23 new features recently released to market
Power Automate 2025 release wave 1
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Business Value
You don't risk losing your changes when you have flow errors or during an outage. This saves you time, in that you don't need to re-create your work that would previously be lost during an outage. It saves your organization money because it can allocate its resources to fixing outages, rather than taking time away from flow makers.
Feature Details
The new designer automatically saves a copy of the flow to browser storage upon a failed save, even with errors. This capability comes in handy on two occasions: 1) When the underlying service is going through an outage and when makers need to avoid losing their unsaved changes by exiting out of their flows, and 2) For non-solution flows, which lack the 'Save draft' functionality, you can exit out of your flow with errors and come back at a later time to fix the errors and save the flow.
An information banner appears on the designer notifying you when the designer is able to save the flow copy to the browser's storage. You can now exit your flow.
Upon revisiting the flow on the designer, the previously saved version loads on the designer by default. The unsaved copy is recoverable through the 'Recover' button on the info banner.
You can now fix errors on this copy of the flow. If you don't save this copy, the previously saved version of the flow is still accessible upon reloading the tab. However, saving this copy overrides the previously saved version of the flow. It also clears the browser storage, as there are no unsaved changes to the flow.
Enabled for:
Business Value
Business Value
Makers can search for and select from connectors action in cloud flows quickly and more efficiently.
Feature Details
When you select the plus sign (+) for an action in the designer, the action pane opens. The action pane lets you search and browse for connectors and actions. Today, it's difficult to find the connector makers want, as there's no way to access favorite or highly frequently used connectors, or most common built-in tools of a flow. With this change, makers can favorite any connector or action so they show up in the Add an action pane by default under the Favorites section. They can quickly access AI capabilities in the product under the AI capabilities section, and they can quickly leverage building blocks or built-in tools like Control, Data operation, JSON, and more, under the Builtin tools section.
This improvement to the Browse connectors action pane in cloud flows makes it more accessible and efficient to makers while adding artifacts to their flow.
Enabled for:
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| General availability date moved to Mar 2025 | Dec 06, 2024 |
Business Value
This feature visualizes end-to-end process dependencies, reduces troubleshooting time, and simplifies navigation through automation logs and connections. This leads to quicker issue resolution and improves operational efficiency.
Feature Details
View and manage all flow dependencies involved in your multi-flow process. Parent/child flows, desktop flows, and work queues are visualized through the process map management experience.
End-to-end observability through a process-centric view of all automation logs allows you to do the following:
- Easily perform impact analysis of failing sub-flows.
- Efficiently navigate between flow run logs, credentials, and connections.
Enabled for:
- The author created this article with assistance from AI. Learn more
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| Public preview date moved to Mar 2025 General availability date moved to Jun 2025 | Mar 31, 2025 |
Business Value
You can create, edit, and fix your Power Automate expressions by expressing your requirements in natural language. You can save a lot of time building expressions manually by invoking Copilot through this feature.
Feature Details
Prior to this feature, you needed to write complex expressions in your cloud flows in Power Automate to process data, do conversions, manipulation, or comparison. With this feature, you can create complex expressions or edit your existing expressions simply by submitting natural language prompts to Copilot in Power Automate.
You need Copilot access in your tenant to use this feature. Turning off Copilot turns off this feature, too.
Enabled for:
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| Public preview date moved to Aug 2024 General availability date moved to Sep 2024 |
May 17, 2024 |
Business Value
You can now create a flow description by the press of a button without having to open the flow and read the actions inside it.
Feature Details
To do so from Power Automate for desktop, open the console, navigate to the My flows tab, and locate the flow that you want to create a description. Then, go to flow properties and under the general flow properties tab, press the Let Copilot create description button. Copilot will then analyze your flow and generate the flow description.
You can also generate a flow description from the portal. To do so, locate the desktop flow that you want to create the description for and press on the details item from the flow menu. Then, press on the edit button in the details section of the flow and finally select the Let Copilot create description button.
