Power Automate for desktop - Build 2207.1

This article describes the new features, improvements and fixes to existing functionality that are included in this build.

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Version 2.22.263.22202 updates

New Features

  • Now in preview, Power Automate for desktop supports UI automation for desktop apps in a Citrix or Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) virtual desktop with the use of a lightweight agent (Power Automate agent for virtual desktops). This enhances Power Automate’s capabilities, by allowing the user to create desktop flows that perform desktop UI automation related steps on a remote machine, applied to a desktop app that may be used therein.

  • Desktop flows in the console of Power Automate for desktop now come with the relevant flow details, which contain basic information like the description, the owner, the creation and last modification dates and the flow ID.

  • A new group of datatable dedicated actions is now available, allowing users to easily manipulate datatable variables and go through specific operations. The new actions are:

    • Create new data table
    • Insert row into data table
    • Find or replace in data table
    • Update data table item
    • Delete row from data table

Enhancements & Improvements

  • More built-in examples are now available in three new categories in the console:

    • Datetime handling
    • PDF automation
    • Text manipulation
  • Trying to save a desktop flow that is too large in size (usually because of the captured images that are contained therein) now produces a more graceful error.

  • The run ID parameter can now be added as an optional input parameter to a console run URL, to define a unique GUID for the desktop flow logs. Power Automate uses this GUID to create a folder and store the logs inside it.

  • Power Automate for desktop users can now prevent the local flow run details from getting cleaned up, via the proper registry setting.

  • Power Automate for desktop can now authenticate users through Web Account Manager (WAM), via the appropriate registry entry.

  • The summaries of multiple actions in quite a few different modules have been adjusted, so that they include all their produced variables to provide the proper visibility.

  • There have been some adjustments in the flow designer, which reduce the CPU usage while scrolling actions up or down.

  • The ‘Run delay’ value used in the flow designer is now persisted locally on the machine, per flow and per specific user, so that the value is remembered the next time the flow is edited.

  • When manually capturing UI elements using the Control key and the mouse left click, the right Ctrl key is now also supported.

Repaired Functionality

The following list details issues in Power Automate for desktop that are now resolved:

  • Renaming a UI element in the repository now always updates the name shown in the actions’ summaries that use that element. 

  • Editing an input variable and selecting the same data type from the dropdown menu now does not reset the existing default value.

  • Undoing the removal of a ‘Set variable’ action now respects the current variable sensitivity state in the summary, in case the variable exists through another action that produces it.

  • Input variables of custom object data type now support very large numbers as string values.

  • While editing a built-in example, using a ‘Run desktop flow’ action and selecting a flow with input parameters now properly fetches those parameters in the modal as expected.

  • The ‘Text editor’ toggle button is now checked and disabled for the selectors of recorded web elements, as they can’t be represented in the visual editor for the time being.

  • The UI elements (windows), captured with the actions ‘Resize window’ or ‘Move window’ via the desktop recorder, now come with a screenshot in the UI elements repository as expected.

  • Screenshots generated by the ‘Take screenshot’ actions in UI desktop and web automation are no longer affected by the display scale.

  • The ‘Launch Excel’ action now works as expected, when trying to open Excel files from Sharepoint, resolving the issue introduced in version 2.21.


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