Category: Power Automate

  • Finding your feet with business process flows Pt. 01

    Introduction

    You can help ensure that people enter data consistently and follow the same steps every time they work with a customer by creating a business process flow.

    For example, you might want to create a business process flow to have everyone handle customer service requests the same way, or to require that people get approval for an invoice before submitting an order. Business process flows use the same underlying technology as other processes, but the capabilities that they provide are very different from other features that use processes. To learn how to create or edit a business process flow, go to Create a business process flow.

    Watch a short video about business process flows.

    Why business process flows are used

    Business process flows provide a guide for people to get work done. They provide a streamlined user experience that leads people through the processes their organization has defined for interactions that need to be advanced to a conclusion of some kind. This user experience can be tailored so that people with different security roles can have an experience that best suits the work they do.

    Use business process flows to define a set of steps for people to follow to take them to a desired outcome. These steps provide a visual indicator that tells people where they are in the business process. Business process flows reduce the need for training because new users don’t have to focus on which table they should be using. They can let the process guide them. You can configure business process flows to support common sales methodologies that can help your sales groups achieve better results. For service groups, business process flows can help new staff get up-to-speed more quickly and avoid mistakes that could result in unsatisfied customers.

    What business process flows can do

    With business process flows, you define a set of stages and steps that are then displayed in a control at the top of the form.

    Business process with stages.

    Each stage contains a group of steps. Each step represents a column where data can be entered. You can advance to the next stage by using the Next Stage button. In the unified interface, you can work with a business process flow stage inside the stage flyout or you can pin it to the side pane. Business process flows doesn’t support expanding the stage flyout to the side pane on mobile devices.

    You can make a step required so that people must enter data for a corresponding column before they can proceed to the next stage. This is commonly called ”stage-gating”. If you are adding a business-required or system-required column to a business process flow stage, we recommend that you add this column to your form as well.

    Business process flows appear relatively simple compared to other types of processes because they don’t provide any conditional business logic or automation beyond providing the streamlined experience for data entry and controlling entry into stages. However, when you combine them with other processes and customizations, they can play an important role in saving people time, reducing training costs, and increasing user adoption.

     Note

    If any stage, including the current stage, has required columns (except hidden columns), you must fill in the columns on those stages before you save the form or move to a new stage. Disabled columns will still block stage navigation if they are empty and required.

    Business process flows integrated with other customizations

    When you or your user enters data using business process flows, the data changes are also applied to form columns so that any automation provided by business rules or form scripts can be applied immediately. Steps can be added that set values for columns that are not present in the form and these columns will be added to the Xrm.Page object model used for form scripts. Any workflows that are initiated by changes to columns included in a business process flow will be applied when the data in the form is saved. If the automation is applied by a real-time workflow, the changes will be immediately visible to the user when the data in the form is refreshed after the row is saved.

    Although the business process flow control in the form does not provide any direct client-side programmability, changes applied by business rules or form scripts are automatically applied to business process flow controls. If you hide a column in a form, that column will also be hidden in the business process flow control. If you set a value by using business rules or form scripts, that value will be set within the business process flow.

    Concurrent process flows

    Concurrent business process flows let customizers configure multiple business processes and associate them with the same starting row. Users can switch between multiple business processes running concurrently, and resume their work at the stage in the process that they were on.

    System business process flows

    The following business process flows are included. To understand how business process flows work, review these system business process flows:

    • Lead to Opportunity Sales Process
    • Opportunity Sales Process
    • Phone to Case Process

    Multiple tables in business process flows

    You can use a business process flow for a single table or span multiple tables. For example, you may have a process that begins with an opportunity, then continues to a quote, an order, and then an invoice, before finally returning to close the opportunity.

    You can design business process flows that tie together the rows for up to five different tables into a single process so that people using the app can focus on the flow of their process rather than on which table they are working in. They can more easily navigate between related table rows.

    Multiple business process flows are available per table

    Not every user in an organization may follow the same process and different conditions may require that a different process be applied. You can have up to 10 active business process flows per table to provide appropriate processes for different situations.

    Control which business process flow will be applied

    You can associate business process flows with security roles so that only people with those security roles can see or use them. You can also set the order of the business process flows so that you can control which business process flow will be set by default. This works in the same way that multiple forms for a table are defined.

    When someone creates a new table row, the list of available active business process definition is filtered by the user’s security role. The first activated business process definition available for the user’s security role according to the process order list is the one applied by default. If more than one active business process definitions is available, users can load another from the Switch Process dialog. Whenever processes are switched, the one currently rendered goes to the background and is replaced by the selected one, but it maintains its state and can be switched back. Each row can have multiple process instances associated (each for a different business process flow definition, up to a total of 10). On form load, only one business process flow is rendered. When any user applies a different process, that process may only load by default for that particular user.

    To make sure a business process is loaded by default for all user (behavior equivalent to “pinning” the process), a custom Client API script (web resource) can be added on form load that specifically loads an existing business process instance based on the business process definition ID.

    Business process flow considerations

    You can define business process flows only for those tables that support them. You also need to be aware of the limits for the number of processes, stages, and steps that can be added.

    Business process flows that call a workflow

    You can call on-demand workflows from inside a business process flow. You can configure this from the new business process flow designer by dragging a workflow component to a process stage or to the Global Workflows section. For more information about using workflows in business process flows, see Blog: Business process flow automation in Dynamics 365.

    When you include a workflow that you want to trigger on Stage Exit of a stage in your business process flow, and that stage is the last stage in the flow, the designer gives the impression that the workflow will be triggered when that stage is completed. However, the workflow won’t be triggered because a stage transition does not take place. You won’t receive a warning or error preventing you from including the workflow on the stage. When a user interacts with the business process flow, finishing or abandoning the process does not result in a stage transition, and therefore the workflow is not triggered. Consider the following examples:

    • You create a business process flow with two stages, S1 connects to S2, with a workflow on stage S2 and set the trigger to Stage Exit.
    • You create a business process flow with three stages, S1 connect to S2, then S2 branches to S3. You include a workflow on S2 and set the trigger to Stage Exit.

    The workflow won’t trigger in either case. To work around this issue, you can add a Global Workflow and add the workflow you want to trigger to it so that the workflow is triggered for the business process rather than a stage of the process. You can set the trigger for a Global workflow to Process Abandoned or Process Completed to cause the workflow to trigger when a user abandons or completes the business process.

    Tables that can use business process flows

    All custom tables can use business process flows. The following standard tables can also use business process flows:

    • Account
    • Appointment
    • Campaign
    • Campaign Activity
    • Campaign Response
    • Competitor
    • Contact
    • Email
    • Entitlement
    • Fax
    • Case
    • Invoice
    • Lead
    • Letter
    • Marketing List
    • Opportunity
    • Phone Call
    • Product
    • Price List Item
    • Quote
    • Recurring Appointment
    • Sales Literature
    • Social Activity
    • Order
    • User
    • Task
    • Team

    To enable a custom table for business process flows, select the Business process flows (columns will be created) check box in the table definition. Note that you can’t undo this action.

     Note

    If you navigate to the business process flow stage that contains the Social Activity table and choose the Next Stage button, you’ll see the Create option. When you choose Create, the Social Activity form loads. However, because Social Activity isn’t valid for Create from the app user interface, you won’t be able to save the form and you’ll see the error message: “Unexpected error.”

    Maximum number of processes, stages, and steps

    To ensure acceptable performance and the usability of the user interface, there are some limitations you need to be aware of when you plan to use business process flows:

    • There can be no more than 10 activated business process flow processes per table.
    • Each process can contain no more than 30 stages.
    • Multi-table processes can contain no more than five tables.

    Business process flow table customization support

    Introduced in the Dynamics 365 (online), version 9.0 update, business process flow tables can appear in the system so that table row data can be made available in grids, views, charts, and dashboards.

    Use business process flow table rows with grids, views, charts, and dashboards

    With business processes flows available as a table, you can now use advanced finds, views, charts, and dashboards sourced from business process flow data for a given table, such as a lead or opportunity. System administrators and customizers can create custom business process flow grids, views, charts, and dashboards similar to those created with any other table.

    Business process flows, such as Lead To Opportunity Sales Process, appear as a customizable table in solution explorer.

    Solution Explorer with lead-to-opportunity process table.

    To access a default business process flow view, open solution explorer, expand Tables > expand the process that you want, such as Lead To Opportunity Sales Process, select Views, and then select the view that you want.

    Several default views are available that you can view as a chart, such as the Active Opportunity Sales Process view.

    Active Opportunity Sales Process view.

    Interact with the business process flow table from a workflow

    You can also interact with business process flow tables from a workflow. For example, you can create a workflow for the Business Process Flow table row to change the Active Stage when a column on the Opportunity table row is updated. For more information about how to do this, see Automate business process flow stages using workflows.

    Run business process flows offline

    You can use business process flows offline if the following conditions are met:

    • The business process flow is used from a Power Apps app.
    • The Power Apps app is enabled for offline use.
    • The business process flow has a single table.

    Specifically, the three commands that are available for a business process flow when the Power Apps app is offline are:

    • Next stage
    • Previous stage
    • Set Active stage

    Lookup column in a business process flow stage

    Recent rows are visible in a lookup column in the unified interface. To prevent the most recently used items from showing up in the lookup, follow these steps:

    1. Sign in to Power Apps.To learn more about using the Power Apps interface, go to Get started with Power Apps.
    2. Select the correct environment from the top right.
    3. On the left navigation pane, select More > Tables.
    4. Search for your table and select your business process flow table.
    5. In the Data Expressions group, select Forms.
    6. On the Forms screen, select Information.
    7. Select your lookup data step from the Tree view, and then check Disable most recently used items.A screenshot how to disable the most recently used items.
    8. Save and then publish.

    Limitations of using business process flow tables

    • Currently, you can’t create custom forms for tables based on a business process flow.
    • If a solution includes a business process flow table, the business process flow table must be manually added to the solution before you export it. Otherwise, the business process flow table won’t be included in the solution package. To learn more, go to create and edit tables.
    • Adding the process table to a model-driven app may result in limited functionality. To learn more, go to creating and editing business process flows.
    • Business process flows will show the name of the BPF instance, which is set at the time that the BPF instance is created. This means if the name in the BPF definition changes, new BPF instances will display the updated name, but older BPF instances will display the original name. It also means localized BPF definition names aren’t displayed.
  • Some ideas for Power Platform solutions that could help your business

    Some ideas for Power Platform solutions that could help your business

    Are you looking for ways to save your business money in 2023? The Power Platform offers a variety of tools that can help you streamline your operations and cut costs. In our latest YouTube video, “7 Ways to Save Your Business Money in 2023 with Power Platform“, we’ll show you how to use the Power Platform to improve your business’s efficiency and save money.

