The Office365Users connector gets tricky when makers are working with incomplete user profiles. Especially when trying to display user profile photos. Does everyone have a picture? Even the contractors? Unfortunately, everyone isn't guaranteed to have an uploaded profile photo. Making the assumption that they do only invites future problems. To be proactive, default to the … Continue reading Power Apps: Canvas Apps | Office365Users – Profile Errors
Author: Charles
Power Platform: Data Sources | SQL Tables or Dataverse Tables
The Power Platform is Microsoft's collective of no-code/ low-code solutions. To supplement this platform, Dataverse is Microsoft's secure, no-code/ low-code data storage solution. SQL Server is still a strong contender for data storage, but leveraging it requires some mastery of SQL. Dataverse, however, stores data in tables just like SQL, but doesn't require any proficiency … Continue reading Power Platform: Data Sources | SQL Tables or Dataverse Tables
SharePoint: Access Issues | Authentication vs. Authorization
SharePoint access issues are sometimes tricky. Simplifying things though, access issues ultimately fall into two categories: authentication or authorization. Authentication asks a very simple question. Are they permitted/ allowed to access the content? If yes, then they can open SharePoint. Otherwise, they get an access denied screen. Figure 1 - Account not authorized, but able … Continue reading SharePoint: Access Issues | Authentication vs. Authorization
SharePoint: Prevent Folder Move
SharePoint is a collaboration platform that also encourages self-governance. Sure, the IT department could deploy and manage all things SharePoint, but that isn't always best. In an ideal, balanced partnership, IT would just handle the administrative tasks and empowered users would provision their own site collections, manage their own site access, and create their own … Continue reading SharePoint: Prevent Folder Move
Power Apps: SharePoint | Delegation + AddColumn()
So yeah, this won't work for everyone, but it was a creative delegation workaround for me. In my scenario, I used several SharePoint Online (SPO) lists as data sources and needed to filter on a multi-line column of employee Names, separated by a semi-colon: Figure 1 - SharePoint Online new item form. This example SPO … Continue reading Power Apps: SharePoint | Delegation + AddColumn()
Power Automate: Understanding | mod()
Modulus (or modulo) is another of the math expression available in Power Automate. Similar to the add(), sub(), mul(), and div() expressions, mod() accepts two parameters, but instead only returns whole numbers, so no decimals. Likely an over-simplified explanation, but in computing, modulo is essentially the calculated remainder of a division calculation. Figure 1 - … Continue reading Power Automate: Understanding | mod()
Power Automate: Generate Custom GUID(s)
Yes, there is a guid() expression available in Power Automate. The provided expression doesn't accept parameters though, so for some people, there isn't an easy way to control the GUID formatting. With that in mind, it might be worth creating your own GUID value: Figure 1 - Power Automate cloud flow logic. After the cloud … Continue reading Power Automate: Generate Custom GUID(s)
SharePoint Online: Understanding | Document Sets
Likely an oversimplification, but document sets are essentially collections of files and folders bundled together with shared metadata. A holdover from earlier versions of SharePoint Server, document sets aren't enabled by default in SharePoint Online [SPO], but can be enabled as a feature at the site collection level: Figure 1 - SharePoint Online site collection … Continue reading SharePoint Online: Understanding | Document Sets
Power Apps: Canvas Apps | Data Refresh – Manual v Timed
Canvas apps are Microsoft's low-code business apps of the Power Platform, capable of interacting with data from a variety of data sources. Keeping that in mind, app makers should design their apps with data refreshes in mind because after the initial app start, users are working with copies of the loaded data, not live data. … Continue reading Power Apps: Canvas Apps | Data Refresh – Manual v Timed
Power Platform: Data Sources | SQL Tables or SPO Lists
The Power Platform is Microsoft's collection of low-code, citizen developer solutions. Being low-code, makers don't need coding experience to build their apps, bots, automations, and/ or dashboards. Even so, makers still need to decide where their data should ultimately live. For most people, SQL is typically the go-to data storage consideration. And honestly, SQL isn't … Continue reading Power Platform: Data Sources | SQL Tables or SPO Lists
Data Security: Longer Passwords | Why?
The short answer, longer passwords are more un-hackable, so they better protect our data. Unfortunately, short passwords are easier to hack. Today's hackers have plenty of fancy hacking tools, so password complexity often turns hacking into a numbers game. Nowadays, password length matters just as much as, if not more than, the characters used to … Continue reading Data Security: Longer Passwords | Why?
Power Fx: Calculate | Calculate Days in a Month
Power Fx is the Excel-like, formula language of the Power Platform. Akin to Microsoft Excel, most of the functions are only reasonably powerful on their own. When they're combined though, they become much more awe-inspiring. For example, calculating the number of days in a month. Calculating this, makers only need a handful of functions and … Continue reading Power Fx: Calculate | Calculate Days in a Month
Power Apps: Build a Game… !NeRdlE!
!JeOpArDy was my last canvas app game, so it's been a while. Working on another canvas app, I wanted to give "Nerdle" a try. Important to note though, I'm only replicating maybe 80% of the game. With this in mind, puzzles are hardcoded and not loaded from an external source. Also, keeping this post from … Continue reading Power Apps: Build a Game… !NeRdlE!
Power Fx: Understanding | With()
Power Fx is the Excel-like programming language of the Power Platform, more specifically canvas apps. As with any of their programming offerings, Microsoft has bundled plenty of pre-built functions into Power Fx. Among these bundled functions, With() is easily a standout. If you haven't worked the With() function into your canvas apps yet, then you're … Continue reading Power Fx: Understanding | With()
Power Platform: Understanding | Solutions + Environments
Application lifecycle management is the governance, deployment, and maintenance of applications. Even though the Power Platform is "low-code", makers should still adopt the practice. More specifically, when deploying their projects as solutions across environments. So, what are solutions and what are environments? Solutions are bundled project assets. In the Power Platform ecosystem, these project assets … Continue reading Power Platform: Understanding | Solutions + Environments
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