B.1 ‐ Robotic Process Automation Online Workshop ‐ Setup - dcasota/m365-scripts GitHub Wiki
In September 2024, Microsoft published a free 8 hour virtual workshop called Automation in a Day.
It is also published as learning course https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/paths/robotic-process-automation-online-workshop
The goal of the lab is to stage an invoice processing for a virtual company, the Contoso Coffee shop.
I left the virtual workshop with more than 45 attendees after 1.5 hours because I wasn't prepared well for accomplishing the course target.
Later on the day, I decided to retry the course myself using the learning course material. This blog entry contains all my notes.
From a learning perspective, the course is also part to prepare for the Microsoft Certified Power Automate RPA Developer Associate exam, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/power-automate-rpa-developer-associate/?source=recommendations&practice-assessment-type=certification.
Prerequisites
It is to be said that you need a fully functional Microsoft365 homelab. Unfortunately actually Microsoft does not offer a yearly subscription with an all-in-one sku for a full Microsoft365 homelab without the need to activate/cancel a bunch of trials.
Check the readiness of your homelab. Open the following webportals as they will be needed during the course.
- https://admin.microsoft.com/Adminportal
- https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/environments
- https://make.powerautomate.com/environments
- https://app.powerbi.com/
The course outlines following prerequisites:
- Power Automate per user with attended RPA plan trial
- Power Apps trial
- Exchange mailbox
- optional for unattended desktop flows: Intune trial
- Files for completing exercises. This also includes optional labs in PDF format.
Local Powerautomate environment
As a local Power Automate environment, I'm using VMware Workstation 17.5 and a Windows Server 2025 virtual machine.
See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/requirements, Windows Server 2025 isn't explicitly mentioned, but the server release works flawlessly and supports cloud workflows as well. The ISO can be obtained on https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsinsiderpreviewserver.
VMware Workstation 17.x has had the issue, that it behaves slow on Windows 11. Simply fix it, see https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/discussion/vmware-17-pro-very-slow-on-windows-11-22h2
Inside the virtual machine, download and extract https://aka.ms/AutomationIADStudent.
Have a look to the Instruction Deck pdf inside of the lab directory. It starts with all necessary information what's needed.
Get Power Apps Developer Plan
After having logged-in to https://make.powerapps.com/environments, usually I change the language to English.
On the left side navigation menu, the Power Platform menu is displayed. Here you can switch to powerautomate, powerbi, powerpages, copilot studio and powerplatform admin center.
The docs describe to go to Power Apps Developer Plan and to select Existing user? Add a dev environment. Now this does not work if you already configured an environment in the past, meanwhile the environment has been archived and you want to reactivate the environment.
Go to https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/.
Select your environment, add a dataverse.
It takes maybe a few minutes, until the environment shows up as ready.
Inside the virtual machine, goto https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/ and proceed with a login.
Select my flows > Desktop flows. Click on start a free trial.
After that, click on the Install 'Power Automate for Desktop' button.
Click through the installer, including the extension installation.
Login.
Next you see the welcome screen, and also - for a short time - the invitation for the free Automation in a day course.
Click on 'Go Premium'.
Select 'start trial'. If you already had once a trial, you have the possibility to purchase licenses or to submit a request.
Next, start 'Power Automate machine runtime'.
In the machine settings, select the environment configured before to register.
The successful registration is displayed.
Close the Power Automate machine runtime application.
Be aware. The logged-in user must have the appropriate Environment Maker or desktop Flow Machine Owner role permission to register machines.
Meanwhile in my homelab, I've started the Microsoft Windows Server 2025 Datacenter (Desktop Experience) insider upgrade from OSbuild 26040 to 26280.
From the lab data packages, browse to 'Prerequisite Lab #1 Install Contoso Coffee Shop Invoicing management app'.
Accordingly to the docs, there should be a .exe and an .msi. In my case, only the .msi has been inside the directory.
I started the .msi setup and clicked through the installer.
I launched the Contoso Invoicing app from the desktop icon, and pinned it to the taskbar as suggested from the docs.
Next, create a new record in invoicing.
Enter the data. Click on save.
Meanwhile, have alook to your email. If you submitted a request for trial licenses, you might be surprised to get an approval email with your text in it.
Approve it. The weblink opens the admin.microsoft.com webportal.
This sort of license isn't available in the actual homelab.
'Power Automate Per User with Attended RPA Plan' - I haven't found this license type as a trial on the marketplace.
The Microsoft doc on https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/blog/power-automate/use-power-automate-self-assisted-premium-trials-to-run-both-attended-and-unattended-rpa/ is outdated. The trial needed does not exist.
Instead of it, the pricing page shows the following options.
After some research, I've found out that there is a Power Apps Developer plan.
On the following docs you'll find an overview what's included in the Power Apps Developer plan: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/power-platform/blob/main/power-platform/admin/power-automate-licensing/deep-dive-on-specific-license.md
After the registration using the Power Apps Developer registration on https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/products/power-apps/?market=ch, the admin webportal shows up the 3 trial licenses.
Good to know, on this page all Power-related trials are listed: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/try-free
And the admin powerplatform webportal shows up with additional two developer environments.
Hosted machine environment
The hosted machine setup accordingly to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/modules/install-required-software-online-workshop/hosted-machine-optional is for unattended desktop flows.
Please note that the Intune license is necessary as well.
Accordingly to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/fundamentals/free-trial-sign-up navigate to the Intune set up account page and setup your account. For the trial specify the billing account details and payment method.
Without the Intune license, you will get an error.
Note: The time needed to provision a hosted machine varies depending on the configuration of the hosted machine. It can take over 30 minutes for the machine to be ready for access.
After the virtual machine has been provisioned, you see the following readiness information.
To access the hosted machine, select open in browser from the menu.
When connecting, the first time you see the In-Session settings information screen.
Login.
The desktop gets prepared.
As we can see, Power Automate already is installed.
That's it. The staging of all components has been finished.