January 2024 update of Power Automate for desktop
We are happy to announce that the January 2024 update of Power Automate for desktop (version 2.40) has been released! You can download the latest release here.
Key features
New features and updates have been added, as described below.
Suggested actions are now available in preview
In addition to adding actions from the actions panel, you can now also use the suggested actions panel (in preview), which leverages AI to generate a list of actions that you could use as the next steps in your flow. This functionality is only available in US environments for work or school account users.
Power Automate leverages AI to suggest actions as potential next steps
Blank values have now been introduced
Blank values are now supported in Power Automate for desktop, in addition to empty text string values that were already available.
In addition, input variables can now be marked as optional, using the new toggle parameter called ‘Mark as optional’ that allows makers to assign them with a blank value.
Blank values and optional input variables are now supported
Power Automate for desktop now supports single sign-on
Power Automate for desktop now supports single sign-on, so that users can sign in faster with the account they used to sign in to their Windows session.
New actions
Multiple new actions under several groups are now ready to use out of the box.
New actions for Word have now been introduced
The following dedicated actions for Word are now available under the new respective group of actions, allowing you to perform certain activities out of the box:
- Launch Word
- Attach to running Word
- Save Word
- Close Word
- Read from Word document
- Write to Word document
- Insert image in Word document
- Find and replace words in Word document
New dedicated actions for Word now allow you to edit Word documents easily
A new work queue action has now been added
The action Update work queue item processing notes has now been introduced under the ‘Work queues’ group of actions, to enable the respective functionality in desktop flows.
HTML content can now be created via the respective new action
A new action called Create HTML content is now available under the ‘Text’ group of actions, enabling the creation of HTML content via the embedded editor.
The HTML editor allows you to create and preview HTML content at the same time
Attaching to an SAP instance is now possible
A new action called Attach is now available under the ‘SAP automation’ group of actions, allowing you to attach the running SAP GUI application to an SAP instance.
A new SharePoint operation is now available
A new operation called Create new document set is now available under the SharePoint cloud connector.
Get started
Hoping that you will find the above updates useful, please feel free to provide your questions and feedback in the Power Automate Community. If you want to learn more about Power Automate Desktop, get started with the below resources:
