Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Project are both great project management solutions. Planner easily groups task items into buckets, visualizing everything for small to mid-sized teams. Project, being a more robust tool, allows subtasks, which are perfect for bigger teams and more nuanced projects. Unfortunately, both can fall short when the client asks for super secure … Continue reading Microsoft Lists: Teamwork Management w/ Row-Level Security
Microsoft 365
Office Scripts: Generate Custom GUID(s)
Office Scripts in Excel is an automation alternative to Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Macros are still recorded as a series of actions, but now, these steps are performed using TypeScript, which a superset language of JavaScript. Assuming everything is licensed and configured correctly, everyone should see an Automate tab along the top of their … Continue reading Office Scripts: Generate Custom GUID(s)
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 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
MS Forms: Bulk Copy/ Paste Options
For today's mission, a request came in to use a Microsoft Form to receive training log submissions. Every team member is responsible for submitting their logs and time is measured in quarter hour increments. The big ask? Can the dropdown values span from 0.25 to 40? Yes, but typing that many options is needlessly time … Continue reading MS Forms: Bulk Copy/ Paste Options
MS Lists: Mail Merge Data Source
Mail merge is still a thing. Why? Because after all these years, it continues to get the job done. But with more businesses using Microsoft Lists, can mail merge still do its job? The short answer, yes. However, Microsoft Word can't connect to Microsoft Lists directly. If we open the mail merge data source dropdown, … Continue reading MS Lists: Mail Merge Data Source
Power Automate: Populate SPO User Claims (multiple claims)
Power Automate can add user accounts to SharePoint Online list items. If the person column accepts a single account, then the assignee claims are passed as a string. But for multiple accounts, the assignee claims are passed as an array. Illustrating this, loop through a list of approvers, then add them all to a list … Continue reading Power Automate: Populate SPO User Claims (multiple claims)
Microsoft 365: MS Lists v SPO Lists
Microsoft Lists has been released to the wild. Is this different than SharePoint Lists? Kind of, but not really... Microsoft has a history of surfacing elements of SharePoint and creating "new" standalone solutions. Though not direct successors, but... Power Automate replaced SharePoint Designer workflows. Microsoft Forms became a substitute for SharePoint Surveys. However, things are … Continue reading Microsoft 365: MS Lists v SPO Lists
Microsoft Forms: Field GUIDS w/ Power Automate
Microsoft Forms is great for quickly collecting responses. Simple forms are created in a few minutes, but even more robust forms are created in maybe half an hour. Though, once the data is collected, what's next? Someone could process the form results with Power Automate. And mapping most fields is straight-forward. Yet, it's important to … Continue reading Microsoft Forms: Field GUIDS w/ Power Automate
Power Automate: Microsoft’s “Rube Goldberg Machine”
The Microsoft 365 suite is a collection of cloud-based solutions: Outlook Online,SharePoint Online,Microsoft Teams,etc. Also included in this ensemble is Power Automate, Microsoft's workflow solution. Power Automate flows can use dozens (and dozens) of connectors to link both Microsoft and non-Microsoft solutions into automated processes: TwitterAsanaMailChimpYouTubeSalesforceetc. Essentially, an action triggers the process, then a series … Continue reading Power Automate: Microsoft’s “Rube Goldberg Machine”
Power Automate: Arithmetic Operations
There is are several Math functions available in Power Automate, but I find myself using the basic arithmetic operations most often. An important reminder for each operation, their respective functions will only accept two parameters at a time... E.g.,add( value1, value2 )sub( value1, value2 )mul( value1, value2 )div( value1, value2 ) If more than two … Continue reading Power Automate: Arithmetic Operations
Xamarin: Mockup w/ PowerPoint
Android and iOS apps are bountiful, but there's a toolset difference... Android apps are typically built using Java while iOS apps are typically written using Swift (or Objective-C). Because of this, two apps often have to be written for an app to be available in both app stores. Unless the app is written using Xamarin, … Continue reading Xamarin: Mockup w/ PowerPoint
Power Automate: String Building
StringBuilder is a .NET class for string-like objects.. These objects are mutable and handy when appending strings, but that's .NET... E.g., written in C#. StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("Hello...", 25); sb.Append("\nCiao..."); sb.Append("\nBonjour..."); sb.Append("\nHola..."); Without the StringBuilder class, these strings are instead tacked onto the end of a variable... E.g., written in JavaScript. var message = … Continue reading Power Automate: String Building
Power Automate: SPOFile Share – Link Expiration
Someone asked me about anonymous sharing with expiring links. Although this could be configured at the tenant level, it isn't always set. As a workaround, how about a workflow to share a file, notify the recipient, then terminate the share? If you have a license for Power Automate, then you can create cloud Flows and … Continue reading Power Automate: SPOFile Share – Link Expiration
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