    What is the Power Platform?

    The Power Platform is included with Office 365, so if you already have Office 365, you already have access to the Power Platform. The platform includes Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI, which can be used to create custom apps, automate workflows, and create data visualizations. These low code/no code tools offer you unlimited possibilities for creating custom business apps without the expense of large-scale development projects.

    Inspection and Reporting Apps with Power Apps

    One effective way to reduce costs for your business is by creating a custom Power Apps Inspection and Reporting app. PowerApps can be used to streamline various types of inspections, such as vehicle inspections, product evaluations, and job checklists. By using PowerApps, you can eliminate the need for paper-based processes and expensive off-the-shelf software that may not fully meet your needs. PowerApps is user-friendly, low-code/no-code platform, making it accessible even if you have little to no coding experience. You can easily design an app that aligns with your specific business processes, rather than having to conform your processes to fit a pre-existing app.

    Automate customer contacts and leads with Power Automate

    Another way to save your business money is by using Power Automate for new customer intake and response. This can help you automate the process of responding to new customer inquiries and can save you time and money on labor costs. In the video, you will see an example Power Automate flow we use here at PowerApps911 for handling the thousands of contacts our website gets from people like you. It involves Cognito, SharePoint, Teams, MailChimp, and a whole lot of Cloud Flow automation.

    Lots of options in the Human Resources space

    Power Apps can also be used to create custom Human Resources apps with Power Apps. These apps can help you automate HR processes such as employee onboarding and can also help you manage employee data. This can save you time and money on labor costs, as well as help you ensure that you’re complying with HR regulations. Some examples discussed include Offboarding/Onboarding, Kudos, Time Off requests, Performance review/goal tracking, and a full demo of how we do Job Tracking for our small business.

    Invoices: Add Artificial Intelligence to reduce human workloads

    The Power Platform also includes AI Builder, which can be used to create custom AI models without writing code. One way to use AI Builder is for invoice scanning. By automating the invoice scanning process, you can save time and money on labor costs, and also reduce the risk of errors.

    One example is doing double entry batching. Let the AI scan the invoice or receipt and extract the values. Then have a human do the same. If the human and AI got the same values, then move the invoice along. If there is a discrepancy, then start a manual reconciliation process. This will allow you to greatly reduce data entry errors without doubling the human workload.

    What is AI Builder?

    AI Builder is a feature within the Power Platform that allows users to create custom AI models without the need for specialized coding knowledge. It enables non-technical users to leverage pre-built templates and use their own data to train models that can perform tasks such as image recognition, text classification, and form processing. With AI Builder, businesses can automate tasks such as invoice scanning, sentiment analysis, and predictive maintenance, and integrate the AI models into their Power Apps and Power Automate workflows, to improve efficiency and save time and money.

    Expense and Spending management

    Power Apps can also be used to manage expenses and spending. You can create custom apps that help you track expenses, manage budgets, and even create custom reports. This can help you save money by identifying areas where you can cut costs. Every business has the need to track and report on spending. Let the Power Platform help you build solutions that fit your business exactly.

    Inventory and Asset Management

    In addition, the Power Platform can also be used for inventory and asset management. This can help you keep track of your inventory and assets and can also help you automate the process of ordering and tracking inventory. This can save you time and money on labor costs. Whether you track things today using Excel, Access, or just good ole pen and paper you can do better with the Power Apps and Automate. One of our construction customers replaced a six figure a year 3rd party tool with a custom Power App.

    Our favorite customer example we built

    Their app takes a user through the whole process. First you use a desktop Power App to create a Purchase Order. Adding vendors and products from an easy-to-use process. Once the PO is ready to go, they submit it via the app, it is then automatically turned into a PDF and sent directly to the vendor for fulfillment. When the products show up IT uses a mobile Power App to find, receive the order into inventory. The app uses the built in barcode scanner to scan serial numbers and asset tags. Now the items are in inventory they are assigned and distributed to the users. Nothing over the top. Just a simple app that is 100% tailored to their business process.

    Timesheets or time tracking are easy wins

    Finally, the Power Platform can be used to create custom timesheets, which can help you automate the process of tracking employee time. This can save you time and money on labor costs, and also help you ensure that you’re complying with labor regulations. One customer saw massive ROI with their timesheet app because not only did they track hours, but they used the app to track equipment used on the job, which was billable back to their client. Their custom timesheet app literally made them money.

    Ask how 365 Evergreen can help you on your Power Platform journey

  • 365 Evergreen empowers the Queensland Police Service to effectively manage training courses

    365 Evergreen empowers the Queensland Police Service to effectively manage training courses

    The challenge

    The Queensland Police Service (QPS) is very proactive in training its officers, so that they better equipped to fulfil their duties.

    To organise this training, QPS has taken to SharePoint Online as way of advertising courses for potential applicants to view and then apply to attend.

