read More »How to Fix the ‘Failed to Assume Control of Chrome’ Error in Power Automate DesktopOne of our users was manually entering data into a spreadsheet every single day rain or shine, weekday or weekened, vacation or not. She needed an automation solution, and I built one for her. But, we ran into a small but time-consuming problem to solve. The automation added data to an Excel spreadsheet, but the updated data didn’t appear in PowerBI. Half the battle was figuring out whether Excel, PowerBI, Power Automate, or Alteryx was causing the problem. Wanna guess which one it was? Read on to find out.
Read More »Automation with Excel, PowerBI, Power Automate & Alteryx! What Could Go Wrong?This weThis week, I am working on a PowerAutomate Desktop flow that extracts data from a PDF. I need to extract numbers from a string. Rather than use regex, the Recognize Entities in Text action made this task a breeze. But, because it wasn’t without its quirks and challenges, I’m doing a write up on how to use it. Read on to learn more.
Read More »Extract Numbers from a String in PAD
I bet that headline got your attention, and you’re probably saying, “That can’t be done.” Actually, it can….if you combine technologies. While I love being able to schedule workflows from the Alteryx gallery, there are many other mechanisms I would like to use to kick off Alteryx workflows, like receiving an email. Alteryx doesn’t allow this, but Microsoft Power Automate does. Combine that with the ability to call Alteryx from Power Automate Desktop and you have the ability to kick off workflows with email. Read on to learn more.
Read More »Trigger Alteryx Workflows With EmailRecently, a user asked me to automate a process where she received an email with an Excel attachment. She needed to grab data from that attachment and put it into a different spreadsheet. This should have been a super easy task, but the attachment was in .xls format (Microsoft 1997-2003). We couldn’t change the format, and apps DO NOT play well with this format. So, I used Power Automate Desktop to convert it. Read on to learn how to convert xls to xlsx with Power Automate Desktop.
Read More »How to Convert XLS to XLSX with Power Automate DesktopI started a new role in October with our RPA (Robotic Process Automation) team, which involves working with Microsoft Power Automate and Power Automate Desktop (and still Alteryx). I’ve been learning the ropes the last few months and want to show an example of how you can use these tools to automate small but mundane tasks, like extracting a value from email and updating an Excel spreadsheet. This post will explain how to update an Excel file with Power Automate Desktop.
Read More »How to Update an Excel File with Power Automate Desktop