The latest Oct 2021 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 2.14.173.21294.
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.
Mark variables as sensitive
Within the Variables pane, users are now able to mark both input/output and flow variables as sensitive. To do so, simply hover over the variable and click on the ‘Mark as sensitive’ icon.
The values of sensitive variables will not be visible in the flow designer during debugging. Nor will the values be logged for desktop flows triggered by the Power Automate web portal or the console.
One usage of this new feature is when your desktop flow processes Personally Identifiable Information (PII) data, which you do not want to log for obviously reasons.
Apply Data loss prevention (DLP) policies to desktop flows
Power Automate administrators now have the ability to create and enforce DLP policies that:
- Classify action groups as business or non-business such that non-business actions cannot be combined with business actions within the same desktop flow, thus preventing data exposure outside the organization
- Mark individual actions or entire action groups as blocked so as to prevent their usage in desktop flows
Consequently, you will receive a notification about the DLP policy violations (if any) when you save a desktop flow, or if you attempt to run the desktop flow from the console or the designer.
Also, any desktop flow that violates the DLP policies will be marked as suspended with the run option disabled.
Details are sketchy at this point in time, but you find read more here.
Support for older versions of Internet Explorer
Browser automation actions are now able to support web automation with Internet Explorer v5 to v8 (in addition to v9 and above). This is great news for those working with legacy web applications that are only supported on these older versions of Internet Explorer.
However, do note that Internet Explorer v11 desktop application will end support for certain operating systems starting June 15, 2022. Microsoft recommends using Microsoft Edge as your default browser which is supported by Power Automate for desktop as well.
New feature to save Excel workbook as XML
The actions ‘Save Excel’ and ‘Close Excel’ now allows you to save your Excel workbook as XML file. To do so, select ‘XML Data (.xml)’ under the parameter ‘Document format’ and specify the name of the XML map to use for export under ‘XML map’.
Compatibility with older versions of Power Automate for desktop
Last but not least, do note that you will not be able to open or run the desktop flows (including past flows) created or saved in this new release using the earlier versions. In other words, forward compatibility of the older Power Automate for desktop versions is no longer supported.
Conclusion
By the way, the enhancements are not stopping here. Based on the 2021 Release Wave 2 Plan for the Microsoft Power Platform, there are a number of exciting new capabilities in the roadmap, including:
- Availability of Log message action in desktop flows, enabling users to log custom messages
- New integration module allowing users to work directly with the data stored in Microsoft Dataverse
- Create data loss prevention policies that govern desktop flows, as well as actions and modules in Power Automate Desktop
- Additional analytics capability in the form of admin reports for desktop flows across environments
- Improved and further integration of desktop flows into Dynamics 365 applications
- Availability of the 475+ API connectors as actions within desktop flows (currently only available in cloud flows)
Now that you have learnt some of the new features and enhancements made in Oct 2021, why not download this latest version of Microsoft Power Automate Desktop and starting automating?
Learning Resources
https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-automate-for-desktop-october-2021-update/
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