Modify Microsoft Entra ID Connector (Standard) to meet your security requirements
Nov21

Modify Microsoft Entra ID Connector (Standard) to meet your security requirements

Some time ago I wrote the post: https://wordpress.com/post/msolenacrm.blog/4767 In the post, I was talking about the standard Microsoft connector not meeting my client’s security requirements. Pretty much, I was blocked and searching for a solution. The only “security appropriate” solution was a custom connector but I didn’t know where to start. I asked my partner to investigate the… Continue Reading...

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Streamlining Integration: Leveraging Service Principal Authentication for SQL Connector in Power Apps and Power Automate
Nov05

Streamlining Integration: Leveraging Service Principal Authentication for SQL Connector in Power Apps and Power Automate

In the ever-evolving landscape of business processes and data management, efficient integration is the key to success. Securing and managing connections in Power Apps and Power Automate is a critical aspect of integration. This blog post delves into how to use Service Principal authentication to create a connection for Azure SQL Server database with the SQL Server connector in Power Apps and… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Streamlining Integration: Using Service Principal authentication on Custom connectors with Microsoft Graph Application Permissions
Oct28

Streamlining Integration: Using Service Principal authentication on Custom connectors with Microsoft Graph Application Permissions

Microsoft recently announced a long awaited feature: support for Service Principals in Custom connectors which is currently in Public Preview. This empowers you to authenticate as a service principal instead of relying on user accounts. It’s a game-changer that paves the way for a multitude of scenarios, especially those requiring seamless, uninterrupted access for automated processes, free… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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As a System Administrator, I would like to create a DLP policy for my environment(s) so I can help protect data in my organization

If you are a Power Platform admin, you can find the relevant information in the following Microsoft article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/create-dlp-policy Unfortunately, it’s not clear from the article how to create a DLP policy as a System Administrator managing just one or multiple environments and not having a Power Platform admin role and superpowers. This… Continue Reading Olena Grischenko...

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Microsoft Entra ID connector – least privilege
Oct05

Microsoft Entra ID connector – least privilege

The solution described in the article is not fully working to the level it satisfies the author. It’s a continuous effort to come up with the best solution that meets both dev and ops requirements. Me The problem I am trying to create a security group using Power Automate using the Microsoft Entra ID connector. Microsoft Entra ID – Connectors Microsoft Entra ID is an Identity and Access Management cloud solution that...

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Cancelling Dataverse via DLP policy on the Default environment
Oct03

Cancelling Dataverse via DLP policy on the Default environment

Let’s chat about how we got there first. In my client’s organisation the decision was made to limit Power Platform usage to just Office 365 connectors due to the complexity of the service ownership, time-consuming licensing discussions – it’s complicated! So Power Platform is only allowed as a part of the Office 365 subscription, all users in the organisation are covered by their Office… Continue Reading...

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Canvas App: Office365Users.Search UserV2 not working, but V1 does
Aug10

Canvas App: Office365Users.Search UserV2 not working, but V1 does

Scenario: Currently, I am working on the New Environment Request app. As a part of the solution, we add the environment business Owner which as we know is different from the Owner field populated by default with the name of the user who physically spins the environment. Therefore, on the form, we allow a user to pick an Owner from the list of users. Solution: We will use Office… Continue Reading Olena Grischenko...

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Co-pilot with Power Pages: new features to generate UI
Aug07

Co-pilot with Power Pages: new features to generate UI

Co-pilot with Power Pages Learn to generate Power Pages page ideas with the pre-defined layout, described color scheme, and purpose. Continue Reading Olena Grischenko (she/her)’s Article on their blog Co-pilot with Power Pages: new features to generate UI https://youtu.be/M7HbJ8QNAcU Co-pilot with Power Pages Learn to generate Power Pages page ideas with the pre-defined layout, described color scheme, and purpose. Blog...

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Power Automate: Send approval email to external customer
Jul19

Power Automate: Send approval email to external customer

To remind myself for the future discussions. Thank you very much, Mira! MG #Power automate #Approvals #External Guests Approvals in power automate are very nice interactive feature to process requests and documents! They can be integrated with CDS, SharePoint online and Onedrive. Here is a link to creation of Approvals walk-though when an item is created in a sharepoint… Continue Reading Olena Grischenko (she/her)’s...

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Power Platform DLP Policy: blocking HTTP connectors won’t impact child Flows
Jul18

Power Platform DLP Policy: blocking HTTP connectors won’t impact child Flows

Previously known issue Call Child Flows – Power Automate Flows can now call other flows and pass parameters to them. “If you block the HTTP Request connector via data loss prevention (DLP), child flows are also blocked because child flows are implemented using the HTTP connector. Work is underway to separate DLP enforcement for child flows so that they are treated like other cloud flows.” <h2… Continue Reading Olena...

