Operate "Save As" dialog box with Power Automate Desktop

[Stiabhna]

Hi everyone,

Please excuse my newbie question!
I'm attempting to use PAD to automate some steps in a web-based project management system we have.
In one of steps, I would like to select a list of projects and use the built-in button on the web interface to download the list to an Excel file.

The problem is that a Windows "Save As" dialog box then appears and I can't seem to select anything on it (for example, to enter a file name or click "Save".

Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks in advance and best wishes,
Stephen

[Expiscornovus]

Hi @Stiabhna,

I would use actions from the UI Automation category for this. You can probably use a Click UI element in window for this. Try and track the UI element and use it in that action.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/power-automate/desktop-flows/actions-reference/uiautomation#click

[lema7913]

The problem is you cannot capture the UI element.

And therefore not click it.

I have the same problem in any other popup in Edge (Log-in forms fx)

[Expiscornovus]

Hi @lema7913,

It should be possible to find these UI elements with the Add UI element control. For example Window 'Open' in my earlier example is a file explorer dialog box. This can be found via this selector

 > window[Class="#32770"]

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/winmsg/about-window-classes#types-of-window-classes

[lema7913]

I agree - withe windows controls.
The problem is that it doesn't seem to work with Microsoft Edge

[Expiscornovus]

Hi @lema7913,

What is the selector of your group, where the UI element is listed under? In my example the group is using selector with a specific filter for msedge process:

:desktop > window[Process="msedge"]

Sometimes it helps to be more specific and add additional criteria like the name to the selector.

[MichaelAnnis]

Use focus window, use the select window feature once you have manually opened the save window dialog box. When the red square shows up around the right window hold Control + Left click to capture the window element. 

The file name field should already have the cursor in it. If not, you can populate text field (you have to capture the element using the same process as select window.  If the cursor is already there, just use send keys. Both should work.  For send keys:

send keys %filepath%
wait 1

send keys {Enter}
wait 1

send keys %filename%
wait 1

send keys {Enter}

Sending the file path and pressing enter will take you to the file path. 

[lema7913]

The problem starts earlyer. I can not capture the element.

To replicate the problem: Start Edge, Open Downloads (Ctrl+J), try to grab the elements in that list (I can capture the window itself, but not the elements)

[lema7913]

> pane > pane > pane > pane > pane[Class="DialogClientView"] (the Downloads window in Edge)

The problem is that I need to go a step deeper to get the "Save as" button

[KirilOkun]

Hello,
did you ever find a solution for this.  I'm having the same problem.  UI element capture only highlights the container pane but not the "Save as" button in it.

[lema7913]

No. As a (temporary?) solution i had to go back to Internet Explorer 😞

I'm waiting for Microsoft to fix their shortcommings.

(If Microsoft Power Automate can't work with Microsoft Edge, then Microsoft has a problem they should focus on, and fix ASAP)

[KirilOkun]

Very unfortunate.  
The strange thing was that i was able to capture the inner elements of the downloads popup a week ago.  (See below)  and my automation was working.  But yesterday I updated Edge to the latest version and it stopped working.   



---------------------
> pane[Class="Chrome_WidgetWin_1"] > pane[Class="RootView"][Name="Downloads"] > pane[Class="NonClientView"] > pane[Class="BubbleFrameView"] > pane[Class="DialogClientView"] > pane[Class="BubbleDialogDelegateView"] > document > list[Class="c0190"][Id="list-focus-container"]

[KirilOkun]

One more update.
Since previously i was able to capture the inner Recent Downloads list and the first Save As button as a UI element i was able to run the automation in Edge Version 97.0.1072.69.   And it worked sometimes, but not reliably.  Other times it would throw the "Could not find UI element"  error.    With this version of Edge PAD's UI element capture no longer works on the Recent Downloads popup and thus prevents any file saving automation.   I was forced to switch to Chrome, which does not have that intermediate dialog and opens the standard Save As dialog right away.  With only minor modifications it worked in Chrome.   So this is the solution for now.

Interestingly the same script ran much faster with Chrome than with Edge. 

It is rather unfortunate that MS felt in necessary to add more UI interaction to the standard file download use case in Edge. Since the user already must go to the browser settings to enable "Ask me for location"   setting for file downloads there's absolutely no value in having that extra popup that list recent downloads and requires me to click Save As one more time. The user already decided that they want to specify file destination on every download.   Less is more, as always. 

[Neha2904]

UI Automation did not work, so instead focused on window using class name and title and then gave send keys.

[sri24]

The above works fine in attended mode but 'Send keys fails' in unattended mode.any help ?

[momlo]

Hey, i've ran through the above replies and to be honest, I'm struggling understanding what is the exact issue.

However, as I have couple of flows where I use Edge to download 100s of files and they work spot on each time, I'll try to help.

My configuration:

1. Edge Settings
   1. - Settings - Downloads
      1. Ask each time what to do with file - i want to be able to name download
      2. Show download menu each time - i keep this for dev, i want to see if files are downloading
2. Edge behavior
   1. Edge introduced this new, additional, unnecessary, popup each time you want to download file (instead of just going straight to the OS save as dialog
      
      
      1. But! If your browser window is to narrow (low resolution or window not maxed out), it till not display it even though you enabled it in step1, it will show the button only:
         
         
   2. So what I do, I set my Edge window to max to ensure I don't need to automate the button, but just the popup.
      
   3. You can spy on the buttons and text here.
      1. So after I click a link, or any other element that should start the download - I add wait for the text to appear in the popup (it says "what do you want to do with the file" or similar).
      2. Then, knowing the popup is presented, I click "Save as" button
      3. Then you are presented with standard OS save as windows that you can spy on and capture all of the individual UI

So to wrap out - you don't need to use send keys for automating this in Edge, but is unnecessary complicated by Microsoft, by adding this popup.

For this exact reason, I switched from Edge to Chrome for my flows 😄

[sri24]

Send keys and click mouse fails in unattended mode to select the window.

So modified the chrome settings to avoid the "SAVE AS" dialogbox

[Neha2904]

Mine was not a "Save as" dialog but rather a print out dialog from VBA. But faced the same challenge and eventually had to save it in "Downloads" folder

[AnyOh]

This one really tested my patience. 

All on Edge.

Prep: ensure browser window state is maximized

1. To select "Save As", used 'Send mouse click' and navigated (x,y coordinates) to the button (instant movement with a 1 sec wait beforehand).

2. Used Focus text field in window to select Edit 'File name' (actually left all the Elements intact for this UI).

3. Send keys: ="insert file path here\"& varFilename

4. Wait 1 sec

5. Send keys (Send keys to: Foreground window): Text to send: {Enter} 

Real hack but works in attended mode. 😓 Shouldn't' be this hard.