    Although the move to SharePoint Online did make things easier, there was a need to streamline the process and make it more efficient. The problems faced included:

    • Applications being received by email, which then had to be forwarded to other personnel to approve or register
    • Delays in decisions
    • No trace of progress for an application
    • Applications not being acknowledged and officers missing the opportunity to attend training

    The task

    QPS reached out to 365 Evergreen to help them use Microsoft 365 and the Power Platform to tackle the inefficiencies of their existing processes within the South Brisbane district.

    What we did

    To help the QPS achieve its goals, 365 Evergreen leveraged the existing SharePoint site that was developed by the SBD team and added additional functionality:

    • A canvas app that allowed applicants to view more details about courses
    • An application form for applicants to complete and submit
    • Workflows that notified senior officers of applications
    • An interface for senior officers to approve applications and leave comments
    • Workflows to update details in SharePoint and notify applicants of the outcome

    The outcome

    The process for managing course applications has been significantly improved, with a big reduction in turnaround time and resources.

    To date, this solution has been rolled out to three QPS districts and the intent is to roll out the solution to all QPS regions within the next few months.

  • A quick guide to business process automation

    A quick guide to business process automation

    Creativity and teamwork are essential to transforming business processes. Most processes center on content – files and data. SharePoint offers tools to gather and manage data in lists and libraries.

    Microsoft 365 provides connections to a range of third-party systems with Power Automate and Power Apps. Power Automate lets you automate business processes, and Power Apps lets you create great forms and mobile apps based on SharePoint files and data. Both Power Automate and Power Apps feature intuitive visual designers, so anyone can craft forms and screens using a convenient interface.

    Power Automate

    Using Power Automate, you can create workflows through an easy-to-use visual designer that will guide you through each step and help authenticate your accounts.

    Select from dozens of pre-made templates to start automating your app’s usage. Here are just a few applications of these templates:

    • Create a new record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM when a new list item is added to a SharePoint list.
    • Copy new members from MailChimp lists to SharePoint lists.
    • Move files to different folders after they’re approved in SharePoint.
    • Create a new item in SharePoint when a new order is added in Salesforce.
    • Route finished documents to a team for approval.

    Whether you start with a template or begin from scratch, using Power Automate to create automation features is intuitive.

    Power Apps

    Using Microsoft Power Apps, you can create apps with a point-and-click approach to app design. Options include using automatically-generated, pre-made templates, or customizing the tool to fit your more specific needs. After your app is complete, you can instantly publish it to Windows, the web, iOS, and Android.

    Classic mobile and web apps typically required separate coding for each platform, which can be costly and time-consuming to do—especially with developers in high demand. Instead, Power Apps simplifies the process so anyone can do it. Its easy-to-use, browser-based visual designer helps you rapidly build custom business apps without having to write any code.

    By connecting Power Apps to your existing systems and data, you can quickly build reports, forms, and workflows, and then publish your app instantly to all users in your organization.

    Power Apps also lets you easily customize the form for a SharePoint list. For example, with custom forms, you can:

    • Show or hide certain fields.
    • Reorganize those fields.
    • Change the layout of a form.
    • Add formatted text and graphics.

    When you publish your changes, the form is embedded within the SharePoint list for use by all of its users.

    Cross-tool functionality seamlessly moves your data from one operation to another. With SharePoint being a core component of the Microsoft 365 suite, your data easily integrates with tools like Excel or Power BI reporting. And because it uses an Excel-inspired expression language, these tools talk with each other, using formula language you already recognize and understand to integrate your data from one function to the next.

  • Finding your feet with Power Platform environments – Part 01

    Finding your feet with Power Platform environments – Part 01

    Introduction

    In this series, we’ll look at Power Platform environments. We’ll have a look at what they are, what they do, how to create them and how to administer them.

    What is a Power Platform environment?

    A Power Automate environment is a container that can is used to separate applications and flows based on pre-determined criteria, e.g., security requirements, or target audiences.

    A common example is the use of one environment for development of flows (with limited access) and another for production environments (with less restricted access for all users)

    What types of environment are there?

    There are three types of environment in the available:

    • Production
    • Sandbox
    • Trial.

    Production environments are suited for stable workloads where you have predictable usage.

    Sandbox environments are for building proof-of-concept applications and flows that might need to be reset without recreating the entire environment.

    Trial environments will expire after 30 days. These environments are best suited for evaluating technologies.

    You can more information about the types of environments here.

    How do I create an environment?

    1. Go to https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com and sign in
    2. Select Environments from the left -hand navigation
    3. Select + New

      New environment
    4. A fly-out window will appear in the right-hand side of the window
    5. In fly-out form, give your environment a meaningful name
    6. Select the Trial type environment
    7. Select the geographical region for the environment
    8. Choose whether or not to create database for you environment.
      Note: If you only intend to use simple data sources, e.g., Excel or SharePoint, you don’t need a database. However, if you don’t create one you won’t be able to users features such as the Common Data Service, AI Builder or UI flows.

      new environment configures
    9. Provide the Language of your choice and Currency. For the purposes of this exercise, do not enable Dynamics 365 apps or sample apps and data. Select Save to create your environment.
    10. After a couple minutes, your environment should be provisioned and you should see the following status message displayed in the Admin center. You might need to select Refresh for the State field to update.status message

    In the next post, we’ll look at the basics of managing your new environment.

