Updates

Latest updates on Microsoft Power Automate for desktop – Aug 2022

parent 1 / admin / August 31, 2022 / Updates

Latest updates on Microsoft Power Automate for desktop – Aug 2022

The latest Aug 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 2.23.

Graphical user interface, text, application Description automatically generated

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.

New action Resize columns/rows in Excel worksheet

The new action “Resize columns/rows in Excel worksheet” allows you to automatically resize any rows or columns in Excel. This action is especially useful if you are writing data to the Excel file as it allows you to automate the formatting of the file and thereby enhance its readability.

Resize columns/rows in Excel worksheet

Under “Resize target” option, you can choose if you want to size the rows or columns. The option “Selection range” allows you to specify whether you want to select a specific row/column, a range of rows/columns or all available rows/columns. Finally, under “Resize type”, you can choose between autofit or specify a custom width.

New action Crop text

The new action “Crop text” enables you to easily extract the portion of the text that occurs before the end flag, after the start flag, or between two flags from the original text variable. The flag in this case can be any character or text. Previously, to achieve the same results, you have to reply on other actions like “Parse text” or using regular expressions.

Crop text

New SharePoint connector actions

Users of SharePoint would be happy to know that the following SharePoint connectors actions are now available in preview inside Power Automate for desktop:

Update file
Delete file
Get file content using path
Create file
List folder
Get file metadata using path
Get folder metadata using path

This means that you are now able to automate SharePoint tasks natively using desktop flows. Previously, the SharePoint connectors are only available in cloud flows. As a result, one has to often toggle between cloud and desktop flows in order to automate a business process that requires both API and UI integration.

And the good news doesn’t stop here. According to Microsoft, more cloud connectors will be gradually introduce to the Power Automate for desktop environment, enabling you to automate more use cases faster and more easily.

Do note that you will require an Attended RPA license to access the SharePoint actions during the preview.

Conclusion

By the way, the enhancements are not stopping here. Based on the 2022 Release Wave 2 Plan for the Microsoft Power Platform (last updated on August 23, 2022), there are a number of exciting new capabilities in the roadmap, including:

Enroll hosted machines in Intune
Run hosted RPA bots
Set a selector based on text and use of operators
Use desktop flow signing
Enable minimal flow log details
More resilient UI automation in Citrix environments
Use credentials from Azure Key Vault in desktop flow connections
Improved runtime error messages for UI, Web, Excel, and mouse and keyboard actions
Troubleshooter for connectivity issues in Power Automate for desktop
View desktop flow properties in Power Automate for desktop console
Generate reliable selectors of UI elements
Share flows from within Power Automate for desktop
Use web automation to access cross-domain iFrames
Use SharePoint Connector in Power Automate for desktop

Now that you have learnt some of the new features and enhancements made in Aug 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-august-2022-update/

Previous Updates

Latest updates on Microsoft Power Automate for desktop – Aug 2022 Read More »

Latest updates on Microsoft Power Automate for desktop – May 2022

parent 1 / admin / June 19, 2022 / Updates

The latest May 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.

Checking for Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop version

The version installed will be displayed as shown below. The latest available version (as of this writing) is 2.20.132.22123.

The Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop version running currently

Action Click link on web page is enhanced to support all click types

The action Click link on web page is now enhanced with an additional parameter Click type. With this option, all types of mouse clicks are now supported.

Action Click link on web page is enhanced to support all click types

Do note that it is recommended to enable the Send physical click option (found under Advanced) for all click types except left click.

Send physical click when clicking link on web page

Enhancement of browser automation actions to support a timeout value

A new parameter Wait for page to load has been added to some browser automation actions, including Focus text field on web page, Populate text field on web page, Set check box state on web page, Select radio button on web page, Set drop-down list value on web page and Press button on web page.

Enhancement of browser automation actions to support a timeout value

When enabled, user can specify the timeout value in the parameter Timeout on webpage load. The default value for this is 60 seconds.

Action Extract text from PDF is enhanced to support structured data

A new parameter Optimize for structured data has been added to the action Extract text from PDF. When enabled, Microsoft Power Automate for desktop will detect the formatted layout in the PDF document and extract the text accordingly, all the while maintaining the structure of the tabular data.

Action Extract text from PDF is enhanced to support structured data

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 May 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-may-2022-update

Previous Updates

Latest updates on Microsoft Power Automate for desktop – May 2022 Read More »

Latest updates on Microsoft Power Automate for desktop – Apr 2022

parent 1 / admin / June 19, 2022 / Updates

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.

