AMA: appProcessID with Adobe Acrobat flows

[BrianS]

I have a desktop flow that I have set up to go into a directory and open up PDF files and split out the pages into individual files to feed into an AI solution. When the desktop app is updated it usually breaks the flow. With Adobe Acrobat the name of the file is added to the window title, so you can't select based on that. I have been unable to figure out how to use the appProcessID to tell the flow where to work. I am able after several tries to get the "recorder" to work correctly, but with Acrobat is seems to be much more hit or miss than some other apps / web pages

[DSB · Accepted solution]

Hi @BrianS I'm wondering if opening the PDF files with the 'Run application' action would help in this case Identify a window by its handle - Power Automate | Microsoft Docs

When you say the desktop app is updated and it breaks the flow, is this in regard to the selectors that you have captured?  If this is the case it could be related to dynamically changing properties in some of the selectors and you can check by sorting through the selector builder properties of a similar ui element that has been recaptured.  If this is the case then you could try modifying the selector where dynamic values exist to exclude those and try using the operator like 'begins with'.  Build a custom selector - Power Automate | Microsoft Docs

My understanding is that Adobe Acrobat still uses Flash which is also a limitation for UI automation.  In my previous experiences I had to combine both UI actions and find image actions to make this work.  Please let me know if this helps at all or provide some more details to see if we can help.

[BrianS]

I tried to use the Run Application, but I could not find the commands from there to make it work. The Flash part undoubtedly enters into this. I was not having much luck identifying items that are in the UI - that is another difficulty with Acrobat. I also tried to use menu commands, but that broke down once I got to the "second" level of the menus for some reason.

I have not tried the Selector route - I'll give that a shot!