  • Power Platform Centre of Excellence

    Power Platform Centre of Excellence

    The Power Platform Center of Excellence (COE) Starter Kit is a set of apps, flows, a custom connector, and a Power BI dashboard that allows organizations to govern their Power Platform environments. The tool is freely available for download on GitHub .

    The Starter Kit is a great tool for organizations to increase the visibility of what their makers are doing in their tenant. Naturally, this tool immediately applies to two personas: Cyber Security analysts and Organizational Change Management (OCM) interests. Makers that are building applications and services that introduce risk to the organization should be monitored, but makers who are automating workloads within sanctioned systems and services should be empowered and encouraged to expand on their efforts.

    The Starter Kit does have some prerequisites, including:

    • A global tenant admin, Power Platform Service admin, or Dynamics 365 service admin role is required to access the tenant resources.
    • A Power Apps premium license for accessing Common Data Service.
    • An environment with Common Data Service because the Starter Kit solution will need to store metadata about the apps and flows that are detected within an environment.
    • Power BI Desktop to view the reports and visualizations that highlight app and flow use within the tenant.

    Within the Starter Kit, administrators will discover the tools and features that are discussed in the following sections.

    DLP Strategy

    By using the DLP Editor app, an administrator can explore existing DLP policies and evaluate the impact of moving a connector from one data group to another. If a change to a data group has an impact on an existing app, that will be highlighted in the Affected Power Apps list. Then, an administrator can send an email, through an in-app experience, to the owner of that application and warn them of the upcoming change.

    This current, in-product DLP editor experience doesn’t provide this type of what-if analysis, so we recommend that you use the DLP Strategy app that comes with the COE Starter Kit when making DLP changes. Using the DLP Strategy app will also help you understand the impact to existing apps when DLP changes are made and help you reduce the chance of unknowingly breaking someone’s app.

    COE DLP editor

    Catalog tenant resources, visualize data in Power BI

    While Admin Analytics, which is found in the Power Platform Admin center, provides some insight into the use of Power Apps and Power Automate, it does so within the context of an environment. This parameter makes developing a holistic picture of usage difficult. However, using the tools that are provided in the COE Starter Kit brings all these insights together by using Common Data Service, a model-driven Power App, and a Power BI dashboard. These assets, plus the inclusion of flows that will sync data from Office 365 Security and Compliance logs and through the Power Platform management connectors into Common Data Service entities, provide the greatest level of visibility for administrators.

    The Power BI dashboard connects to Starter Kit Common Data Service entities and contains tabs that provide the following reports:

    • Overview – Includes the total number of apps and flows that have been created, including a breakdown based on the maker’s location and the number of apps/flows that they have created.
    • Environments – Highlights the number of environments that have been created and includes the type of environment (Default, Production, Sandbox, Trial), and then identifies the creators of the environments and when the environment was created.
    • Apps – Provides insights into the usage of apps, including the number of sessions and users that the app has been shared with. This report also breaks down usage by department by pivoting data based on the department that has been specified inside of a user’s Office 365 profile.
    • App detail – Examines the specifics of the app, including the connection type and when the app was last published.
    • Flows – Displays a flow creation trend that will break down when flows were created. This report will also pivot data based on the user’s department and includes a breakdown of the flows that were created by environment.
    • Custom Connectors – Lists all the custom connectors that exist within a tenant. This report also lists the users that created the connectors and then trends the month that they were created in.
    • Makers – Identifies all the makers within the environment and identifies how many apps and flows they have built. A slicer exists that allows a consumer of this report to filter based on the maker’s department.
    • Connections – Displays the number of connections that have been established, by connector. This report provides great insight into the popularity of specific connectors within your tenant.Center Of Excellence PBI

    App Audit

    The main purpose of the Sample App Audit process is to demonstrate how an admin could identify overshared or often used resources and gather further information, like business justification and business impact of an outage, for those apps. Having a platform that provides democratized access to technology is only useful if people don’t create many redundant or low-value applications. Situations might also occur where people create temporary applications for proof-of-concept purposes. These apps can clutter an environment if they are not cleaned up. Within the COE Starter Kit, app makers can be prompted to attest their application to ensure that it addresses business justification requirements. If the application doesn’t address these requirements, makers can have their application removed from the environment.

    COE development compliance center
    COE development compliance center

    App Catalog

    The App Catalog application acts as a catalog that helps with discoverability of apps. Users can explore featured apps and browse apps by category. The app catalog can be a great entry point to launch apps for end users and makers can explore to see if an application already exists before they create another app that provides similar functionality. An Admin decides which apps are featured in the App Catalog by completing the App Audit process. After an app has been approved by the App Audit process, these apps can be featured in the app catalog.

    Set Owner

    Administrating access to applications can be done by the Owner of the application. However, circumstances might occur where you want an administrator to provide access. By using the Set Owner app, you can allow for this situation by selecting an app, adding users, and then indicating whether they should be able to view the app or edit the app.

    COE email

    Welcome email to new makers

    Power Apps and Power Automate can be discovered virally within an organization’s tenant through the Office 365 portal. Makers might be confused about whether they are allowed to use these tools or not.

    Detecting when a maker has created their first app or flow and sending them some useful information to accelerate their journey will immediately imply that these tools are the ones that they are permitted to use. Now, they will have a list of resources that can ease their transition into using these tools.