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

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/

Previous Updates

Latest updates on Microsoft Power Automate for desktop – Apr 2022 Read More »

Latest updates on Microsoft Power Automate for desktop – Mar 2022

parent 1 / admin / April 8, 2022 / Updates

The latest Mar 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.

Here are the new features we’ll be covering:

Enhanced Extract data from web page action to support extracting large datasets
Enhanced Click link on web page action to support physical movement of the mouse cursor
Support of Internet Explorer mode in Microsoft Edge browser
User notification when trying to interact with applications that are running with elevated rights
Automated updates of Java automation files

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 2.18.146.22083.

Enhanced Extract data from web page action to support extracting large datasets

The Extract data from web page action has been enhanced to better support the extraction of large datasets. 2 new parameters have been added:

Process data upon extraction – Specifies whether to process the extracted data to present them exactly as displayed on the web page. Examples of data processing include displaying information nested in HTML iframes and filtering through hidden or visible elements. For large datasets, it is not recommended to enable this option due to the extended extraction time.
Timeout – Specifies the time in second to wait for the action to complete before it fails.

Enhanced Click link on web page action to support physical movement of the mouse cursor

A new parameter has been added to the Click link on web page action called Send physical click. When enabled, the web browser instance will be brought to the foreground, and the mouse cursor will move physically over the UI element before performing the click. Try enabling this option in cases where you find the emulated click not working as intended.

Support of Internet Explorer mode in Microsoft Edge browser

As some of you might be aware, Internet Explorer 11 is reaching End of Life on Jun 15, 2022. However, for legacy websites that still requires the Internet Explorer for backward compatibility, Microsoft Edge actually supports the IE mode which allows you to load websites in Internet Explorer mode while using the Edge browser.

And with this latest release of the Microsoft Power Automate for desktop, you can now perform web automation actions of web pages that are opened in IE mode.

User notification when trying to interact with applications that are running with elevated rights

Power Automate for desktop will not be able to interact with applications that are being run as administrator unless it is also being run with elevated rights. When this scenario arises, users will now be informed that the UI elements cannot be accessed, and that the recommended action is to restart Power Automate for desktop as an administrator.

Automated updates of Java automation files

A new service has been added which will automatically check the machine’s Java installation folders and ensures all the necessary Java automation files have been installed. Hence, users will no longer need to manually update these Java files.

Conclusion

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 Mar 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-march-2022-update/

Previous Updates

Latest updates on Microsoft Power Automate for desktop – Mar 2022 Read More »

Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop Feb 2022 update

Latest Update on Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop – February 2022

parent 1 / admin / March 3, 2022 / Updates

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.

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/

Previous Updates

Latest Update on Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop – February 2022 Read More »

Latest Updates on Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop – January 2022

Latest Updates on Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop – Jan 2022

parent 1 / admin / January 31, 2022 / Updates

Happy New Year everyone!

The latest Jan 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 2.16.215.22020.

Nesting of multiple Excel instances under a single Excel process

Previously, in the Launch Excel action, each Excel instance can only be launched under an isolated Excel process, thus limiting the add-ins and macros which are accessible.

In this latest release, users are now able to nest multiple Excel instances under a single Excel process, as well as to load the accompanying add-ins and macros. In this way, these nested Excel instances will be able to reference other add-ins and macros which are previously not available.

Conclusion

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 Jan 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-january-2022-update/

Previous Updates

Latest Updates on Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop – Jan 2022 Read More »

Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated

Latest Updates on Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop: Dec 2021

parent 1 / admin / December 27, 2021 / Updates

The latest Dec 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 2.15.282.21349.

Here are the changes in this Power Automate for desktop December 2021 update:

Unified web and desktop recorder
Switch organization from the Power Automate for desktop console
Create a copy of desktop flow through the Power Automate for desktop console
New action Recognize entities in text that performs entity extraction
Syntax highlighting in script editors
New functionality to capture logical errors for the action On block error
Save Excel workbook in the binary format
New functionality to select Window or UI element for the action Send keys
New Windows OCR engine type

Unified web and desktop recorder

The web recorder and desktop recorder are unified into a single recorder. With this unified recorder, you can now enjoy the convenience of recording both web- and desktop-related actions at one go.

Switch organization from the Power Automate for desktop console

You are now able to easily switch between different tenants within the same organization or across different ones using the tenant picker feature in console.

Create a copy of desktop flow through the Power Automate for desktop console

The Power Automate for desktop console has been enhanced to allow you to create a copy of an existing desktop flow directly. To do so, click on the More actions icon besides the desktop flow which you would like to replicate, then selecting the option Create a copy.

Rename the new desktop flow as desired and click on the Save button.

