The latest Apr 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 2.19.139.22098.
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.
Built-in examples of desktop flows
When you install Microsoft Power Automate for desktop, you will find an additional Examples tab in the console. There, you can explore some sample desktop flows across the categories of Excel, Web and Desktop automation.
For example, for Excel automation, there are several flows of varying levels of difficulties – beginner, intermediate and advanced. By exploring these sample flows, you can learn and understand how to perform various Excel actions, including launching excel and extracting a table, consolidating Excel reports and manipulating Excel using SQL.
Support for users belonging to more than one cloud or region
During the sign-in process, users belonging to more than one cloud or region is now able to select the region they want to connect to. To enable this, administrators will need to set the following registry key:
The supported values are:
- 0 – The user will have the option to select the region of their preference to connect to through an additional option in the sign in screen.
- 1 – The user will be automatically connected to the first available region they are registered to.
- 2 – The user will connect to the global public region.
- 3 – The user will connect to the US Government GCC region.
- 4 – The user will connect to the US Government GCC High region.
- 5 – The user will connect to the US Government DoD region.
- 6 – The user will connect to the China (operated by 21Vianet) region.
New action Hover mouse over UI element in window
The new action Hover mouse over UI element in window allows the user to move the mouse pointer over the specified UI element in a window, but without performing any mouse clicks. This action is very useful for accessing the additional interaction options that are only enabled when you hover over the UI element itself.
Enhancement of action Populate text field on web page to support physical keystrokes
The action Populate text field on web page is now enhanced with an additional Advanced parameter – Populate test using physical keystrokes. When enabled, Power Automate for desktop will populate the text field by imitating the user’s keystrokes on a keyboard instead of sending text using JavaScript. Enable this option if you find that using JavaScript does not produce the intended effects on the required fields. As an added benefit, this action will also bring the browser window to the foreground.
Improved Recorder performance
The Recorder performance has been enhanced by making the tracking of elements during the recording session faster and more accurate. However, do note that the Recorder no longer generates the action Drag and drop UI element in window (though you can still manually add this action to your flow after the recording.)
Conclusion
By the way, 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 Apr 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-april-2022-update/
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