Enabled for:
Business Value
Business Value
A new AI-powered suggestion feature in Power Automate for desktop provides you with the next best action for your workflow creation, by constantly analyzing your workflow and suggesting the most appropriate action. By leveraging this feature, you can automate repetitive tasks quicker and more efficiently, thus freeing up time to focus on higher valued work.
Feature Details
The next best action suggestion feature has been designed to streamline the automation process, making it easier for you to create and automate workflows without requiring extensive flow creation knowledge.
With this new addition, you will be able to create more complex workflows with ease. The feature will suggest the next action that makes sense based on the context of the current workflow and the actions that have already been added.
Enabled for:
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| General availability date moved to Mar 2025 | Oct 30, 2024 |
Business Value
Copilot provides you with the ability to ask product related questions using natural language and receive prompt, precise answers, eliminating the need for time-consuming searches and waiting for support responses. This feature increases your productivity and allows you to have uninterrupted focus while developing your flows.
Feature Details
With Copilot's generative answers functionality, you can easily find the information you need to create and manage your flows and any other aspect of Power Automate for desktop. The generative answers are integrated into the Power Automate for desktop UI in both the console and the designer, making it easy to access and use. Just type your question in natural language, and Copilot provides you with the most relevant information from our documentation. To use it, select the copilot icon in the console or designer UI and start getting answers to your questions.
Enabled for:
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| General availability date moved to Mar 2025 | Jan 07, 2025 |
Business Value
You can enhance efficiency and save valuable time and resources by using natural language and AI to generate the code in the scripting actions in Power Automate for desktop. This added capability allows you to describe your desired scripts and have AI automatically generate the necessary code for you. By doing so, you can streamline your flows automation and reduce the time and the effort required to write code for simple tasks, such as running PowerShell, VB, CMD scripts or executing SQL statements.
Feature Details
Natural language to Code is a new AI capability that we are adding in Power Automate for desktop that allows you to quickly generate code that is used in the scripting actions by just describing it. This feature is available in the "Run PowerShell," "Run VBScript," "Run DOS command," "Run Python," and "Run JavaScript" actions. You can simply describe what you want to achieve, and the tool will generate the script for you. This feature makes it easy for users who are not familiar with scripting languages to automate their tasks.
Enabled for:
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| General availability date moved to Mar 2025 | Dec 16, 2024 |
Business Value
Improve your monitoring story by simply asking the copilot in natural language about past flow runs, machines and other related data. This feature will provide advanced operational visibility, without the need to build and deploy custom reports with a predefined set of queries and reports. The copilot may derive insights you wouldn't have uncovered otherwise.
Feature Details
Administrators, CoE teams, business users and makers with access to flow run histories can query past runs in natural language across their environment. They can ask, for example, how many flows ran yesterday on which machines or groups, what did the success rate look like, and how do they compare to last month. Ask questions about recent runs, their durations, volumes, failures, failure frequency, machines, machine groups, parent flows and much more.
Enabled for:
Business Value
Business Value
With Shadow DOM support, you can automate workflows in modern web apps built with frameworks like Angular, React, and Lit. This ensures seamless interaction with encapsulated components, making your automation scripts reliable without complex workarounds.
Feature Details
The Shadow DOM support in Power Automate for desktop introduces advanced functionality to handle encapsulated DOM structures effectively. Key features include:
- Enhanced element detection: Accurately locate and interact with elements within shadow roots using advanced selectors.
- Dynamic Shadow DOM handling: Automate dynamic or runtime-generated Shadow DOM components without interruptions.
- Nested Shadow DOM support: Traverse and interact with deeply nested shadow trees.
- Cross-domain iframe compatibility: Handle Shadow DOM elements embedded in cross-origin iframes for seamless automation.
- Recorder and playback updates: Effortlessly capture interactions inside Shadow DOMs and replay them accurately.