    Set app owner
  • Some best practice tips for Power Automate

    Some best practice tips for Power Automate

    Best practices for Production flows

    Over the years, we’ve introduced a number of features for ALM (administration & lifecycle management) for flows in Power Automate. But, as they say, the shoemaker’s children always go barefoot. Our team has a number of flows that we rely on internally for day-to-day operations, but they were scattered about with little central management or oversight. It took some changes from our own Power Platform admins (yes, we have admins too!) to encourage us to get our house in order. Here’s what we learned in the process.

    Use a production environment

    That doesn’t mean stop using Preview! The Preview region is a great place to try new features and hone your skills. But once a team flow reaches a level where people are relying on it, we recommend exporting and importing it into a production environment in order to benefit from the added robustness.

    Add redundant owners

    If you have a flow which is used by your entire team, you don’t want people calling you up while you’re on vacation if it breaks. Make sure you add a couple co-owners so that they can update the flow in your absence. Who you add depends on how the flow is used. Probably at least your direct manager who can act as your proxy. Maybe your manager’s manager if all of their reports are relying on it. If your group is large enough and/or if you have a lot of team flows, you may consider creating a Security Group of 2-3 people who are willing to set aside a small amount of time to keep an eye on all the team flows. Don’t add your entire org as a co-owner though; that just invites more people to mess up the flow.

    Also keep in mind that the access applies to not just the flows themselves but to the connections they use. For example, if your flow sends mail from a shared mailbox, make sure that the co-owners have access to that mailbox in case they need to recreate the connection while you’re gone.

    Use solutions

    Solutions are a great way to organize flows so that they don’t end up in a big long list. You’ll need to start by adding (or asking your admin to add) a Common Data Service database to your environment. After that’s done, you can go to the Solutions tab to create a new solution for your team, or you can create multiple solutions if you have a lot of flows that you’d like to further organize. There are a number of other benefits too, such as native storage for your data, child flows to reuse functionality, and solution export as backup. There are also some known limitations to solutions though, so this may not apply to all of your flows.

    Mark it as prod

    Solutions are the recommended way to organize flows. But sometimes your flow can’t go in a solution, or sometimes your solution will get crowded with other drafts and proofs of concept. Either way, we recommend prefixing the names of your production flows with “[PROD]” so that co-owners know to leave it be unless it has issues.

    Use shared senders

    Sending messages from Power Automate as yourself is fine for smaller cases, but as the process gets more formalized we recommend changing it to a shared sender. This helps the recipients know that it was sent via automation rather than as personal nag. It has the added benefit that people won’t try to bug you directly in response to something that’s meant to be purely informational. For the Microsoft Teams connector, we have a few “Post as the Flow bot” actions that are well suited to this. Outlook has “Send an email from a shared mailbox”, though you’ll need to bring your own mailbox. This advice also applies to updating tickets, creating records, etc., but the specifics will vary by connector.

    Add a signature

    When using automation to send emails and post messages, you want people to know where it’s coming from. This may seem somewhat contradictory to the last one, but it’s really complementary. The shared mailbox helps the recipient identify that the message is not coming from you directly. But there are cases where the automation might break or start triggering too quickly, in which case you should be easily reachable to correct the problem. This is especially important if the automation works with people outside your org or external systems where the recipient may not be aware of your flow. People may even want to contact you to suggest ways to make your flow even better! We use a signature like “Sent with Power Automate. Contact <your email> with questions.” You may also find it helpful to link to the specific flow so that you can find it quickly if someone forwards you the email.

    Opt-in to notifications

    Notifications are one of the most popular uses of Power Automate. Maybe you want to get an email when someone uploads a new file to SharePoint or posts a new response in Microsoft Forms. Maybe you want to get a weekly status report of work items in Azure DevOps or charts in Power BI. One of most common types of internal flows was daily or weekly reports of SLAs, errors, and usage metrics from Azure Data Explorer, sent to individuals and teams. These types of flows are great for a number of scenarios. But keep in mind that not everyone is as excited to get yet another email as you are. These often quickly end up as Outlook filters, and suddenly you’re using up flow runs emailing no one. Before adding a distribution list to an automated email, we recommend making sure that the information is either need-to-know, or that the distribution list allows users to individually remove (and add) themselves. If you find yourself checking these metrics on an ad hoc basis rather than as they come in, the data may be better off in a dashboard (e.g. Power BI or Azure DevOps) so that it’s available on demand.

    In closing

    ALM is a problem that every organization has to deal with, even our own. So hopefully these tips help you more effectively manage your team flows. Any other suggestions from our Power Users out there? Any remaining questions or pain points? Let us know in the comments!

  • Use Power Automate to deploy a SharePoint site and lists

    Use Power Automate to deploy a SharePoint site and lists

    Back in the day, you could save a SharePoint site as a template (or solution) and deploy it elsewhere. Nowadays, it’s not quite so easy.

    In this post, we’ll show you how to use Power Automate to make a REST API call and create a site and add a new list. This a great way for admins to manage request for new sites.

    The master list

    First of all, create list in a team site. This list will be used to trigger the flow and create the site and list.