New action Recognize entities in text that performs entity extraction

The new action Recognize entities in text can be used to recognize entities from an input text that is expressed in natural language. Currently, 14 different languages are supported, namely English, Chinese (Simplified), Spanish, Spanish (Mexico), Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Korean, Swedish, Turkish and Hindi.

The support entity types include date time, dimension, temperature, currency, number range, number, ordinal, percentage, phone number, email, IP address, mention, hashtag, URL, GUID and quoted text. The extracted entities are saved in a datatable variable containing 2 columns – value and original text.

Syntax highlighting in script editors

All the script editors have been enhanced to support syntax highlighting, thus making it easier to read and maintain scripts. This enhancement applies to the following actions:

Run VBScript
Run PowerShell script
Execute SQL statement
Run JavaScript
Run Python script
Run JavaScript function on web page

New functionality to clear last error for action Get last error

There is a new parameter Clear error in the action Get last error. When enabled, the error value stored in memory will be cleared once it has been assigned to the variable. When this action is called again, it will now return a No error message instead of the previous error (assuming no new error).

New functionality to capture logical errors for the action On block error

Unexpected logical errors like division by zero or index out of bounds can now be handled by the action On block error. This comes in handy during exception handling, especially for business exceptions which often give rise to such logical errors in the first place.

Save Excel workbook in the binary format

The actions Save Excel and Close Excel have been enhanced to support saving of an Excel workbook in the binary format (.xlsb). For the uninitiated, the Excel Binary Workbook file (XLSB file) stores information in the binary format. Besides having a considerably smaller file size, the XLSB files can be read from and written to much faster than the other common Excel file formats.

New functionality to select Window or UI element for the action Send keys

The action Send keys now provides you the option to select which Window or UI element you wish to send the keystrokes to, even if that Window or UI element is not in the foreground. Previously, this action can only send the keystrokes to the application that is currently active.

New Windows OCR engine type

You can now specify the Windows OCR engine for all the OCR-related actions, in addition to the existing Tesseract engine. The affected actions include:

If text on screen (OCR)
Wait for text on screen (OCR)
Move mouse to text on screen (OCR)
Extract text with OCR

You may want to use the Windows OCR engine as it is a more efficient and faster engine, in addition to supporting 25 different languages.

Conclusion

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 Dec 2021, 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-december-2021-update/

Previous Updates

Latest Updates on Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop: Dec 2021 Read More »

A screenshot of a computer Description automatically generated with low confidence

Latest Updates on Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop – October 2021

parent 1 / admin / October 28, 2021 / Updates

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/

Previous Updates

Latest Updates on Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop – October 2021 Read More »

Microsoft Power Automate Desktop September 2021 Update

Latest Updates on Microsoft Power Automate Desktop – September 2021

parent 1 / admin / September 23, 2021 / Updates

The latest Sep 2021 update of Microsoft Power Automate Desktop has been released! 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 2.13.138.21255.

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.

New getting started experience

There is now a new in-product guided walkthrough experience which you can access by selecting the Help menu, followed by Getting started. This quick product tour helps new users to get familiar with Power Automate Desktop and its core features.

Here’s what it looks like:

New Invoke SOAP web service action

This new action invokes a method from a SOAP web service.

It also includes a built-in helper window (which you can access by clicking on the Build request button) that lets you build the SOAP request envelope in a convenient manner.

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 Sep 2021, why not download this latest version of Microsoft Power Automate Desktop and starting automating?

If you’re interested, you can also check out previous Microsoft Power Automate Desktop updates:

Learning Resources

https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-automate-desktop-september-2021-update/

Latest Updates on Microsoft Power Automate Desktop – September 2021 Read More »

Latest updates on Microsoft Power Automate Desktop – August 2021

parent 1 / admin / August 23, 2021 / Updates

The latest Aug 2021 update of Microsoft Power Automate Desktop has been released! 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 2.12.171.21216.

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.

In this article, we will go through 7 changes that comes with this latest version of Microsoft Power Automate Desktop.

Enhanced connectivity error messages in Console and Designer
New Excel action – ‘Get active cell in Excel worksheet’
New Excel action – ‘Get column name in Excel worksheet’
New Excel action – ‘Delete from Excel worksheet’
New Excel action – ‘Find and replace cells in Excel worksheet’
Enhancement of ‘Read from Excel worksheet’ action
Enhancement of ‘Set screen resolution’ action

Enhanced connectivity error messages in Console and Designer

Frustrated when you encounter a connectivity error and you are not quite sure how to troubleshoot? We’ve got good news for you.

The connectivity error messages in both the Console and Designer has been enhanced to provide more descriptive text to allow you to understand what went wrong, as well as the potential remediation steps which you can take to rectify the errors.