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Power Platform environment. Definition of inactivity.
Apr09

Power Platform environment. Definition of inactivity.

Our Power Platform Admin team recently discussed the possibility of the automatic cleanup of inactive environments. For the Sandbox and Production environments, we tried to come up with a definition of what we believe is an “inactive environment”. The definition we could think of would combine two main components: a user activity in the environment, at minimum, login, and/or automation… Continue Reading Olena...

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“Do DLP policies apply to Developer environments?”
Apr06

“Do DLP policies apply to Developer environments?”

< blockquote class=”wp-block-quote”> The simplest way to get access to a Power Platform environment is to sign up for the Power Apps Developer plan. You can explore Power Platform at full potential for learning at no cost. To fully use it as a developer, you’ll need an Azure account and a work account. This article will guide you through the process for creating a Power Platform environment and a test...

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Set up ALM accelerator for Microsoft Power Platform. Power Platform Admin requirements considerations.
Apr01

Set up ALM accelerator for Microsoft Power Platform. Power Platform Admin requirements considerations.

The issue My client’s ops team got a request from developers to support the ALM accelerator setup and configuration.They follow the steps from the article below:https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/guidance/coe/setup-almacceleratorpowerplatform-preview#give-power-app-management-permission-to-your-app App registration is a part of the setup. The Power App Management… Continue Reading Olena Grischenko (she/her)’s...

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Convert Speech to Text using OpenAI Whisper in Power Apps
Mar19

Convert Speech to Text using OpenAI Whisper in Power Apps

OpenAI has released a new neural network called Whisper, which is an open-source model that can convert speech to text with impressive accuracy. This model is specifically designed to transcribe spoken language into text with high precision and speed, making it an ideal tool for a variety of applications, such as virtual assistants and video captioning. Whisper relies on advanced machine… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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How to copy an existing DLP Policy in Power Platform
Mar19

How to copy an existing DLP Policy in Power Platform

DLP policies are essential in ensuring that data is managed uniformly across an organization, thereby preventing critical business data from being accidentally published to social media or other connectors. These policies can be created at both the tenant and environment levels, with management handled through the Power Platform admin center. However, it is currently not possible to copy an… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Uploading Files Made Easy: A Guide to Using the Attachment Control in Power Apps
Mar19

Uploading Files Made Easy: A Guide to Using the Attachment Control in Power Apps

The Attachment control in Power Apps is a useful feature that allows users to upload and delete files, but it can only be used with data sources such as SharePoint List or Dataverse table. However, if you need to upload and delete files without using these data sources, you can create a custom component using the Attachment control or you can directly use this control in the app. I have… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Changing Connections in Connection References on a Managed Solution

A connection reference is a component in a solution that holds information about a connector. It can be used by both a Canvas app and Power Automate flows. When importing a managed solution to an environment, the user is asked to either select an existing connection or create a new one. However, once a managed solution is imported, it cannot be edited as shown below The solution to this… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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How to send an Adaptive card to a Microsoft Teams Private channel using Power Automate flow
Dec31

How to send an Adaptive card to a Microsoft Teams Private channel using Power Automate flow

Within Microsoft Teams, private channels create focused spaces for collaboration where only the owners or members of the private channel can access the channel. The Microsoft Teams connector in Power Automate has an action to Post an Adaptive card in a chat or channel, which posts an adaptive card as a flow bot to a specific Teams channel. The following error will appear if this action is used… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Generating simple and complex documents with just Power Platform, no add-ons.
Nov20

Generating simple and complex documents with just Power Platform, no add-ons.

In the consulting world, we get the document generation requirements for most medium to large-size projects. Traditionally, for Dynamics 365 projects we used document generation add-ons, like Document Core Pack or Xpertdoc to generate documents. However, it’s unnecessary in the world of Power Platform where all requirements could be addressed with just Power Platform.

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Power Automate w Word Online: generate document updates
Sep28

Power Automate w Word Online: generate document updates

Scenario: My client generate a summary document for the application lodged online. The generated summary could be manually edited by an officer. At the final stage of the application processing, it’s required to include additional information to the generated summary document regarding the outcome of the application. This information must be dynamically generated. This is a process… Continue Reading Olena Grischenko...

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5 reasons why (you believe) you can’t be Microsoft MVP and why you should rethink it
Jul06

5 reasons why (you believe) you can’t be Microsoft MVP and why you should rethink it

Today is “that day of the year”, the MVP renewal day. You could see lots of posts on Twitter and LinkedIn about the event. MVPs are posting about being renewed for another year. It means more community work, opportunities, more tech knowledge shared, and more questions answered. It means more fun! I’ve been a part of the Microsoft MVP Award program for some time. People reach out to ask me… Continue Reading...

