The latest Feb 2022 update of Microsoft Power Automate for desktop has been released! Yes, in case you’ve missed the news, Power Automate Desktop has been rebranded as Power Automate for desktop. In addition, Power Automate is now built-in with Windows 11 which is generally available. Today, we are going to highlight some of these new features.
To check the software version that you have, go to the Console and click on Help, then About.
The version installed will be displayed as shown below. The latest available version (as of this writing) is 2.17.169.22042.
If you have an older version and would like to upgrade to the latest version to enjoy the new features, go to this link to download the software installer. For Windows 10 users, you can now also download the desktop app from the Microsoft Store.
Here are the Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop features in this February 2022 update:
- Flow monitoring notification window for attended desktop flow runs
- Performance enhancements in flow designer
- Display custom form action (Preview)
- Convert file to Base64 (and vice versa) actions – New!
- Extract tables from PDF action – New!
- New property for datatable variables
- Renaming input/output variables to existing names is now permitted
- Copy and paste a subflow into other desktop flows
- Auto clean-up of local actions log file
Flow monitoring notification window for attended desktop flow runs
When the attended desktop flow run is triggered from the console, there is now an option to display the built-in flow monitoring notification window.
With this notification window, you can:
- Pause or stop the desktop flow run;
- View the current status and duration of the desktop flow run, as well as the name of the desktop flow, the name of the current subflow, and the name and number of the current action; and
- Minimize or move the notification window around.
To turn on this notification window, go to Settings in the console. Under Monitoring / Notifications, select either Windows notifications or Flow monitoring window (recommended) and click the Save button.
Performance enhancements in flow designer
You would have noticed that the flow designer runs much faster in this release. That’s because of the multiple performance fixes deployed, specifically to improve the speed of:
- Adding, deleting, editing or moving an action inside the Main flow or any other subflows;
- Navigating from one subflow to another;
- Saving the desktop flow; and
- Enabling and disabling actions.
Display custom form action (Preview)
With the new Display custom form action, you can now create your own user dialog based on the Adaptive Cards technology. This action comes with a Custom form designer that is both intuitive and easy to use. By combining different input elements, controls and actions, the designer lets you create a custom data input window to be prompted to the user when the flow runs. In turn, this allows for a richer, more interactive experience with the user.
Convert file to Base64 (and vice versa) actions – New!
The new Convert file to Base64 action allows you to convert a file to a Base64 encoded string representation, which is often the format used for performing file transfer over the internet or when using API. Likewise, the Convert Base64 to file action converts the Base64 encoded string to a file which you can then save to the desired destination.
Extract tables from PDF action – New!
The new Extract tables from PDF action is a powerful new feature that allows you to easily extract structured data tables from a PDF document. You have the option to specify which page(s) you wish to perform the extraction, as well as the ability to merge tables that span across multiple pages.
The output of this action is a list variable containing all the extracted PDF tables.
New property for datatable variables
In every datatable variable, there is now a new property of datarow type called ColumnHeadersRow, which holds the column names of the said table. This will enable writing these column headers in a row (e.g. in Excel) in an easy and straightforward way.
Renaming input/output variables to existing names is now permitted
With this release, you can now create a new input/output variable using an existing flow variable name. Do note that doing so with merge the two variables into one.
Copy and paste a subflow into other desktop flows
You can now easily copy a subflow and paste it into any desktop flows.
Auto clean-up of local actions log file
The actions log file, which can be found in the user’s local app data folder (C:\Users\\AppData\ Local\Microsoft\Power Automate Desktop), will now be auto deleted upon the completion of a flow run. For users who prefer to keep these files, there is an option of setting a registry key that will disable this auto clean-up.
Conclusion
The enhancements are not stopping here. Based on the 2021 Release Wave 2 Plan for the Microsoft Power Platform (last updated on November 24, 2021), there are a number of exciting new capabilities in the roadmap, including:
- Automatically scale virtual machine deployments by leveraging Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) integration to run desktop flows
- Availability of Power Automate for desktop to users of the new Windows 11 by default
- Save an Excel workbook as XML (.xml) file
- Mark variables as sensitive in Power Automate for desktop to mask data
- Users with accounts belonging to multiple tenants can switch between tenants within the Power Automate for desktop application itself
- Highlighting syntax within the script editor in Power Automate for desktop designer
- Unified web and desktop recorder for recording both their web- and desktop-related activities during a single recording session
- Support UI automation in Citrix environments for better reliability and resilience
- Create custom dialog action in Power Automate for desktop
- Create data loss prevention policies to govern desktop flows
Now that you have learnt some of the new features and enhancements made in Feb 2022, why not download this latest version of Microsoft Power Automate for desktop and starting automating?
Learning Resources
https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-automate-for-desktop-february-2022-update/
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