PAD in the cloud vs PAD outside the cloud

[jharrity]

I have a premium version of Power Automate that allows me to trigger PAD flows from the web-based version of Power Automate.  Here's the problem I have.  I have PAD installed in my cloud environment and PAD installed on my local machine outside of my cloud environment.  I created a very simple PAD flow that brings up a message that says "HELLO."  The problem that I have is that when the web-based version of Power Automate triggers this PAD flow, the "HELLO" message displays outside of my cloud environment.  I need the web-based version of Power Automate to trigger PAD in my cloud environment because the PAD flows that I have created interact with my folders within my cloud environment.

Can anyone tell me how to cause the web-based version of Power Automate to trigger PAD in my cloud environment AND NOT PAD outside of my cloud environment? 

Here's what I have tried - I tried closing PAD outside of my cloud environment and keeping PAD open in my cloud environment, but the message still pops up on my desktop outside of my cloud environment.  I'm not sure what else to try.

[Pstork1]

I'm not sure what you mean by PAD in your cloud environment. PAD stands for Power Automate Desktop.  PAD always runs on a computer or Virtual Machine (VM).  It doesn't run in the cloud.  Power Automate runs in the cloud and you access it via a Web browser.  In Power Automate there is a link to create a new PAD flow, but when you click on that link it launches Power Automate Desktop on your computer.

You can run PAD flows attended (on your computer) or unattended (on another computer or VM in the cloud). But they always run on a computer or VM.

To interact with regular Power Automate flows you can launch PAD flows (that will run on your computer), pass parameters in and receive return values back.  But the PAD flow itself doesn't and can't run in the cloud.

If that clarification doesn't help please ask more questions and I'll try to clarify further.

[jharrity]

By saying PAD in the cloud, I'm talking about PAD running on a virtual machine in a cloud environment.  I have PAD running on my local computer and on a VM in our cloud environment.  These two PADs are associated with the same Microsoft account so that flows created using my "local PAD" (the one one my local computer) are available in my "cloud PAD" (the one running on a VM in my cloud environment).  

So, the issue that I have is that when I trigger a PAD flow using the web-based version of Power Automate, the flow is triggered on my local computer and not by the VM in my cloud environment.  I need to trigger the PAD that is running on my VM.

Did that clarify things?  The terminology I used in my original post was clear in my head, but wasn't clear outside of my head.  Sorry about that.

[Pstork1 · Accepted solution]

When You trigger a PAD flow using a Power Automate flow you use a connection to a specific machine or on-premises gateway.  Your local desktop and the Azure VM will have different gateways or different names as a machine.  So where it runs the desktop flow will depend on the connection.