Power Automate Desktop - Calendar Date Picker

Christine Prete

Thank you in advance for any help that can be given!

I am looking to automate the download of PDF files from our gift processors portal that we do QA gift checks against. Currently the PDF's are pulled out manually by navigating through the site. I can successfully search the criteria that I want and then download the files to our local network, BUT the date selection is not working as I need it to. I need to enter in the date range that I want to pull. This is done through a text field which also is a calendar date picker. The date that I want to download is the previous day a.k.a yesterday. I created an action that takes the current date and subtracts one day to create a resulted date. I then created an action to Populate Text Field on Web Page with that Resulted Date. It places the correct date into the text field of the calendar date picker, and at the same time opens the calendar and selects the current date. I have to do this in two places. My next action is to then click Search, when I do this the calendar dates default back to todays date. I have tried using the record feature in PAD as well but have not had success. I included a quick video to show the date going in properly but changing before clicking search. I have tried every configuration possible under advanced options of the populate text field on web page action. I have searched the web as well. video1784591996.mp4

Can someone help?? Your time is greatly appreciated

@Alex Wong @Glen Hutson @Austen Brown

Glen Hutson

@Christine Prete:

Thank you in advance for any help that can be given!

I am looking to automate the download of PDF files from our gift processors portal that we do QA gift checks against. Currently the PDF's are pulled out manually by navigating through the site. I can successfully search the criteria that I want and then download the files to our local network, BUT the date selection is not working as I need it to. I need to enter in the date range that I want to pull. This is done through a text field which also is a calendar date picker. The date that I want to download is the previous day a.k.a yesterday. I created an action that takes the current date and subtracts one day to create a resulted date. I then created an action to Populate Text Field on Web Page with that Resulted Date. It places the correct date into the text field of the calendar date picker, and at the same time opens the calendar and selects the current date. I have to do this in two places. My next action is to then click Search, when I do this the calendar dates default back to todays date. I have tried using the record feature in PAD as well but have not had success. I included a quick video to show the date going in properly but changing before clicking search. I have tried every configuration possible under advanced options of the populate text field on web page action. I have searched the web as well. video1784591996.mp4

Can someone help?? Your time is greatly appreciated

@Alex Wong @Glen Hutson @Austen Brown

Hi Christine. I don't want to speak for others, but I haven't had a lot of deep dive into Power Automate Desktop. I think you may be among the first in this forum posting about it. It does have its great use cases, but there are a few additional limitations in how/when the flows run (see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/run-pad-flow ) .

Have you eliminated using Power Automate “online” as an option for this due to needed steps such as logins, etc?

Christine Prete

@Glen Hutson Thanks for replying! Yes sorry this is not Blackbaud related but figured let me ask in case there are users with PAD experience in the Community. You are correct, I eliminated the use of online PA due to limitations regarding the process I am trying to achieve. Greatly appreciate your time. - Christine

Ben Regier

@Christine Prete
The only thing I notice when I look at your flow is that you're converting ResultedDate into a string and saving it in the FormattedDateTime variable, but then when you select the dates on your website, you are using the ResultedDate variable, not FormattedDateTime.

ResultedDate includes the timestamp, which has the potential to cause unexpected problems if there are time zone differences. Can you set your flow to use the FormattedDateTime string variable instead?

Christine Prete

@Ben Regier That was it! Thank you for being my second set of eyes.

I realize that PAD requires an active machine running to execute the tasks, but this will save our admin roughly 2 hours a week downloading gift detail for QA checks from our gift process. All part of the Power Automate efficiencies we want and have implemented!

Thank you! - Christine