Month: January 2024

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Power Automate 2024 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Power Automate 2024 Wave 1.

The 3rd of the new functionality in the Desktop Flows section is use Power Platform connectors in Power Automate for desktop actions.

Using Power Platform connectors directly in Power Automate for desktop actions will reduce logical loops and minimize time to create flows.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: Apr 2024
Early Access: –
General Availability: Jun 2024

Feature Details

As a maker, you’re now able to use more than 1,000 cloud connectors, currently available in cloud flows, straight through desktop flows. This feature helps reduce logical loops and minimize flow creation time. It also helps ensure all actions capabilities are available through desktop flows for the Power Platform connectors.

My Opinion

I’ve been meaning to take more of a look at desktop flows for a while now, but haven’t had the time. I was aware that you could call cloud flows from a desktop flow, but this enhancement will allow you to use cloud connectors directly from the desktop flow, which seems like a useful enhancement.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Power Automate 2024 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Power Automate 2024 Wave 1.

The 2nd of the new functionality in the Desktop Flows section is Power Fx integration with Power Automate for desktop.

You can now create automation flows through scripting using Power Fx. Power Fx enables the full spectrum of development from no-code makers without any programming knowledge to pro-code for the professional developers. It enables diverse teams to collaborate and save time and effort.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview:  Dec 18, 2023
Early Access: –
General Availability: Sep 2024

Feature Details

Power Fx is the low-code language for expressing logic across Microsoft Power Platform. It’s a general-purpose, strong-typed, declarative, and functional programming language. Power Fx is expressed in human-friendly text. It’s a low-code language that makers can work with directly in an Excel-like formula bar or Visual Studio Code text window. The “low” in low-code is due to the concise and simple nature of the language, making common programming tasks easy for both makers and developers.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Power Automate 2024 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Power Automate 2024 Wave 1.

The 1st of the new functionality in the Desktop Flows section is set up fallback UI automation mechanism.

This feature provides a reliable solution for UI and browser automation actions. With this feature, users can set up a fallback mechanism for UI automation actions in case the UI element cannot be found through the set selector(s). This mechanism can fall back to image recognition or other techniques as screen understanding. By implementing this feature, businesses can improve their automation processes and reduce the risk of errors and delays caused by missing UI elements. This feature can save businesses time and money, and ultimately improve the overall efficiency of their operations.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: –
Early Access: –
General Availability: Jul 2024

Feature Details

The fallback automation mechanism feature provides a reliable solution for UI and browser automation actions. Users can set up a fallback mechanism for UI automation actions in case the UI element cannot be found through the set selector(s). This mechanism can fall back to image recognition or other techniques as screen understanding. To enable the feature, users should do it either on action level or flow level. From the respective setting, they can enable the feature and set up their preferred fallback options. This feature is designed to improve the efficiency and accuracy of automation processes and offers a reliable and flexible solution for UI and web automation, helping businesses to streamline their operations and improve their bottom line.

My Opinion

This sounds like it could be useful for making sure that automation of processes doesn’t fail unnecessarily.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Power Automate 2024 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Power Automate 2024 Wave 1.

The 1st of the new functionality in the Copilot for Power Automate section is get quick insights and recommendations in Copilot for Process Mining.

Copilot for Power Automate Process Mining can democratize process and task mining for business users and process mining experts by arming them with insights into their processes and guiding them to solutions using generative AI where available.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: –
Early Access:  Aug 22, 2023
General Availability: Apr 2024

Feature Details

With Copilot for Power Automate Process Mining, users can:

1. Discover processes in event logs.
2. Uncover top insights about a process, including details on durations of steps in the process, steps requiring rework, bottlenecks, and more.
3. Get recommendations on automations and solutions to eliminate inefficiencies in the process.

My Opinion

This appears to allow users to use Copilot to get more detail son flows and how efficiently they are running. It’ll be interesting to see how useful it proves to be.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Power Automate 2024 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Power Automate 2024 Wave 1.

The 2nd of the new functionality in the Cloud Flows section is be more productive with Power Automate and Excel desktop.

The new Automate work button in Excel Online makes it easier than ever to automate tasks and run processes from Excel running on Windows desktop and Mac devices. This allows users to automate repetitive tasks, reduce errors, and boost productivity with just a few clicks, all without leaving Excel.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: Apr 2024
Early Access: –
General Availability: To be announced

Feature Details

This feature provides access to prebuilt templates and allows users to build workflows quickly and easily using a native automation capability in Excel desktop on Windows and Mac. An example of the template includes “Monitor incoming emails to an alias in an Excel worksheet” that businesses can use to keep track of customer feedback in Excel. This makes it easy to respond to customers’ needs and improves satisfaction.

This capability supersedes the Automate a Task capability by introducing an integrated experience in Excel. These capabilities are different from the flow add-in.

My Opinion

I really need to see this one in action to form an opinion.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Power Automate 2024 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Power Automate 2024 Wave 1.

The 1st of the new functionality in the Cloud Flows section is receive intelligent license recommendations for admins.

This feature simplifies the license assignment process for admins and enables a governed self-serve mechanism for premium features access. Admins don’t always know who needs a license and why. They need to understand which users are using Power Automate and require a premium license. They can rely on Power Automate intelligent license recommendations to provide them with a list of users who will benefit from having a premium license.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: Apr 2024
Early Access: –
General Availability: –

Feature Details

Admins can:

1. Receive intelligent license recommendations with a list of users based on:
   • License requested by users
   • Trial users
   • Seeded users without premium license
   • Active users without premium license
2. Automatically assign licenses to the selected users directly or through a security group

My Opinion

I’m not generally involved in the licencing aspect of things, nut this sounds like it could be useful, as Microsoft licensing is notorious for being overly complex.