Tag: Microsoft Power Automate 2023 Wave 2

This article is part of the Working with Power Automate Child Flows series and of the larger Working with Power Automate series I am writing on my experiences working with the Power Automate, which is part of the Power Platform from Microsoft. I also have a related series of articles on Power Automate with Microsoft Dynamics 365 BC.

I did some work creating a number of Power Automate flows for a colleague to use in a demo to a client. Part way through creating the flows, I started having problems with one of the flows which called a child flow; the parent failed every time it tried to call the child:

Continue reading “Working with Power Automate Child Flows: Error Encountered With Surprise Extra Parameters for a Child Flow”

This article is part of the Working with Power Automate Child Flows series and of the larger Working with Power Automate series I am writing on my experiences working with the Power Automate, which is part of the Power Platform from Microsoft. I also have a related series of articles on Power Automate with Microsoft Dynamics 365 BC.

If you create a child flow and call it from a parent, you may receive this error:

However, you will only be receiving the error if you have missed a step when creating the child flow; you need to change the run-only users setting, which I covered in this article.

This article is part of the Working with Power Automate Child Flows series and of the larger Working with Power Automate series I am writing on my experiences working with the Power Automate, which is part of the Power Platform from Microsoft. I also have a related series of articles on Power Automate with Microsoft Dynamics 365 BC.

With the child and parent flow examples created, they can now be tested. As the example parent flow, is an instant flow, to run the flow, go to the My flows page, select the parent flow in the list and click the button:

Continue reading “Working with Power Automate Child Flows: Test the Parent/Child Flow Examples”

This article is part of the Working with Power Automate Child Flows series and of the larger Working with Power Automate series I am writing on my experiences working with the Power Automate, which is part of the Power Platform from Microsoft. I also have a related series of articles on Power Automate with Microsoft Dynamics 365 BC.

With the child flow created and the run-only users setting changed, we can add the child flow to parent flows. In this article, I am going to create an example flow which prompts the user for a message which is passed into the child flow and then receives back and emails an output message from the child flow.

The parent calling a child flow, can be any type of flow, but for this example, I am creating an instant cloud flow. Do this by opening your solution and clicking New » Automation » Cloud flow » Instant:

Continue reading “Working with Power Automate Child Flows: Add a Child Flow To a Parent Flow”

This article is part of the Working with Power Automate Child Flows series and of the larger Working with Power Automate series I am writing on my experiences working with the Power Automate, which is part of the Power Platform from Microsoft. I also have a related series of articles on Power Automate with Microsoft Dynamics 365 BC.

After creating a child flow, there is one setting in the flow which needs to be set. This is to change the Run only users setting. Do this, by opening the flow to see the details and clicking the Edit button in the Run only users box in the lower right corner of the page:

Continue reading “Working with Power Automate Child Flows: Change Run Only Users For Child Flow”

This article is part of the Working with Power Automate Child Flows series and of the larger Working with Power Automate series I am writing on my experiences working with the Power Automate, which is part of the Power Platform from Microsoft. I also have a related series of articles on Power Automate with Microsoft Dynamics 365 BC.

Child flows in Power Automate are quite easy to create and there is actually very little difference between creating a child flow and a normal flow; the main difference is actually in the final step of the child flow. In this example, I’m going to create a simple child flow, including a step to send an email, just to show a complete flow.

Child flows are created as instant cloud flows. To create a child flow, open your solution and click New » Automation » Cloud flow » Instant:

Continue reading “Working with Power Automate Child Flows: Create a Child Flow”

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Power Automate 2023 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Power Automate 2023 Wave 2.

The 9th of the new functionality in the Desktop Flows section is edit variable values during debugging.

Debugging will become more powerful and flexible as users will be able to change at-will the value of a variable during debugging to test specific scenarios.

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

Feature Details

During debugging and while the flow is paused, or when the user runs a flow step-by-step, the variable viewer window will no longer be read-only as is the case today. Instead, the respective fields will be editable, so that the user can change the current values, in order to continue debugging the flow with the new values.

My Opinion

I’ve not done much with desktop flows, but this sounds like a good enhancement which could make scenarios better.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Power Automate 2023 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Power Automate 2023 Wave 2.

The 8th of the new functionality in the Desktop Flows section is connect your own virtual network with hosted machine group.

Users can run desktop flows using a hosted machine group connected to their own virtual network (VNet) in order to execute RPA jobs that require access to on-premises networks.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: Dec 2023
General Availability: Mar 2024

Feature Details

Users can now seamlessly integrate a hosted machine group (HMG) with their own VNet. This integration enables users to run desktop flows and execute RPA jobs that require access to on-premises networks. By leveraging their own VNet, users can ensure secure and reliable connectivity between the hosted machines and the on-premises networks.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Power Automate 2023 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Power Automate 2023 Wave 2.

The 7th of the new functionality in the Desktop Flows section is support scalar type variables when invoking from protocol handler in Power Automate for desktop.

Enable makers to trigger desktop flows through the Power Automate for desktop protocol handler URL silently, without the need to provide the input values through the Power Automate console.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: –
General Availability: Dec 2023

Feature Details

The protocol handler URL of Power Automate for desktop will support text/number/boolean input data types. Hence, users will no longer need to manually provide those values through the Power Automate console while triggering local attended desktop flows.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Power Automate 2023 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Power Automate 2023 Wave 2.

The 6th of the new functionality in the Desktop Flows section is use SAP-dedicated actions in desktop flows.

SAP UI elements tend to have dynamic properties, making UI automation difficult to achieve. So, the introduction of SAP-dedicated actions aims to create a smoother maker experience and result in a more accurate attended/unattended runtime.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: –
General Availability: Nov 2023

Feature Details

There are two ways to integrate with SAP: using the SAP UI or using the RFC APIs. Microsoft have recently made improvements to make working with the RFC APIs easier from cloud flows. Now, Power Automate for desktop is introducing dedicated SAP UI actions, simplifying the authoring process for makers and helping create more robust SAP desktop automations.