1. Product updates

Automate tasks with Power Automate Desktop for Windows 10—no additional cost

, Vice President, Power Automate, martes, 2 de marzo de 2021

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In 2020, Microsoft Power Automate doubled down on its investments in the robotic process automation (RPA) space with the introduction of Microsoft Power Automate Desktop. We first introduced RPA in Power Automate at Microsoft Ignite in 2019, and we have seen tremendous growth with hundreds of thousands of organizations using Power Automate and taking billions of actions each month.

Today, we are continuing this momentum by announcing that desktop automation in Power Automate Desktop will be available to Windows 10 users at no additional cost. Windows 10 users can harness the power of low-code RPA by downloading Power Automate Desktop on March 2, and it will be included in Windows Insider Preview builds in the coming weeks.

Keep reading to learn how this user-friendly, low-code application empowers coders and non-coders alike to optimize their workflows by automating repetitive and time-consuming manual tasks in Windows 10.

Build personal desktop flows with easy drag-and-drop capabilities in Power Automate Desktop.

Automate everyday tasks and free up time for higher-value work

The pace of business is accelerating and everyone is looking for ways to be more productive and drive faster time to value while delivering more strategic and innovative thinking. All too often “busy work”—repetitive, manual, time-consuming tasks—consumes the finite hours in each workday.

Power Automate Desktop uses low-code RPA (no coding required) to give you time back for more high-value work by automating “busy work.” RPA makes it possible to automate workflows across modern and legacy applications on your desktop by recording actions such as mouse and keyboard clicks. It works much like macros work in your favorite Microsoft Office app, by recording repetitive actions from your desktop across multiple applications—like SharePoint, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, and many third-party applications—as well as websites, and then lets you replay the automation whenever needed.

A common scenario we see is the need to scale and automate the creation of large-scale weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting. With Power Automate Desktop, you can automate the consolidation of data across multiple sources—such as a database, webpages, Excel files, PDFs, and more—to auto generate a report based on your requirements.

Start automating everyday tasks—no coding required

It’s easy to get started with Power Automate Desktop and build your first desktop flow—the series of steps that automate a specific action or task—using either prebuilt drag-and-drop actions or by recording your own desktop flows to run later. An intuitive drag and drop visual designer provides more than 400 actions that run on your desktop, a recorder to capture clicks and mouse actions, as well as a robust authoring experience to edit and modify the recordings.

Watch the “Automating benefits for the Communications sector” video to see how a marketing department generates reports and saves time using RPA along with additional capabilities in Power Automate.

Extend automation even further in Power Automate with a limited time offer

In addition to the capabilities you get with Power Automate Desktop for Windows 10, you can extend this one step further with capabilities in the Power Automate per user with Attended RPA plan. With this you can enable automations across an organization to share and collaborate across flows, access more than 400 built-in connectors through cloud flows, identify bottlenecks in your business processes with process advisor (preview), extract data from documents in AI Builder, and manage and control flows with centralized governance.

To take advantage of these capabilities and to further support organizations seeking to adopt RPA, we are introducing a limited time offer. Beginning April 1, 2021, and available through September 30, 2021, the Power Automate per user plan with attended RPA will be available for $15 per user per month. The limited time offer will be available to eligible customers in commercial, and United States government and worldwide government through volume licensing (VL), cloud solution provider (CSP), and web direct channels. A minimum purchase of 5,000 licenses and other conditions may apply.

Coca-Cola Bottling Company United (Coca-Cola United) is one example of a company taking advantage of additional RPA capabilities in Power Automate today to reduce errors and streamline their order management.

Be on the lookout for the Power Automate per user plan with attended RPA limited time offer to become available on April 1. In the meantime, learn more about Power Automate plans and pricing.

Create your own automation story—get started today

By bringing RPA to Windows 10 users, everyone across an organization can collectively focus on work that makes a difference for the bottom line. Start your desktop automation journey today by downloading the Power Automate Desktop app.

Learn how to build your first desktop flow and automate your tasks in the getting started documentation, along with important additional helpful information.

Additional resources