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Send Teams Activity Feed notification from Power Automate using custom Teams Bot
Jun11

Send Teams Activity Feed notification from Power Automate using custom Teams Bot

Activity feed notifications appears in the Teams activity feed panel with link to various locations thus enabling developers to build actionable content. These notifications are sent as push notifications in the Teams client. In this blogpost, let us see how to send Teams activity feed notification using < ol type=”1″>Custom Teams App with a BotPower Automate standard action: Post a feed… Continue Reading Mohamed...

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Call SharePoint REST API in a custom connector (Power Apps/Power Automate)
May29

Call SharePoint REST API in a custom connector (Power Apps/Power Automate)

The Power Automate action Send an HTTP request to SharePoint could come handy in many scenarios to execute SharePoint REST API queries but you will not able to use this action directly in Power Apps. In this blogpost, let us see how to call the SharePoint REST API in a custom connector which can be used either in Power Automate or Power Apps. There are many REST API endpoints available within… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Top 5 features of Power Pages from  Power Apps Portal UI/UX pro
May25

Top 5 features of Power Pages from Power Apps Portal UI/UX pro

I am very excited to share my initial thoughts about Power Pages and a new portal designer. It was a big announcement at MS Build today, if you missed it you can read the article here and then set up a trial to start playing with Power Pages. I’ve been working as a Dynamics 365 portal and Power Apps portal for many years. Recently, I made UI/UX for Power Apps portals one of my business… Continue Reading Olena Grischenko...

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Where’s my old app designer?!
May20

Where’s my old app designer?!

Changes to UI are always fun. From the user experience perspective, they are challenging and somehow scary. I love a new app designer! It’s easy to use, it’s smart, and very user-friendly. However, today I need a new designer to make sure I’ve got all forms required added to my app. In the old designer you can check it. And in a new one – I’m not sure it’s even possible. In my old… Continue...

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Send Teams channel message aka proactive message using custom Teams bot and Power Automate – Part 2
Mar06

Send Teams channel message aka proactive message using custom Teams bot and Power Automate – Part 2

In the last post, we have seen till the installation of the Teams App with the Bot on a Microsoft Team. Let us now continue to send a proactive message, be it an Adaptive card or a simple Text message on a Teams channel using Bot Framework REST API from a Power Automate Cloud Flow. A proactive message is any message sent by a bot that isn’t in response to a request from a user. Ex: Welcome… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Send Teams channel message aka proactive message using custom Teams bot and Power Automate – Part 1
Feb28

Send Teams channel message aka proactive message using custom Teams bot and Power Automate – Part 1

Microsoft Teams connector in Power Automate has actions which can send a simple text message or Adaptive card as a flow bot in a Teams channel. Messages or cards are posted as the user who’s signed into the connector in the flow or by using the flow bot. Post adaptive card in a chat or channelPost message in a chat or channel Messages can be posted on a Teams channel only if the signed… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Deep Link SharePoint News post in Teams using Adaptive card and Power Automate
Jan30

Deep Link SharePoint News post in Teams using Adaptive card and Power Automate

Microsoft Teams helps us bring together content from different Microsoft 365 services for easier collaboration. In Microsoft Teams connected SharePoint site, SharePoint News connector would help receive news updates from the site. In this post let us see how to create Notifications about new News post with deep link to the post from a communication site in an Adaptive card on a Teams channel… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Share Power Apps with Microsoft Teams Users
Jan30

Share Power Apps with Microsoft Teams Users

You can share an app with Microsoft Teams users since each Microsoft team also creates a Microsoft 365 group in Azure AD. The only pre-requisite is the associated Microsoft 365 group of the Microsoft Team should be securityEnabled. By default, the Microsoft team group is not security enabled. If you are trying to share a Power Apps with a Microsoft team which is not security enabled, you will… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Get deleted SharePoint site details using Microsoft Graph API
Jan09

Get deleted SharePoint site details using Microsoft Graph API

The deleted sites are retained for 93 days and an Admin can restore them. In this blog post let us see how to get the deleted SharePoint site details using Microsoft Graph API application permission. Step 1: Register an application in Azure AD and obtain the client id, client secret & tenant id for the registered application. Add Sites.Read.All Microsoft Graph application permission <img...