    The flow

    Next, create a flow from the Automate button. The trigger will be ‘Complete a custom action for the selected item’

    Then initialise a variable, like so

    Next, we’ll make an API call to SharePoint and create our new site

    Here’s the header and body code for you to copy:

    {
  "Accept": "application/json;odata=verbose",
  "Content-Type": "application/json;odata=verbose;charset=utf-8"
}
    {
"request": {
  "__metadata": { "type": "Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.SPSiteCreationRequest"},
"WebTemplate": "STS#3",
"Title": "@{body('Get_item')['Title']}",
"Url": "@{variables('SiteURL')}",
"Description": "@{outputs('Get_item')?['body/Description']}",
"Classification": "",
"SiteDesignId": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
"Lcid": 1033,
"ShareByEmailEnabled": false,
"WebTemplateExtensionId": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
"Owner": "i:0#.f|membership|you@yourdomain.com",
"HubSiteId": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
}
}

#Be sure to change the email address for "Owner"

    Creating the list

    The first step is to create the list. This can be done by inserting a SharePoint HTTP Request Action in your Flow and setting it up like so:

    Figure 1 – Create List Action in Power Automate

    You’ll want to update the Title and Description properties and fill those in with the name and description of your list. The “BaseTemplate” property is what determines the type of list you’re creating. 100 is a blank list and 101 is a document library.

    Creating Fields in the List

    Once you create the list you need to add additional SharePoint HTTP Actions to create each field that you need to add in the list. That action will look like this:

    Figure 2 – Create Field Action in Power Automate

    In the URI input you’ll want to make sure you replace the “getbytitle(‘Name of your list’) with the name of the list you want to add your field to. The body of the action will vary based on the type of field you want to create. For quick reference, I have provided a table with the most common column types and the associated body code needed for the Power Automate action below:

    Column TypePower Automate Code
    Single Line of Text{
    ‘__metadata’: {‘type’:’SP.FieldText’, ‘addToDefaultView’: ‘true’ },
    ‘FieldTypeKind’: 2,
    ‘Title’: ‘Name of Single Line of Text Field’
    }
    Multi Line of Text{
    ‘__metadata’: {‘type’:’SP.Field’, ‘addToDefaultView’: ‘true’ },
    ‘FieldTypeKind’: 3,
    ‘Title’: ‘Name of Multi Line of Text Field’
    }
    DateTime{
    ‘__metadata’: {‘type’:’SP.FieldDateTime’, ‘addToDefaultView’: ‘true’ },
    ‘FieldTypeKind’: 4,
    ‘Title’: ‘Name of DateTime Field’,
    ‘DisplayFormat’: 0
    }
    Boolean (Yes/No){
    ‘__metadata’: {‘type’:’SP.Field’, ‘addToDefaultView’: ‘true’ },
    ‘FieldTypeKind’: 8,
    ‘Title’: ‘Name of Yes No Field’
    }
    Choice{ ‘__metadata’:
    { ‘type’: ‘SP.FieldChoice’, ‘addToDefaultView’: ‘true’ },
    ‘Title’: ‘Name of Choice Field’,
    ‘FieldTypeKind’: 6,
    ‘Required’: ‘true’,
    ‘Choices’: { ‘results’: [‘Choice 1’, ‘Choice 2’, ‘Choice 3’ ] }
    }
    Hyperlink{
    ‘__metadata’: {‘type’:’SP.Field’, ‘addToDefaultView’: ‘true’ },
    ‘FieldTypeKind’: 11,
    ‘Title’: ‘Name of Hyperlink Field’
    }
    Number{
    ‘__metadata’: {‘type’:’SP.FieldNumber’},
    ‘FieldTypeKind’: 1,
    ‘Title’: ‘Name of Number Field’
    }
    Person/Group{
    ‘__metadata’: {‘type’:’SP.Field’, ‘addToDefaultView’: ‘true’ },
    ‘FieldTypeKind’: 20,
    ‘Title’: ‘Name of Person or Group Field’
    }

    Figure 3 – SharePoint REST API Column Types

    Add the Columns to the Default View

    This next step is optional. If you want to make sure that the fields you just created show up in the default view of the list then you need to perform a couple more actions in your Flow. First, you’ll need an initialize variable action which will store an array of all of the column names you want to add like so:

    Figure 4 – Configure the Column Names Variable

    Once you have that, you need an Apply to Each action and within that you’ll make one final SharePoint HTTP action which will take those columns and add them to the default view like so:

    Figure 5 – Add the Columns to the View
  • Employee recruitment and on-boarding with Office 365 and Power Platform – Pt 1

    Employee recruitment and on-boarding with Office 365 and Power Platform – Pt 1

    In the series of posts, we are going to look at how you can utilise the suite of Office 365 and Power Platform products to automate the recruitment and onboarding of new employees. We will use (among other things) SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams, PowerApps, Power Automate, Word, Outlook and Power BI.

    We’ll also apply some JSON to format columns and create adaptive cards

    The scenario

    In this scenario, we will start with a request to recruit a new employee, which will then go through an approval process and trigger a series of actions within Power Automate flows.

    During this series, we’ll also create a Microsoft Team to store all details of applications and supporting documents (resumes, cover letters, etc.)

