Perform CRUD operations on expanding datasets in SharePoint (Part 2)
This post is a part of an ongoing series. If you are new to this topic, I highly recommend going through my previous posts: How to use SharePoint lists to store expanding datasets 2. <a href=”https://immersivecoder.com/2022/01/16/perform-crud-operations-on-expanding-datasets-in-sharepoint-part-1/”>Perform CRUD operations on expanding datasets in SharePoint (Part 1)</a> < p...
Perform CRUD operations on expanding datasets in SharePoint (Part 1)
This post is a part of a series. If you are new to this use case, please check my previous post to understand the problem and solution design. In this post, we will discuss how to perform CRUD operations on this dataset Let’s start.. Here’s our dataset record sample: { “UserID”: “SomeID”, “UserName”: “John Doe”, “Time Entries”: [ { “Week”: 1,...
Using SharePoint list for expanding datasets
Recently one of my clients asked to create an app to store daily time entries for their users. Dataverse was not an option as their requirement was to create this dataset in SharePoint Below is the use case and technical challenges: For all users, they needed to update daily values for 2 weeks : 14 DaysEach day would have an average of 5 records For each user, there will be ~ 70 time… Continue Reading Kaushal Kodagoda’s...
Transpose table columns using Power Automate (With example)
Power automate always works with defined column headers. Let’s take an example. Contoso uses a permission matrix to determine access provisioning based on employee role. RoleOffice365 Outlook Adobe LicenseD365 SalesD365 MarketingOffice AdminYesYesSales RepYesYesSales ManagerYesYesYesCTOYesYesYes HR manager wants to create role based permissions checklist for new employees. We… Continue Reading Kaushal Kodagoda’s...
Prevent orphan flows by automatically assigning admin account as co-owner
Imagine a scenario where you have to make changes to a personal cloud flow that was not shared with anyone. If the user who created the flow leaves the organization, no one would be able to see the flow unless they go to flow admin section and look for the orphan flow. Once you find the orphan flow, you can use “share” option and add a co-owner to that flow. Power Platform admin center >… Continue Reading Kaushal...
Fixing Dynamics 365 Marketing Event Portal Loading Issues
I recently updated Dynamics 365 Marketing instance and installed the portal application. Here are the steps I followed to deploy the sample event portal: Power Apps portal hosted custom event website (Dynamics 365 Marketing Developer Guide) | Microsoft Docs I downloaded event portal zip file according to the application version and deployed it using DeployToDynamics365Instance.ps1… Continue Reading Kaushal Kodagoda’s...
Dynamics 365 Customer Service macros – Update case field values
This is the second post of this series, if you are not familiar with the Agent scripts and Macros, you can check out the previous article for a step by step tutorial on how to configure Macros and Agent Scripts. Since we have already discussed the background in the previous post, let’s dive right into the scenario. I need to run a macro and update existing case values to below: Title… Continue Reading Kaushal...
Dynamics 365 Customer Service macros – Create new case with predefined field values
Dynamics365 is adding more and more features to help automate repetitive tasks for users in Customer Support product space. One of the latest additions is Agent Scripts and Macros in CS space. Macro function has lots of options available however in this article, I am only focusing on Case related actions. Before we begin, here are some basics: Macro : An automation flow to perform… Continue Reading Kaushal Kodagoda’s...
How to copy planner tasks with labels using Graph API
I tried to create a flow that copies planner tasks from one plan to another. I came across an issue where standard flow connectors did not support copying labels. I found that this could be implemented using graph API. Here are the steps: Prerequisites Create an app registration in Azure AD < ol>Follow the steps mentioned in the article to register an app in Azure active… Continue Reading Kaushal Kodagoda’s Article on...
Update current time and current user without using Javascript in model driven forms
Sometimes, we need to capture field updates for audit purposes. Here is an example: Account form has a field for “Account Application Status” (Options – Approved/Rejected). In either case, we need to capture who approved/rejected the application and date/time. My first idea was to implement this using business rules. However, this cannot be implemented using standard business rule… Continue Reading Kaushal...