Enabled for:
- The author created this article with assistance from AI. Learn more
Business Value
Business Value
You can categorize and group your desktop flows with tags to easily organize and locate them in Power Automate for desktop. This feature helps you manage your flows more efficiently.
Feature Details
You can create and assign tags to your desktop flows through the console. This feature allows you to search and filter your flows based on tags, making it easier to manage and locate specific flows.
Tags are centrally managed in the Dataverse environment and are not limited to desktop flows. This means that other Power Platform assets can also use this functionality in the future.
Enabled for:
- The author created this article with assistance from AI. Learn more
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| Public preview date moved to Apr 2025 General availability date moved to Sep 2025 |
Apr 10, 2025 |
Business Value
The voice command functionality for Power Automate's Copilot enhances productivity by allowing hands-free interaction for creating desktop flows. You can dictate automation steps in natural language, streamlining the setup of complex workflows. This intuitive interface helps businesses automate repetitive tasks more efficiently, improving operational efficiency.
Feature Details
The voice command functionality for Power Automate's Copilot allows you to create and manage desktop flows using natural language spoken through a microphone. You can turn on voice commands by pressing the microphone icon in the bottom right of the Copilot side cart and start dictating automation steps hands-free. To finish, you press the stop icon, and your prompt is automatically submitted to Copilot. This feature reduces manual input, saving time and effort, and enhances Copilot's versatility and user-friendliness, contributing to improved productivity and streamlined operations.
Enabled for:
- The author created this article with assistance from AI. Learn more
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| Public preview date moved to Mar 2025 General availability date updated to May 2025 | Jan 08, 2025 |
Business Value
Microsoft Entra hybrid join using custom virtual networks (VNETs) with hosted machine groups allows your hosted machine group bots to enroll in both your on-premises Active Directory (AD) and Microsoft Entra ID. This feature is useful in scenarios where automation requires authentication using an AD account, or when devices need to be managed using Group Policy (GPO).
Feature Details
This feature provides support for joining hosted machine group bots to both on-premises Active Directory (AD) and Microsoft Entra ID when using custom virtual networks (VNETs).
- A custom virtual network (VNET) is configured using Azure Virtual Network. Access to the domain controller is required from the custom VNET.
- A custom VNET allows you to access on-premises resources when running your automation.
- Microsoft Entra hybrid join is configured as part of Power Automate network connection setup.
- Microsoft Entra hybrid allows your hosted machine group bots to enroll in both your on-premises Active Directory (AD) and Microsoft Entra ID.
Enabled for:
Business Value
Business Value
In many organizations, each machine must have a unique user session. This implies that they can't use machine groups. A list of credentials allows them to use unique credentials for each of their machines. For organizations that want to use automations executed on agent machines, there's no option to define mapping between machine(s) and agent(s). The list of credentials will allow an attended automation to the machine of the right agent.
Feature Details
Allow customers to define lists of credentials and use them in the desktop flow connections. These lists allow customers to define which machine(s) can use these credentials. These lists can be used as login credentials in the desktop flow connections and will benefit from the same credential management feature, such as:
- Encryption and data protection
- Password rotation
- Application lifecycle management
During the public preview, only CyberArk credentials are supported for mapping.
Enabled for:
- The author created this article with assistance from AI. Learn more
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| Public preview date moved to Jan 2025 General availability date updated to Mar 2025 |
Oct 21, 2024 |
Business Value
Enhancing Copilot to describe automation steps in Power Automate for desktops significantly reduces the time required for understanding complex automation processes during maintenance and troubleshooting. Organizations relying on intricate flows can quickly comprehend specific parts of a flow, facilitating rapid error detection and resolution. This capability ensures SLA adherence, minimizes downtime, boosts operational efficiency, and reduces the risk of extended disruptions, thus enabling users to manage and enhance their automation systems with greater confidence and agility.