Examples of such connectivity errors include licensing, environments, software updates, sign-in issues and problems fetching or saving a flow.

New Excel action – ‘Get active cell in Excel worksheet’

This action retrieves the active cell in the active worksheet of the Excel document. It accepts an Excel instance as input variable (which is created when you use the Launch Excel action), and produces 2 output variables – the numerical value of the active cell’s row and column.

New Excel action – ‘Get column name in Excel worksheet’

This action accepts the column number as an input and returns the corresponding column name. For example, specifying column numbers 1 and 2 will return the column names “A” and “B” respectively.

(Not quite sure what is the utility of this action. If you have any insights, do let us know in the comments below.)

New Excel action – ‘Delete from Excel worksheet’

This action allows you to delete either a cell or a range of cells from the active worksheet of the Excel document. It accepts an Excel instance as input variable (which is created when you use the Launch Excel action).

If you are deleting from a single cell, you will need to specify the cell row and column, as well as the shift direction of the neighbouring cells, i.e. left or up.

If you are deleting from a range of cells, you will need to specify the starting row and column, the ending row and column, as well as the shift direction of the neighbouring cells, i.e. left or up.

Do note that you can specify the column using either a number or a letter (unlike row, which must be a number).

New Excel action – ‘Find and replace cells in Excel worksheet’

This action finds the specified text and (optionally) replaces it with another text in the active worksheet of the Excel document. This is similar to the Find and Replace function (or Control-F using hotkeys) in Excel.

For this action, there are a few options for you to specify, including the search mode (i.e. find or replace), whether to find/replace all matches, whether the match should be case-sensitive, whether to match the entire cell contents and whether to search by rows or columns.

Also, if you are finding/replacing the first matching cell only, the action returns the row and column index of the matching cell as output variables. On the other hand, if you are finding/replacing all matches, the output variable will be a list of all cells that matches the criteria.

Enhancement of ‘Read from Excel worksheet’ action

The Read from Excel worksheet action has been improved to allow you to retrieve data from the entire worksheet. Previously, you can only retrieve data from a single cell, a range of cells or the selected cells.

Enhancement of ‘Set screen resolution’ action

The Set screen resolution action now provides you with the option to select one of the available resolutions of your machine’s monitors. Doing so will automatically populate all the required resolution settings below.

Conclusion

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 Aug 2021, why not download this latest version of Microsoft Power Automate Desktop and starting automating?

If you’re interested, you can also check out previous Microsoft Power Automate Desktop updates: Jul 2021, June 2021, May 2021, April 2021

Latest updates on Microsoft Power Automate Desktop – August 2021 Read More »

Latest updates on Microsoft Power Automate for desktop – Aug 2022

New action Resize columns/rows in Excel worksheet

New action Crop text

New SharePoint connector actions

Conclusion

Action Click link on web page is enhanced to support all click types

Enhancement of browser automation actions to support a timeout value

Action Extract text from PDF is enhanced to support structured data

Conclusion

Built-in examples of desktop flows

Support for users belonging to more than one cloud or region

New action Hover mouse over UI element in window

Enhancement of action Populate text field on web page to support physical keystrokes

Improved Recorder performance

Conclusion

Enhanced Extract data from web page action to support extracting large datasets

Enhanced Click link on web page action to support physical movement of the mouse cursor

Support of Internet Explorer mode in Microsoft Edge browser

User notification when trying to interact with applications that are running with elevated rights

Automated updates of Java automation files

Conclusion

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

Conclusion

Nesting of multiple Excel instances under a single Excel process

Conclusion

Unified web and desktop recorder

Switch organization from the Power Automate for desktop console

Create a copy of desktop flow through the Power Automate for desktop console

New action Recognize entities in text that performs entity extraction

Syntax highlighting in script editors

New functionality to clear last error for action Get last error

New functionality to capture logical errors for the action On block error

Save Excel workbook in the binary format

New functionality to select Window or UI element for the action Send keys

New Windows OCR engine type

Conclusion

Mark variables as sensitive

Apply Data loss prevention (DLP) policies to desktop flows

Support for older versions of Internet Explorer

New feature to save Excel workbook as XML

Compatibility with older versions of Power Automate for desktop

Conclusion

New getting started experience

New Invoke SOAP web service action

Conclusion

Table of contents

Enhanced connectivity error messages in Console and Designer

New Excel action – ‘Get active cell in Excel worksheet’

New Excel action – ‘Get column name in Excel worksheet’

New Excel action – ‘Delete from Excel worksheet’

New Excel action – ‘Find and replace cells in Excel worksheet’

Enhancement of ‘Read from Excel worksheet’ action

Enhancement of ‘Set screen resolution’ action

Conclusion