Accessing Office 365 Audit log API in Power Platform can be tricky – Here’s why..
In a recent project, I had to query Office 365 audit log API using Power Automate. While this looked like a fairly easy task, there were quite a few learnings along the way. I had to research and test different approaches/methods for this seemingly simple task. I thought of sharing my experience in an article to help anyone who would have the same issues/concerns while trying to access… Continue Reading Kaushal Kodagoda’s...
Auto update outgoing email subject with case title and case number in Dynamics365 CE
Dynamics 365 unified service desk enables users to compose emails in a separate popup window. Every time an agent is composing an email within a case, he/she will have to manually update the email subject and append case number. This could cause errors as incorrect case numbers might get copied or else, agent may forget to append the case number at all. All these issues could be avoided by… Continue Reading Kaushal...
How I implemented 1-click clock-in/out feature in the “Return to the workplace” PowerApp
This is a challenging time for businesses as they are trying to operate under new health regulations/policies. Microsoft provides an all inclusive Power Apps solution free for businesses that they can use to effectively record, manage and monitor location readiness, employee health and facilities management. You can visit :
Expandable Rich Text editor control in Power Apps
Data input should be simple and efficient in any application for the end users. This improves usability of the app and overall user experience. Today, we will learn how to make a rich text field expand in a modal box so that it gives more space for end users to input data. Here is a sample app with this control: I am breaking the design down to 2 areas : UI ChangesRich Text… Continue Reading Kaushal K’s Article on their...
Power Apps error handling Part 2 – displaying error messages
In part 1, we discussed how to create custom error messages in Power Automate and pass them to your canvas app. In this article, let’s see how we can display these error messages with a modern look and feel. Here is the final output: For this, I am going to use my earlier example – (When we enter the file name, app will get the last modified date. If the name is incorrect, app will… Continue Reading Kaushal K’s...
Power Apps error handling in Power Automate actions
In any application, error messages should be displayed if there are any failed actions. These message should be meaningful and must explain the issue and possible cause for these errors to users. In this post, we will discuss how we can pass a custom error from Power Automate to a canvas app and display this message. Here is the output: Let’s look at this example: When we enter a… Continue Reading Kaushal K’s Article...
Data integration using webhooks/HTTP – Part 2 (sending data)
In my previous post, we discussed how to receive data from a webhook by a Power Automate flow. In this post, we can cover sending data to a third party system via HTTP. The flow could be triggered by any event such as create, edit, delete record, button click etc. For this example, I am using Dynamics 365 CRM lead record creation as my event. My requirement is to send the new lead… Continue Reading Kaushal K’s Article on...
Data integration using webhooks – Part 1 (Receiving data)
A webhook (also called a web callback or HTTP push API) is a way for an app to provide other applications with real-time information. With typical APIs, you would need to poll for data very frequently in order to get it real-time. Webhooks can get triggered on an event and execute as an API call. In this article, let’s see how we can setup a simple Power Automate flow to receive a webhook… Continue Reading Kaushal...
Get schedule of another Office365 user in PowerApps
Let’s look at a simple business requirement. Manager needs to know free/busy times for any selected user within the organization/team. Native PowerApps methods/functions do not support viewing another user’s calendar. Therefore, we need to create a custom connector for this. Creating custom PowerApps connector Create an application in Azure AD for authentication Grant below API… Continue Reading Kaushal K’s...
Export PowerApps charts – Part 2
So far, we have discussed how we can pass canvas app chart values to flow and generate a printable HTML in SharePoint. I highly recommend that you read my previous post to understand the context. Now, our challenge today is to create a button action that can access the SharePoint document within the PowerApps. Here are the steps: Pass SharePoint document link to the canvas app using… Continue Reading Kaushal K’s Article on...
