We’ve heard from customers the importance of clearly understanding the health of their enterprise automations through detailed analytics and proactive recommendations. To support this need, there are updates to monitoring and analytics tools in Automation Center and Power Platform Admin Center:

• Monitor cross environments the health of automations in Power Platform Admin Center
• Operate and troubleshoot automations in Automation Center with the hierarchical run history view and copilot generally available
• Increased action log capacity and near-real-time logging for Desktop flows with logs V2
• New advanced desktop flow recommendations

Unveiling Public preview of monitoring Power Automate in Power Platform Admin Center 

Following up on the announcement made at Ignite for Power Apps monitoring in PPAC, we are excited to announce that Power Automate resources are now available in the Monitoring Hub in Public Preview.

The Monitoring Hub is an innovative experience that enables admins to observe and maintain optimal operations by managing changes to production environments, detecting and remediating incidents, and maintaining business continuity.

The Monitoring page brings attention to resources with degraded operational health and highlights which resources have opportunities for improvement.

Thanks to the new Power Automate view in Monitoring Hub, you can now track the success rate of your cloud and desktop flows, the machine wait time in queue of your desktop flows to monitor the scalability of the allocated machines, across environments. There are many more resource types and associated metrics to come in the future.

For automations running in a Managed Environment, contextual recommendations help you enhancing their health and efficiency. The recommendation can be shared in Teams with stakeholders who can then deep dive in Automation center to troubleshoot.

Run history in Automation Center is now generally available

Automation center is a central hub for efficient monitoring and troubleshooting experiences for automation processes across Power Automate at scale. The automation center provides comprehensive visualizations to monitor the health of the automations, quickly detect issues or trends, and troubleshoot problems more efficiently. 

Whether you’re a developer, operator, Center of Excellence team member, or business analyst, the automation center provides a centralized view of the activity of your automations within an environment. It features a user-friendly interface with dashboards that show the health status of flows and work queues, desktop flow activity and for Managed Environment recommendations.

We are excited to announce that the hierarchical flow runs view and copilot are now available in general availability. 

Hierarchical Flow runs view

The runs tab presents a consolidated view of cloud and desktop flow run data displayed in a hierarchical list view. You can easily see at a glance the status of all dependent runs whether they succeeded or failed.

Copilot automation insights

When you are looking for more detailed insights, you can use Copilot to analyze your automation activity. Copilot in Automation Center is able to answer questions about your cloud and desktop flow runs, work queue data and documentation (preview).

Desktop flow logs V2 with near-real-time logging is now generally available

Building on the strong foundations of Desktop flow logs V2, we are pleased to announce the general availability of near real-time logging of desktop flow action logs for logs V2 together with drastically increased action log capacity. This feature provides near-real-time log updates of cloud-initiated desktop flows, which is essential for monitoring long-running flows.

New advanced desktop flow recommendations

Orchestration-based recommendations for desktop flow runs (preview)

You can now receive orchestration-based recommendations when an unattended desktop flow run is queued but can’t start due to a locked or disconnected user session of the same user on the machine. 

The “Desktop flows not running” recommendation shows up in the Automation Center recommendation section. The recommendation provide the details of all the affected desktop flow runs, allowing you to take corrective actions within a 10-minute timeout window.

Repair with Copilot for unattended desktop flow runs (preview)

End of last year we’ve launched the public preview of Repair with Copilot that provides attended and unattended selector repair suggestions through Copilot. If you enabled repair at runtime for unattended runs in the Power Platform admin center, you receive repair requests directly under Recommendations within the Automation Center experience.

Once enabled at both the environment and flow level, you’ll receive recommendations when an unattended cloud flow-initiated desktop flow is at risk of failing due to an error with UI or browser automation actions. This could occur when the intended UI element for interaction cannot be located using one or more preconfigured selectors.

The post Enhanced enterprise automation observability appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Protect Identities and Secrets with credential management

1. Desktop flow connection credentials with Azure key vault and CyberArk secrets: Power Automate now supports storing connection credentials securely in Azure Key Vault (AKV) or CyberArk. This ensures that passwords are encrypted and managed securely, reducing the risk of unauthorized access. This feature includes support for automatic connection updates at runtime (like when a password rotation occurs).
2. Certificate-Based Authentication with MFA (Public preview): To further enhance security, Power Automate now supports certificate-based authentication in desktop flow connections. This passwordless solution adds an extra layer of security, meeting multi-factor authentication (MFA) requirements for attended as well as unattended scenarios. This feature is available from Power Automate for Desktop Build 2410.
3. Credentials for Desktop flow actions (Public preview): For desktop flows, Power Automate allows the use of credentials directly within flow actions. This ensures sensitive information is handled securely, not stored in scripts or logs, and accessible only to authorized users. This feature is available from Power Automate for Desktop Build 2411.

