The ask, add some animation to a technical trainer's PowerPoint deck. Their content is solid, but they're looking for help drawing attendee attention to specific elements of their presentation. The recommendation, add morph transitions to a few of their slides: Figure 1 - PowerPoint slides with morph transitions. An often-overlooked feature of PowerPoint, Morph is … Continue reading PowerPoint: Morph + Transitions
Author: Charles
Personal Reflections: Data Trends + Context
No ask this time, just reflections and observations. First and foremost, it's been amazing to see people around the world find my blog content helpful. I published my first post mid-2019, and I've consistently posted at least twice a month since. Little by little, I feel that my writing and presentation skills have improved as … Continue reading Personal Reflections: Data Trends + Context
.NET MAUI: Picker for Time | XAML vs C#
The ask, update a .NET MAUI app's Picker control to display more time choices. The existing choice options were manually assigned to the ItemSource representing each hour of the day, but now, because of new project requirements, the app needs to present the time choices in 15-minute increments. While not impossible to implement using XAML, … Continue reading .NET MAUI: Picker for Time | XAML vs C#
Power Automate: Cloud Flows | Terminate Unnecessary Runs
The ask, address a Power Automate cloud flow that needlessly continues to run even when there's no data to process. This particular flow is an Automated cloud flow, and it runs daily, emailing a dynamic list of people a digest report of SharePoint Online list items created the day prior. The flow is triggered, then … Continue reading Power Automate: Cloud Flows | Terminate Unnecessary Runs
Power Automate: Cloud Flow + Better Readability (Scope Controls)
The ask, suggest some structural changes for a few Power Automate cloud flows to improve readability. The flow makers are already adding comments and notes to their controls, but their flows still come across as unstructured. The proposed solution, add and nest flow actions into Scope controls: Figure 1 - Power Automate cloud flow with … Continue reading Power Automate: Cloud Flow + Better Readability (Scope Controls)
Power Automate: Cloud Flow | Filter Datasets Better
The ask, improve a long running cloud flow's performance. It has a Get files (properties only) action querying 2,000 recent items which are filtered using a Condition block. Because the library already has 100K+ items, OData filters can be hit or miss, so the maker is iterating each returned item, causing the flow loop to … Continue reading Power Automate: Cloud Flow | Filter Datasets Better
Power Automate: Cloud Flows | Is the Array Empty?
The ask, suggest some alternative Power Automate logic for a group of non-dev cloud flow makers. Arrays and functions are new concepts to them, but they understand variables. So, instead of using the length() function to determine whether or not an array is empty, they would like some "more intuitive" logic for their Condition blocks: … Continue reading Power Automate: Cloud Flows | Is the Array Empty?
Power Automate: Cloud Flows + Better(er) Error Reporting
The ask, build on the better error reporting and share the actual error message when a cloud flow action fails. Earlier, the cloud flows were generating way too many error messages, one for each failed action, which was resolved using an array variable to store custom messages specified by the maker, then generating a single … Continue reading Power Automate: Cloud Flows + Better(er) Error Reporting
Power Automate: Cloud Flows + Better Error Reporting
The ask, introduce some better error reporting for a troublesome production cloud flow. The maker just recently deployed their solution to PROD, with some pretty good error handling, but this flow is experiencing some quirks not seen in DEV or QAT, so there are more errors than expected. And unfortunately, each error handled action sends … Continue reading Power Automate: Cloud Flows + Better Error Reporting
SharePoint Online: Appended Comments + Canvas Apps + Cloud Flows
The ask, get the appended comments of a SharePoint Online (SPO) list item. One of the makers is working on a Power Apps canvas app and their data source is an existing SPO list. In this list, the maker has a "Comments" column with the Append changes to existing text setting enabled. Per the project … Continue reading SharePoint Online: Appended Comments + Canvas Apps + Cloud Flows
Power Apps: User Defined Functions (UDF) | Calculate Days in Month
The ask, evaluate user-defined functions (UDFs), an experimental feature of canvas apps. Can the client's existing solutions benefit from UDFs whenever they become generally available (GA)? The short answer is yes. UDFs would allow app makers to create their own Formulas to be used throughout their respective canvas apps. This becomes helpful because as solutions … Continue reading Power Apps: User Defined Functions (UDF) | Calculate Days in Month
Power Automate: Cloud Flows + Complex Conditional Logic
The ask, see if there is a better way to conditionally update a Salesforce record whenever there is a value mismatch between it and SharePoint Online (SPO), the source system. There is already a Condition block with a nested Update record action, but can the condition logic be improved? Figure 1 - Power Automate cloud … Continue reading Power Automate: Cloud Flows + Complex Conditional Logic
Power Automate: Cloud Flow Gotchas | Infinite Loops
The ask, figure out why a maker's cloud flow is running more than expected. Their flow was only recently enabled for PROD, but they reported receiving an email (Figure 1) that their flow was "performing slow" shortly afterwards. Shortly after that, they received a second email (Figure 2) that their flow was "running too many … Continue reading Power Automate: Cloud Flow Gotchas | Infinite Loops
SharePoint Online: Column Indexes + Power Automate
The ask, figure out why a maker's Send an HTTP request to SharePoint flow action runs long without returning anything. The action just hangs even though it was running perfectly just a few days ago. Copying and testing the REST API directly in a browser, the maker reported a threshold error message: Figure 1 - … Continue reading SharePoint Online: Column Indexes + Power Automate
Power Automate: SharePoint Online | Check If Document Set Exists [ v3 ]
The ask, find another, another way to determine whether a document set exists or not. Still using the Deal ID value as the unique identifier, instead of adding the Get files (properties only) action [ option #2 ], use the Send an HTTP request to SharePoint action. This particular HTTP request action takes advantage of … Continue reading Power Automate: SharePoint Online | Check If Document Set Exists [ v3 ]
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