Export canvas app charts in a printable format – Part 1
In this post, I will discuss how we can download a printable HTML file with canvas apps charts. I will continue to use the my sample solution. You can easily download this, import it to your PowerApps environment and follow the steps as we go. Download sample solution To summarize the requirement, we have a pie chart in the canvas app and we need to export this chart to a printable… Continue Reading Kaushal K’s Article on...
How to trigger buttons as automated actions during realtime field updates
This post is an extension of my previous posts. I suggest that you read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series to get a better understanding. Furthermore, you can directly download the sample app for training and do this exercise as we go along. Every time a field is updated, app will update the collection values in realtime. We have a lengthy code component that gets repeated inside the… Continue Reading Kaushal K’s Article on...
Populating canvas app pie charts using collections
Earlier we discussed how we can use collections to pass field values to canvas app charts in realtime. Before moving on, I recommend that you read my previous post to understand the scenario and steps. So far, we were able to add field values to a collection and use it as a data source for our column chart. Here is our collection structure. ClearCollect( ChartCollection,{ … Continue Reading Kaushal K’s Article on their...
Real time chart updates in PowerApps using collections
There are number of business cases where your customers request to view canvas app data as charts . However, when they make changes to fields inside the canvas app, it is a bit tricky to show these changes in real time and populate the chart. I see two challenges here: Data structure : Charts usually need source data to be in tabular format Data source refresh : Every time a field is… Continue Reading Kaushal K’s Article...
Flow is not passing integer values to PowerApps? This might help..
I got this question from one of the powerapps developers who had issues trying to pass a sharepoint list itemid(int) back to a canvas app using “Respond to a powerapp” action in flow. He was getting an empty value instead of a number inside the canvas app. Let me re-create the same issue. Here, I am passing int values via flow into a simple canvas app that will show the flow output. < div...
Use business rules in dynamics to populate fields
In my last post – how to use calculated fields to get related record attributes, we were able to get the primary phone number of an account in the opportunity form using calculated fields. Now let’s look at a more complicated scenario. I will be using the same business case: What if there already is a phone number field and you need to populate the value in that field? Since this field… Continue Reading Kaushal...
Quick tip – Get lookup record attributes using calculated fields
Let’s look at an example. In my opportunity form, there is an account lookup field. Sales manager requests that he needs to see the primary contact number of the account so that he can make the call from opportunity form. We can easily do this using calculated fields in dynamics. Step 1 – Add a new calculated field to opportunity Select data type as “Phone”. You can use any… Continue Reading Kaushal...
Build user friendly drop-down fields in powerapps
Native drop-down fields in canvas apps only support scrolling. They do not allow users to manually type in text in the drop down field to easily get to the relevant option instead of scrolling through the whole list. Take a scenario where you have 1000+ options in the drop-down. Simple example would be an account drop down that is using common data service account entity. Let’s examine… Continue Reading Kaushal K’s...
Access files stored in Dynamics 365 records via PowerAutomate
Dynamics gives the ability to save files within a record. These files are stored in SharePoint. Let’s see how we can create a flow to access a document just by using the dynamics record ID. Prerequisites SharePoint Integration should be enabled for the dynamics environmentSharePoint document management should be enabled for the specific entity Ok, let’s begin.. Identify SharePoint… Continue Reading Kaushal K’s...
Dynamics CRM auto populate lookup values from custom field – Part 2
This is second part of this series. If you are not familiar with the business case, I highly recommend that you read part 1 where I explain the business case and QuickView creation. Ok, now that we know the background, let’s look at the task at hand. We have two entities (Account and Registration Info) with a custom unique ID –DBID. When a registration info record is created, we need… Continue Reading Kaushal...
Dynamics CRM auto populate lookup values from custom field – Part 1
In most cases, organizations have their own unique ID’s to identify records. As an example, ABC organization uses DBID as their unique internal account code. For each related custom record, they will use DBID as the foreign key to identify the specific account. Here is the business case : We need to gather Registration Info as a separate record and later link it to the relevant… Continue Reading Kaushal K’s Article...