ArcGIS for Power Automate - v2023.3 - Change log and updates (September 18, 2023)
ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate is updated regularly to provide new features, improved speed and usability, and bug fixes. The 2023.3 update is a quality release. Performance improvements, new actions, and bug fixes have been made for the following features.
This release will start deploying on September 18th, 2023. It may take up to 48 hours to push out to all regions (up to two weeks for government-level sites).
If you do not see the changes, you may need to clear your cache and restart your web browser to see the changes in Power Automate.
As always, please let us know of any improvements or issues you want to chat about.
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ArcGIS Enterprise
If you had gone to this year's User Conference in San Diego, you might have heard the team mention support for ArcGIS Enterprise inside of Power Automate. Well, it's finally here! We are rolling out the ArcGIS Enterprise connector in phases.
The first phase, which is now available in Power Automate, contains all of the same CRUD-based operations that are found in the ArcGIS connector. For example, you can start adding, deleting, or updating records and attachments in your feature layers just as you would using the ArcGIS connector.
The second phase of the ArcGIS Enterprise connector will contain the remaining actions that pertain to geocoding, geoenrichment, and networking. We are also working on adding webhook support for ArcGIS Enterprise 11.2 and above. In the current phase of the connector, you must manually set up the webhook on your feature layer.
Details on how that is done can be found in here.
Note: This is a preview action as support for webhooks will not be fully integrated until the release of ArcGIS Enterprise 11.2.
Some notes about the ArcGIS Enterprise connector before I move onto the next topic.
Requirements:
- The ArcGIS Enterprise connector supports ArcGIS Enterprise 11.0 and above
- To use the webhook preview, you must have ArcGIS Enterprise 11.1 or above
- Your Enterprise instance must have access to the internet (or at least access to Power Automate itself). The connector will not work behind a firewall or in a disconnected environment.
All of the set-up information can be found here in our documentation.
Documentation: Set up the ArcGIS Enterprise connector—ArcGIS for Microsoft 365 | Documentation
Find Address Candidates
As we have been working through various flows and feedback from you, a common ask was having the ability to use custom geocoders in the geocoding actions, Find Address Candidate and Geocode Addresses. By default, those two actions return the top match from the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service, and you can pass those values into another action or application.
Dynamically, it will only return the top result. For example, when I geocode 15 Maple Street, I receive the best match after the flow has finished. I deliberately did not pass any other information other than the street name. As a fun note, this is one of the most common street addresses in the United States.
In the results, it appears that the World Geocoder gave me a location in England. Even the score that was returned isn't 100 (meaning it wasn't a perfect match).
Now let's pass that same variable into the new action Find Address Candidates. The first difference in this action is the ability to change the geocoder. This list is populated dynamically from your ArcGIS Online (and eventually Enterprise) organization. For this example, I will still use the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service.
When I use the same address, the results window looks a bit different. In this result, it is now sorted by the Top candidate.
If I peek at the raw outputs, I can see that there are multiple results for this address.
From this action, I can now pass either the top candidate or create a flow that filters out the results based on a score of 80 or above. I encourage you to play around with this action and use it in your flows as it will open up some new possibilities with custom geocoders in your organization.
Token Expiration / Manual Sign In
A workflow that was a huge hurdle to overcome in ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate was manually refreshing your connection whenever the token expired. For example, if your organization had a 14-day timeout on your login, you would need to manually refresh the credentials to keep your flows active. That is no longer the case and has been implemented since early May 2023.
We have been running internal tests and have confirmed that even with a token timeout of 90 days, as long as you run a flow with the same credentials, the token will refresh automatically, and you won't need to sign in manually.
Attachment Support
While this has been in the connector for a bit of time, I wanted to highlight it here in this post.
- Added support for the use of Attachments in ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate
Attachment Triggers
- When an attachment is created
- When an attachment is deleted
- When an attachment is updated
Attachment Actions
- Add attachment
- Query attachment
- Get attachment
- Delete attachment
- Get attachment from URL
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Bug fixes and polishes
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug related to the Get geometry from feature layer action - Exporting to EsriJSON does not return the correct values
- Fixed a bug related to the Fetch updates and changes actions - Fetch updates do not filter results to the selected Feature Layer
- Fixed a bug related to CRUD operations for feature layers - Create a record fails when only "Add" is enabled in settings
- Fixed an issue where Fetch updates, changes, and deletions was returning unexpected changes in the results body
- Fixed an issue related to triggers failing for certain layers
- Fixed an issue related to inconsistency in runtimes in longer flows
- Fixed an issue when a flow contains empty geometry and would not complete
- Fixed an issue when updating a record requires a “number” but is a “string”
- Fixed an issue when a query returns no records even with the appropriate query parameters
- Fixed a rare issue with Create a feature layer when a layer added to ArcGIS Online would merge data fields together
UI/UX polishes
- Fixed an issue where the watermarked text was not appearing for Ring Buffers under the Geoenrichment action
Quality of Life updates
- Users can now choose what editing options they want available for their feature layer. Previously, it was required to have add, delete, and update checked for editing.
- Updated multiple error messages into a human readable format
- Token expirations are handled by the user's organization and refresh tokens do not need to be manually updated
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The ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate connector continues to grow and expand. We are working on the next phase of ArcGIS Enterprise support and will be rolling that out in the next few months. We also have been compiling your feedback and are working on some new helper actions and finding ways to make automation fun and exciting.
As always, we love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the connector (whether it is positive or negative). We thrive on understanding how you use Power Automate and the ArcGIS Connector inside your organization. Let's make automation part of your group's daily routine!