Feature Details
The new Copilot side panel feature in Power Automate for desktop enhances user experience by providing detailed explanations of automation flows and subflows. Users can easily navigate to the Copilot side panel, select the appropriate skill from the skill picker, and ask questions like "What does the subflow do?" or "What do actions from 3-12 do?". This feature delivers clear insights into automation processes, streamlining troubleshooting and maintenance of complex automation. This empowers teams to quickly identify and resolve issues, ensuring consistent operational efficiency and SLA compliance.
Enabled for:
- The author created this article with assistance from AI. Learn more
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| Public preview date moved to Mar 2025 General availability date moved to Mar 2025 |
Jan 17, 2025 |
Business Value
You can now build desktop flows in your preferred color mode. Choose between the default mode and dark mode to reduce eye strain and improve focus.
Feature Details
In the Power Automate for desktop console, you can switch between the default color mode and dark mode. This setting allows the console and flow designer to use a dark theme based on your preference. The functionality is available in the console settings.
Enabled for:
- The author created this article with assistance from AI. Learn more
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| Public preview date moved to Dec 2024 General availability date updated to Mar 2025 |
Dec 20, 2024 |
Business Value
This feature enhances security and ease of use by allowing you to securely retrieve and manage credentials directly within your desktop flows. It eliminates the need to pass credentials manually, reducing the risk of exposure and streamlining workflow processes.
Feature Details
A new action named "Get Credential" in Power Automate for the desktop will allow you to securely retrieve and utilize credentials directly within your desktop flows. During the preview phase, this action will support credentials created via CyberArk, accessible within the specified section of the Power Automate portal. This feature ensures that credentials are handled securely, aligning with best practices for data protection.
Enabled for:
- The author created this article with assistance from AI. Learn more
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| General availability date updated to Apr 2025 | Apr 10, 2025 |
Business Value
Record with Copilot makes building desktop automations easier than ever. By simply sharing your screen and describing the task, you can create detailed automations without needing deep technical knowledge. This feature enhances productivity, reduces manual setup time, and empowers you to automate routine tasks with ease.
Feature Details
Record with Copilot in Power Automate for desktop allows you to build desktop automations by sharing your screen and describing the task you want to automate—just as if you were explaining it to someone. During the recording, record with Copilot captures your voice, mouse, and keyboard inputs. It then processes and converts these inputs into a desktop flow that you can review, edit, and save before running. This makes automation accessible to everyone, regardless of technical expertise, and significantly speeds up the process of creating desktop flows.
Enabled for:
Business Value
Business Value
The optimized DirectLake semantic model in Fabric workspace gives you a leaner and better way to build custom reports in Power BI based on the process intelligence insights. The semantic model is simpler and more versatile than the semantic model created when using Power BI workspace. DirectLake mode also lowers the SKU size requirements for large process models when compared to the semantic model in Power BI workspace that used import mode. Using composite models allows you to enhance the semantic model with custom DAX queries or additional external data sources.
Feature Details
Process insights from Power Automate Process Mining can now be consumed in Power BI reports created in Fabric workspace by leveraging the DirectLake semantic model on top of Fabric Lakehouse.
When compared to the semantic model created in Power BI workspaces, the new DirectLake model:
- Is simpler and more streamlined, eliminating unnecessary complexity.
- Uses DirectLake mode, thus requiring smaller SKU even for large process models.
- Less resource intense, as DirectLake mode loads to memory only data required by a particular query.
- Delivers on par performance with import mode semantic model.
- Allows custom enhancing using composite models while still keeping the DirectLake perfomance benefits (subject to limitations of DirectLake composite models).
- Includes the custom metrics and view configuration created in Power Automate Process Mining desktop app.
In the Create process wizard, you can select the desired location for the resulting semantic model:
- Power BI Embedded: Creates a lite version of default report in a provided shared workspace and semantic model is based on aggregated values. This is recommended for small proof-of-concepts and for trial.
- Power BI workspace: Creates a full semantic model (older version with import mode) in your own Power BI workspace. This is recommended for production, small, and mid-sized use cases.
