Power Automate can start desktop automation without using the on-premises data gateway

Important

This content is archived and is not being updated. For the latest documentation, go to What's new in Power Automate?. For the latest release plans, go to Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans.

Enabled for	Public preview	Early access	General availability
Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically	Mar 15, 2021	-	Sep 13, 2021

Business value

Customers can speed up their infrastructure setup by using the new machine registration feature, monitor and act on their automation using machine-run queues, and scale their machine deployments to handle more workloads using machine groups.

Feature details

This change simplifies the installation process by allowing desktop flows on customer environments to connect directly to Power Automate, removing the need to install the on-premises data gateway and simplifying the setup and getting started experience. This capability is available in silent installation and configuration, allowing customers to scale their deployments more easily.

With this capability, cloud flows can use this direct connectivity mechanism as an alternative to an existing on-premises data gateway path to trigger desktop flows for attended or unattended runs.

Users will also have new management experiences in Power Automate to better manage their machines and machine pools, monitor desktop flow runs, and get analytics on how their devices are used.

See also

Manage machines (docs)