    Request to recruit

    To begin with, we’ll create a SharePoint team site (mine is called People Culture Team). In this site, we’ll create list (mine is called Recruitment Requests). My list has the following columns:

    NameType of column
    TitleSingle line of text
    Type of requestChoice
    (choices are ‘backfill’ & ‘new position’
    Position TitleSingle line of text
    New Position JustificationMultiple lines of text
    Previous Incumbent NameSingle line of text
    Previous Incumbent Reason For LeavingChoice
    (choices are ‘Internal Transfer’ & ‘Termination (including resignation’
    Covered By BudgetYes/No
    Request LocationChoice (for this example, you only need to have two or three choice. In real-life/larger company, you may prefer a lookup column)
    Reports ToPerson or Group
    Reports To PositionSingle line of text
    Employment TypeChoice (My choices are ‘Full-time’, ‘Part-time’, ‘Casual’ & ‘Fixed-term contract’
    Recruitment MethodChoice (My choices are ‘External’ & ‘Internal’)
    Commencement DateDate and time (Date only)
    Position Description AttachedYes/No
    Base SalaryCurrency
    SuperCurrency (might not apply to any readers outside of Australia)
    Mobile AllowanceCurrency
    Laptop AllowanceCurrency
    Link To RequestSingle line of text (we will use JSON to format this column in a later post)
    P&C ApproverPerson or group
    P&C OutcomeSingle line of text
    P&C CommentsMultiple lines of text
    SLT ApproverPerson or group
    SLT OutcomeSingle line of text
    SLT CommentsMultiple lines of text
    GM ApproverPerson or group
    GM OutcomeSingle line of text
    GM CommentsMultiple lines of text

    If you don’t want to manually create this list, here’s a flow I created for you. You just need to change the URL to one that sits inside your tenant, e.g. https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/peoplecultureteam, and run the flow.

  • Trigger a Power Automate flow from a Microsoft Teams message

    Trigger a Power Automate flow from a Microsoft Teams message

    Microsoft Teams can help bridge geographic and organizational gaps through capabilities like chat, meetings, and calling, but users often ask how it can help streamline the work they do. Fortunately, Teams and Microsoft Power Automate work seamlessly together to simplify how you and your team work.

    We’re excited to share a new way to use this integration to automate and simplify work, starting from a conversation in Teams.  The new “for a selected message” trigger enables any Teams user to create a custom message action to start a flow from any message in Teams.  Even more powerful, is that flow creators can build this capability for their entire team, so everyone can easily benefit from some automation in their workday.

    Example scenarios:

    Below are four great examples of how teams can automate critical processes right from chat, but thanks to the flexibility of Power Automate, the possibilities are endless. Each of these flows are available as templates for you to use or modify to fit your needs right away!

    Set a message reminder

    There are times you might want to be reminded of a message from a colleague or your manager at a later time, like after your Teams meeting, or before the next upcoming meeting in a week.  With a “follow-up later” flow, Teams users will simply have to click the “…” on the right-hand side of a message to set a reminder and specify when they want to be reminded.  The Flow bot will send a reminder and a link to the message right in Teams.

    Create a SharePoint item

    We all need to keep lists – whether that’s a store inventory, project status, or the plan for an event.  SharePoint lists are a great way to organize information and rich file types for you and your team, and now Teams users can easily add content to their SharePoint lists directly from chat with this new Power Automate trigger.  Once the flow laid out below has been created, users will be able to add critical data to their list right from the chat – for example, if they learn that new inventory has been received.

    Sales teams: Convert a chat to a Sales opportunity

    Creating a customer opportunity is a critical step in any Sales process, and often that opportunity starts with a conversation.  So why not capture that information right from that conversation where it began.

    When you build the flow below using the “for a selected message” trigger, anyone in your team can easily create a sales opportunity just by clicking the “…” on the right side of a message in Teams and selecting “Create a Sales opportunity”.  Simply fill out a custom form right in Teams, and the information you enter is automatically sent to your CRM system.

    Create a work item in Azure DevOps

    With so much collaboration and planning happening over chat now, messages can be a great way to request or report new work items to your development team. By combining the “for selected message” trigger with the Azure DevOps “create a work item” action, you can now use the message as the starting point to create a work item. All the details from the message, such as the message contents or who the sender was can be used to provide more details as part of creating the work item.

    These templates are just scratching the surface you can always create your own to fit your business needs. Check out below for specific instructions on creating custom message actions for Teams, and check back here often for updates on what we’re rolling out next!

    Creating your own Teams actions

    To create a custom Teams message flow, choose the “For a selected message” trigger from the Teams connector. You can even configure the trigger to collect information from the user when its run from within Teams. For instance, if the flow is creating a task, you can use the adaptive card to collect information like the title of the task and the description.

    Collecting information from the user

    To collect information as part of the flow, you can quickly and easily create a custom form right from within the flow editor using the embedded card designer experience.

    Using message details within the flow

    There are a number of message elements that are available as a trigger output for use within the flow. Some of the more useful properties include:

    • Message content – The full HTML content of the Teams message
    • Plain text message output – Plain text variation of the Teams message
    • Link to message – A direct url to reference the message
    • Sender display name, Sender id – Details of the user who sent the message
    • Originating user display name, Originating user id – Details of the user who invoked the flow

    Triggering the flow from within Teams

    Any flow that uses the “For a selected message” trigger shows up as a message action in the Teams message over flow “More actions” menu. The name that you give the flow is what is shown in the Teams client.

    Check out the “for a selected message” documentation to learn more about this new capability.  Of course the examples above are just scratching the surface of what is possible for you and your team to automate, so check out the Power Automate templates for Teams and learn to build your own flows to achieve even more.  We’re excited to hear about what you build!