Monthly Automation News
On this page, you find what is happening of Microsoft Automation, Power Automate, Azure Automation and generally in the world of Automation.
June / July - Automation news
Remote Desktop Automations, and tighter Teams integration with Power Automate.
Summer means vacation, and hence the activity, new releases slow down – but yet a few things happened during the month of June and July that may be worth looking at, among the news are the ability for Power Automate to execute via a light agent on Remote desktops like Citrix. Further Microsoft has integrated Power Automate with adaptive cards in Microsfot Teams - so more interactive Automations are possible.
Lifeblood of Automation the connectors, Power Automate with 44 new connectors
In June, Microsoft published 44 new verified connectors enabling companies to embed more applications into Automated workflows. Among the released connectors are a series of Azure connectors like AD Identity and Access, Communication services Chat and Services Mail enabling online chat and mass mailing in Automations. For more details of the 44 new connectors, see the Automation blog
Citrix or Microsoft Remote desktop with Power Automate Agent for virtual desktops
Among the new July features in Power Automate desktop is the ability to execute Desktop UI automation related to applications running on a remote machine, whether Citrix-based or Microsoft-based. Another cool feature added is the ability to manage data tables – like Insert rows, Find and replace data and create new data tables – all very handy when you want to manipulate data as a part of Automation
Two new Advanced Bot scenarios with Power Automate and Microsoft Teams
Update adaptive cards in teams from Microsoft Power Automate allow you to update e.g. status of a case or card. You can use Adaptive cards to get information from users and update the card pending the users' responses – neat when you create a support bot. On top of this, Microsoft also added the ability to use the Adaptive cards ID – which means you can now have multiple users in a group chat or a channel. Get more details and examples in this blog from Microsoft
First Dedicated Microsoft Power Platform conference in September
So Automation and the Power Platform is not so important for Microsoft that they have decided to have a conference in Orlando. With over 100 Speakers and hundred sessions, there is something for both the strategy audeince and the more technical-minded people. As usual, much news will be released; September should be exciting from an Automation perspective – keep you posted. Add yourself to our Automation newsletter to be updated.
May - Automation news
Power Automate, Azure Automation and Process Advisor news
Microsoft has had their build 2022, and a lot of announcements on or just before the event. Some of the highlights from the announcements are below. NUDGEIT has released some new Automations, that can come in handy when you want to increase the security of your IT environment.
AI Builder for Power Automate - Ability to extract data from unstructured documents like contracts.
Power Automate supported by AI Builder has long been able to extract data from structured (surveys, questionnaires) and semi-structured data (invoices, purchase orders) but now supports unstructured data like contracts and letters. Utilizing Azure forms recognizers can be trained with a No Code training wizard, enabling a wider audience to deploy and train the engine to support automation. AI Builder's new capabilities
Process Advisor with autogenerated grouping, discovering optimization faster.
Microsoft process advisor support autogenerating activities from the recordings, and it automatically groups related recorded actions into a single activity and labels this. This capability will help discover processes that can be automated. With a new time analyzer, you visualize and can drill down into process bottlenecks, enhancing your ability to identify and fix those in your processes. For more detailed information about the news, take a peek here Process Advisor updated
NUDGEIT Automations increases IT Security, operational good practice automated.
NUDGEIT has developed and implemented some automation that will help increase your security - they are all focused on the fact that security start slipping and need continuous maintenance - which gets forgotten in the heat of the daily workload. Most are implemented in Azure Automation and can be easily imported into your environment.
Automation that helps operations:
- Privileged Accounts report and forced monthly approval
- Disable Clients Automatically that have been inactive X days
- Inactive Account reporting and approval
Should you have interest, contact our Automation experts or read more on our Automation Resource page
Power Automate - general availability of image classification
Using Lobe, Microsoft has made it possible to classify images as a part of Automation. Imagine you could let the Automation look at pictures sent from customers, and classify those so they land in the right service department. You simply need to label images and then Lobe train the custom ML model for you.
Image classification possibilities:
- Classify faults on products from pictures
- Equipment analytics, recognizing the danger
- Recognize emotions of customers, are they happy
For more on Lobe and examples of Image recognition
April Automation New
Microsoft announced a series of new connectors, both Microsoft developed and third party connectors. NUDGEIT continues to add to their IT Automation, to be used to make your environment more secure and streamlined.
Power Automate add 14 new connectors
Connectivity is important and hence the continued support for API driven connectors enhances the capability to build inclusive automation across the myriad of systems a company deploy. Microsoft Power Automate has the most connectors and hence is the best choice when you want to automate across your company.
Among the new connectors :
- Autodesk forge data exchange
- Relevation helpdesk
- Cyberproof actions
For more information on all the 14 new validated connectors for Microsoft Power Automate
Automatically recognize in-active computer devices and move them to specific OU.
In large organizations with many computers like desktops., Laptops the principle some devices fall through the cracks - and do not get reassigned, wiped or otherwise handled. This leaves a potential security risk, and hence our inactive computer automation tries to catch those and move them to an OU for inactive computers, and reduce the risk of a breach of security.
What do this scheduled automation do:
- Identify unused computers based on several characteristics
- Report those to IT Management
- Move those computers to an in-active OU
Learn more about the this, talk to our IT Automation Experts