Protect Networks

• VNet support for Hosted machine groups (Public preview): the Power Automate hosted RPA solution provides a streamlined approach for setting up and scaling robotic process automation (RPA) to run RPA workloads running on virtual machines managed by Microsoft and hosted on Azure infrastructure. You can now connect your own Azure virtual network (VNet) to your hosted machine groups (Public preview) enabling:
  • Network isolated, private environments with customized network security measures, such as Network Security Groups and firewalls, to control and monitor traffic.
  • Integration with on-premises networks through VPN or ExpressRoute where access to on-premises resources is necessary for RPA workloads.

Please note that connecting your own Azure VNet with individual hosted machines is already a generally available (GA) capability.

• Network Level Authentication support on Microsoft Entra joined or hybrid devices (Public Preview)
  • Network Level Authentication (NLA) is a security measure that mandates user authentication prior to the establishment of a remote desktop connection. This feature assists organizations in mitigating the risk of unauthorized access by ensuring that only authenticated users can initiate a remote session, thereby protecting against vulnerabilities associated with the authentication process.
  • This feature is now supported when running unattended workload using a MS Entra ID account on a Microsoft Entra joined or hybrid device.

These new security features make Power Automate an even more robust tool for automating intelligent processes while maintaining a high level of security. By protecting identities and secrets, safeguarding networks, and monitoring for threats, organizations can confidently leverage Power Automate to drive efficiency with hypermation.

The post New Security Features for Desktop flows: Enhancing protection of identities, secrets and desktop infrastructure appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

These credentials can then be used in your desktop flow connections (instead of providing username and password values manually).

Key Features

Built-in credential manager: Centralized repository to manage all your credentials in one place, allowing you to easily manage and retrieve login information.

RBAC: Credentials can be shared and used without giving access to the secrets themselves.

ALM (application lifecycle management): Credentials are based on environment variables which are ALM compliant and can be exported using solutions.

Password rotation: Credentials and connections using them are updated when the Azure Key Vault secrets are updated.

Get started with credential management

Ready to create your first credentials and learn more about using them in desktop flow connections ?

Let’s get started today by visiting the Power Automate portal:

1. Select More in the left navigation pane, then select Discover all.
2. Under Data, select Credentials (preview). You can pin the page in the left navigation pane to make it more accessible.
3. Follow the steps described in our documentation !

The post Announcing Azure Key Vault credentials for desktop flow connections (preview) appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Desktop flow activity is the new area in Power Automate to monitor in real-time your desktop flows automations.

Three new pivots —  “Last runs”, “Machines” and “Current runs” — have been added these last weeks to get more control on your RPA automations and orchestration.

Last runs pivot: monitor your desktop flows runs

The Last runs section provides graphs and tables to get meaningful insights about your desktop flows runs, such as the number of runs, the percentage of errors, and the run modes.

From this pivot, you can filter the presented data by date, desktop flow, cloud flow, machine, run mode, run status, and error. Filtering enables you to focus on a specific range of data and handle them more efficiently.

Moreover, you can directly reach the desktop flows, machines and runs page from desktop flow activity to quickly fix issues you might have identified.

Machines pivot: monitor your machines and machine groups

You can use the Machines section to monitor your machines and machine groups. These pivot tables provide information about the number of machines, groups, connection status, Power Automate for desktop versions installed on machines, and lists of machines and machine groups.

Current runs: monitor your queued and running desktop flows

You can use the Current runs section to monitor active desktop flows runs. These pivot tables provide information about the number of running and queued desktop flows, and lists with the running and queued desktop flows.

Monitor your automations in Power BI desktop (preview)

Power Automate enables you to download a Power BI template to monitor desktop flow activity from the Power BI desktop application.

You can use this template to retrieve the data and charts displayed on the desktop flow activity page, such as last runs, main errors, and machine information.

Improved run details page for better troubleshooting

The run details page of a desktop flow has been significantly improved:

• Run details: in this card, you can retrieve all the details of this run (parent cloud flow, parent desktop flow, target machine, run mode, status, duraiton). You can reach the details of the parent flow or the machine directly from this card.
• Run status: this new timeline provides the different steps of a run (from request to end). It will help you to understand if the issue comes from your desktop flow script or during the machine assignement
• Action details: in the card, you can now retrive the action index used in Power Automate for desktop in each executed step. It will help you to easily identify the action that requires attention

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 for desktop, get started with the below resources:

• Learn more about Power Automate for desktop in our documentation
• Sign up for a free Power Automate trial
• Download Power Automate for desktop

The post Monitor your RPA automations with desktop flow activity (Generally Available) appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

This “desktop flow activity” section provides to RPA users dashboards, tables and graphs to better understand desktop flows usage, measure effectiveness and quick identify issues.

This feature is now available for all the users (not only admins) based on permissions they have on flows, machines.

Identify your main errors 

This first iteration provides the errors pivot:

• This pivot will help customers to quickly identify the most common errors you encounter during the execution of your flows.
• The goal of this pivot is to provide the information of desktop flows, cloud flows and machines that are impacted by these errors and allow customers to directly reach the different details pages to quickly understand issues.

