I think Power Automate Forgot Lefthanded Users Exist

Quick hot take today for something too long for a tweet but needs said: I think Microsoft Power Automate forgot left-handed users exist. Okay maybe that fits in a tweet, but hear me out.

I created a short Power Automate Desktop flow that performs some mouse-driven UI actions like clicking named controls on a web page. It works well, for right-handed users who happen to perform a typical click with the left button on their mouse. But this flow automation is shared by all members of our finance team and at least one of them is not such a user.

The problem is that the Power Automate low-code scripting tool allows for specifying the “click type”, but instead of a sensical option like primary or secondary click, it labels them as either left or right click (or double click, middle click, etc.)

This is unfortunate, because Windows allows for users to switch these buttons, and Power Automate flows do not account for this nor provide any way to detect the current users’ environment. Truthfully I shouldn’t need steps in my flow to detect the user’s hand-orientation preference, because it should just send a “primary click” without regard for whether it is left or right.

Because of this shortcoming, anytime the automation performs a “normal” left click on this individual’s computer, it actually opens a context menu and gets stuck.

Here’s hoping that Microsoft addresses this shortcoming in the future. For now, I have to maintain a left-handed version of the flow, built separately and tested, configured, and provisioned for a single person.