- Fabric workspace (preview): Creates a full semantic model (DirectLake) in your Fabric workspace. This is recommended for any production use case.
Enabled for:
Business Value
Business Value
This feature reduces the waiting experience for default process analysis after data ingestion. Customers can view and analyze process mining results directly through a web-based interface. This new experience offers a faster and more intuitive alternative to the existing embedded Power BI component while maintaining compatibility for users who still wish to leverage Power BI reports through a dedicated app.
Feature Details
Web client for process mining provides customers with the ability to view and analyze process mining results directly through a web-based interface in Power Automate Process Mining page.
Key functionalities are:
- Replaced default embedded Power BI report with fully interactive Process overview dashboard.
- Process map component offers a full range of KPIs to display.
- Content of Process Overview page is dynamically recalculated based on filters set by the user.
- Power BI report is still generated, but users don't need to wait for its creation to access Process Overview analysis.
Enabled for:
Business Value
Business Value
Power Automate Process Mining is currently able to ingest data from Azure Data Lake Gen 2 in CSV and parquet format. This feature allows the ingestion of data files in CSV, parquet, and delta-parquet format from Fabric OneLake, which is also a first step towards a closer integration to Microsoft Fabric.
Feature Details
This feature is connected to the feature Support for delta-parquet data ingestion and extends the options that you can choose from, with respect to data ingestion. You're now able to ingest data through:
- Dataflows
- Bring your own Azure Datalake Gen2. Data can be in CSV, parquet, and delta-parquet format
- OneLake through Fabric Lakehouse. Files can be in CSV, parquet, and delta-parquet format
The feature is automatically turned on as an option in the Create process wizard. Its goal is to provide ingestion from Microsoft Fabric unified data platform for creating a data twin of an organization.
Enabled for:
- The author created this article with assistance from AI. Learn more
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| General availability date moved to May 2025 | Apr 03, 2025 |
Business Value
The current Power Automate Process Mining app requires you to download the process model to the client computer. This download puts specific requirements on the hardware resources on the client computer. To unblock your resources, you can use the Azure Process Intelligence Analytic Service instead. With this service, you can use a lightweight desktop app with a process intelligence engine without the need to download the process model. The functionality of the thin desktop application offers features that are identical to the previous full desktop app. This allows you to scale faster, it supports larger process models and doesn't put specific requirements on your computers.
Feature Details
Process Intelligence Analytic Service offers analytical functions in the form of an Azure API. When the desktop application connects to Process Intelligence Analytic Service, you have access to the identical functionality as in the full Power Automate Process Mining desktop app.
You can turn this feature on in the Desktop App options.
With Power Automate Process Mining thin client app, there's no need to:
- Download the process model, which takes up your resources.
- Fulfill special hardware requirements when working with large process models.
- Install desktop application updates in case of analytical operation modifications.
Enabled for:
Business Value
| Change history | |
|---|---|
| Public preview date moved to Jan 2025 General availability date moved to Mar 2025 |
Nov 05, 2024 |
Business Value
Integrating Copilot in Process Mining analysis enables you to create views and drill down into insights through an iterative conversational interface that democratizes the use of Power Automate Process Mining. This allows you to engage with the tool in an easy and accessible way. It allows you to reach insights quickly, without the need for additional support from your center of excellence (CoE) or process engagement team. It accelerates time to value for end business users, like financial analysts, who can get to insights through Copilot guidance.
Feature Details
Today in Power Automate Process Mining, you need some level of technical and product knowledge in order to get to actionable insights. It requires that you create filters, custom metrics, and categorization variables to get to a standardized view of the process. You can use Copilot to get to iterative actions in process mining, process insights, and an introduction to process mining that allow you to start with the tool in an easy way.
Analytical copilot offers:
- Desktop plug-in to create actions on process.
- Ability to summarize findings qualitatively and quantitatively.