Coming next

In the next weeks, we will add new pivots for desktop flow activity:

• Last runs pivot: this section will provide graphs and tables to get meaningful insights about your desktop flows runs (number of runs, % of errors, run modes, trends, etc..). CoEs will use this pivot to monitor their automations within one aggregated view
• Real-time pivot: this section will provide an realtime view of flows that are currently running and the ones that are queued
• Machines pivot: this section will provide you an overall view of your park of machines, understand utilization, identify machines who failed the most, machines that needs to be updated.

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:

• Learn more about Power Automate for desktop in our documentation
• Sign up for a free Power Automate trial
• Download Power Automate for desktop

The post Introducing desktop flow activity (preview) appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Today, we are launching a new machine-runtime app dedicated to manage your machine settings.

This new app provides you with many advantages:

• A clearer and easier user interface to register and manage your machine
• The capability to create your machine group directly from the machine-runtime app
• An independent app that redefines roles between the Power Automate Desktop app (for the creation and testing of your desktop flows) and the machine-runtime app (for machine configuration to trigger desktop flows through Power Automate). You can decide to install only one of these apps or both depending on your needs.
• A direct access to the troubleshoot tool (preview) to get your logs and change the user account your machine connectivity is running as.

Additional documentation is available here:  Manage machines.

To install the new machine-runtime app, you just need to download the latest version of Power Automate Desktop and select the install the machine-runtime option.

We hope 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:

• Learn more about Power Automate Desktop in our documentation
• Sign up for a free Power Automate trial
• Download Power Automate Desktop

The post Introducing Power Automate machine runtime appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

• Cancel UI flow runs that are in progress

UI Flows runs can now be cancelled when the parent Flow run is cancelled. This will allow you stop the run of a UI Flow if it’s stuck or if there are any issues with the preceding actions or conditions in the parent Flow.

Go to the specific Flow run you want to cancel and click on the Cancel button. If the UI Flow was running, it will get cancelled. This might take some time as there is logic that needs to be run to ensure that your session on the target machine is closed in a clean way. You can also use the Resubmit button on this page to re-run flows that did not succeed, including flows with UI flows.

• Add and edit Image Recognition actions that are part of a Remote Desktop or Citrix recording

Add and edit Image Recognition actions: Create a recording of a remote desktop. You can now open the details of a step after recording and edit the click location of the image recognition action, or click “Add an action” within a scope to manually add new actions to the scope. When adding an image recognition action, you’ll need to upload a .JPG screenshot and define the click coordinates for the action that will be used during playback.

• Native support for recording actions and data from SAP

Native support for recording actions and data from SAP: UI flows can now leverage SAPGUI scripting capabilities to automate SAP applications. Ensure you have SAP client 7.40 or higher installed on your machine. You also need to enable SAP client scripting. You can do so by clicking on SAP GUI Options and navigating to Accessibility & Scripting –> Scripting. Then under User Settings, check Enable scripting and uncheck all other sub-options.

Once SAPGUI scripting is enabled, simply launch the UI flow recorder, and record the steps you want to automate with SAP by performing keyboard inputs and mouse clicks on SAPGUI. If your UI flow script contains SAP actions, you will see two additional actions, SetProperty and CallMethod, added to your UI flow recording.

• Do Until feature to have more control over how UI flows execute.

In UI flows, users can add a Do Until action to configure repeating action(s). The feature requires a control condition that governs running the loops and configuration to define the maximum number of loops and runtime. Users can either click Add an action or drag and drop another action to add it into the Do Until loop.

We you hope you enjoy these updates! Please let us know your feedback and questions in  the Power Automate Community. If you’re new to UI flows, check out the below resources to help you get started:

• Watch a tutorial on UI flows
• Learn more about UI flows from the documentation
• Sign up for a free Power Automate trial

The post Power Automate UI Flows August 2020 update appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

We recently announced a new preview feature to record and play back automations on Remote Desktop sessions without the need to install additional software on the remote computer.

We are happy to announce that Citrix Workspace users can now test in Public Preview our new feature which will allow you to record and playback actions from your Citrix remote applications and desktop.

Since UI flows recorder cannot access the logical elements on Citrix during the recording, UI flows uses custom Azure AI technology (image recognition and text extraction from images using Tesseract OCR) to make automation possible.

To test this feature, you will need the following:

• Windows 10 or Window Server 2016 or 2019 machine
• The latest version of UI flows running on this machine
• Citrix Workspace 2002 or above

We are always working to improve the automation capabilities throughout Power Automate.

Please feel free to share your feedback and questions in the Power Automate Community using the “UI flows” label.

If you are new to UI flows or Power Automate, welcome!  Here are some resources to help you get started:

• Watch a tutorial on UI flows
• Learn more about UI flows from the documentation
• Use WinAutomation with UI flows
• Sign up for a free Power Automate trial

The post Automate Citrix remote apps and remote desktops with the July 2020 update to UI flows in Power Automate appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.