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 ]
Power Automate: Do While Loop | Calculate Binary Of
The ask, convert a whole number to binary. The approach, use a do-while loop and the cloud flow to calculate the power of a number, calling it as a child flow. At some point, this flow may also be used as a child flow, so create it using the Respond to a Power App or … Continue reading Power Automate: Do While Loop | Calculate Binary Of
Power Automate: SharePoint Online | Check If Document Set Exists [ v2 ]
The ask, determine whether or not a document set exists before Power Automate tries to create one. Otherwise, the cloud flow will run long, appear stuck, and eventually fail. The flow could check for an existing document set by Name, but because SharePoint Online (SPO) isn't the source of truth system. this column value isn't … Continue reading Power Automate: SharePoint Online | Check If Document Set Exists [ v2 ]
Merry New Year | 2025
Cheers to 2025! Quickly recapping 2024, I wrapped the year with 11 speaking events: 10 in-person and 1 virtual. Among the in-person events, I taught my first workshop in MN, traveled to Montreal, QC for an event, and visited 6 different states, speaking in 8 different cities. I still blogged quite a bit but slowed … Continue reading Merry New Year | 2025
Power Automate: Do While Loop | Calculate Power Of
The ask, create a Power Automate cloud flow to calculate exponentiation, a base value taken to the power of an exponent value. Ultimately, this flow will be one of many flows filling in where Microsoft hasn't yet provided an expression. For this ask, create a new cloud flow and choose "When Power Apps calls a … Continue reading Power Automate: Do While Loop | Calculate Power Of
SharePoint Online: JSON Column Formatting | Link to Power Apps
The ask, create a dynamic link from a SharePoint Online (SPO) document library, navigating end-users to a Power Apps canvas app. This app expects "deal_id" as a parameter, Param(), which would be the id of the library item. Is it possible? Yes. Is it complicated? No. SPO libraries, which inherit from lists, are relatively easy … Continue reading SharePoint Online: JSON Column Formatting | Link to Power Apps
Microsoft Dataverse: Table Designs w/ Copilot
The ask, create new Dataverse tables for an upcoming initiative. There are several existing tables that could be used for this initiative, but the project requirements necessitated new tables be created. Because this is an upcoming initiative, business stakeholders aren't ready to build the solution UI, even though Microsoft Copilot could create everything for them: … Continue reading Microsoft Dataverse: Table Designs w/ Copilot
Microsoft 365 Copilot: Data Readiness | SharePoint Online
The ask, evaluate and audit the SharePoint Online (SPO) environment before the Microsoft 365 Copilot rollout, Microsoft's artificial intelligence (AI) assistant for the M365 apps. The top-most concern of the business leaders is whether or not their content is permissioned properly. Though, a security audit could easily help identify SPO sites with lax sharing and/ … Continue reading Microsoft 365 Copilot: Data Readiness | SharePoint Online
Power Automate: SharePoint Online | Update Document Set Metadata
The ask, update the metadata of a document set using a Power Automate cloud flow. In this ask, the document sets are created when certain conditions are met in an external source system. Post-creation, that metadata is kept in sync, receiving updates as changes are made in the source system. So, creating the document set … Continue reading Power Automate: SharePoint Online | Update Document Set Metadata
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