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Handling nonexistent, null and multi value type properties in Parse JSON action
Dec31

Handling nonexistent, null and multi value type properties in Parse JSON action

In Power Automate cloud flow, Parse JSON action is used to access properties in JSON content enabling you to select those properties from the dynamic content list on your subsequent actions. Typically the JSON content will be from a response to an API call. The first step after adding the action is to select the source of the JSON content and to add the schema, you can either provide a JSON… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Parse an array without using Parse JSON action in Power Automate cloud flow
Dec31

Parse an array without using Parse JSON action in Power Automate cloud flow

In this blog post let us see how to access the property of an array object without using Parse JSON action. Find below the sample array which has been initialized in an array variable [ { “Name”: “Mohamed Ashiq Faleel”, “Location”: “Stockholm” }, { “Name”: “Megan Bowen”, “Location”: “New York” } ] Add a Apply to each control with...

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Effective Audience Targeting for SharePoint online NEWS Post using Term Store and Power Automate
Dec31

Effective Audience Targeting for SharePoint online NEWS Post using Term Store and Power Automate

In SharePoint Online sites, Audience targeting feature enables you to target relevant content to specific audiences enabling personalization through Microsoft 365 group, Azure AD Security group, Mail Enabled Security group or any combinations of these. The Membership type of the groups can be both Assigned and Dynamic. Target audience(s) can be defined on modern SharePoint pages, News post,… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Conditional Power Automate flow triggers for SharePoint Online Pages and NEWS Post
Dec06

Conditional Power Automate flow triggers for SharePoint Online Pages and NEWS Post

SharePoint Online Pages library is a container for different type of pages (News post, Page, Space, News Link) created in a Communication or Team site. There can be various scenarios to have a Power Automate Flow associated to a SharePoint Site pages library to handle additional processes after a Page or a News post is published. In this blog post, let us see how to Trigger the flow if a… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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How to use form-urlencoded content type in Power Automate Custom Connector
Nov07

How to use form-urlencoded content type in Power Automate Custom Connector

Content type x-www-form-urlencoded is used generally to send text data in a query string in the form of name value pairs separated by ampersand. In this blog post, let us see how to use the content-type x-www-form-urlencoded in a Power Automate custom connector. Refer to this post, if you would like to find out how to use it in a HTTP connector. Find below the screenshot from postman… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Power Apps Portal: “Table permission changes for forms and lists on new portals” So what?
Sep06

Power Apps Portal: “Table permission changes for forms and lists on new portals” So what?

In case you missed it… We’ve got a portal page with the form which is available for anonymous users. It’s a valid scenario. And the way we set it up previously was like this: Advanced form No authentication is required. Advanced form – no authentication is required. Advanced Form Step – Enable Table Permission option is not set. “Enable Table Permission” option wasn’t… Continue...

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Dataflows for PowerApps: loading data from CSV file without copying it to OneDrive in advance. ???
Aug17

Dataflows for PowerApps: loading data from CSV file without copying it to OneDrive in advance. ???

I would like to share my recent experience with loading a CSV file via Dataflow to Dataverse with you. Today, I downloaded the list of leads from the conference we sponsored last week. There is no better way to load it to my sales app on Dataverse – it’s a Dataflow way! At least for me . I needed to transform columns to combine all extra information available into a big Description column…. Continue Reading Olena...

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Child Flow: the ‘runAfter’ condition is not satisfied.
Aug09

Child Flow: the ‘runAfter’ condition is not satisfied.

When you tired, it’s 9PM on Monday … It’s Monday. I’m too tired to slap you. Could you please bash your face against my palm? Respond to PowerApp or flow action Respond to PowerApp or flow action doesn’t get triggered. I wonder why… Respond to PowerApp or flow action doesn’t get triggered ActionConditionFailed I’ve got two actions leading to Respond to a PowerApp or flow is…...

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Power App Portal Web API – fighting lookups
Aug08

Power App Portal Web API – fighting lookups

We will start with the 100% helpful Microsoft docs articles: Portals Web API – Power Apps The portals Web API enables building a richer user experience inside Power Apps portals pages. You can use the Web API to perform create, update, and delete operations across all Microsoft Dataverse tables from your portal pages. Portals operations using the Web API – Power Apps You can perform available Web API operations in portals....

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Dataflows for Power Apps: run import from the app
Aug06

Dataflows for Power Apps: run import from the app

As you know I am a very big fan of Dataflows. The biggest ask from me was always the ability to trigger the Dataflow refresh on demand from a Power App. Initially, Dataflows you could only run from the maker portal. You need all sort of “powerful” security roles and permissions to do so. Dataflows on a maker portal As a user I want an ability to trigger a bulk import with Dataflows… Continue Reading Olena Grischenko...

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Save Dataverse Notes to Azure Blob Storage and Display on PowerApps Portals
Aug05

Save Dataverse Notes to Azure Blob Storage and Display on PowerApps Portals

Last month I posted the article describing our exercise with the Azure Blob for the portal notes. The Part 1 is here: https://msolenacrm.blog/2021/07/20/azure-storage-integration-for-power-apps-portals/ This is the second part I advertised created by Mira and all implementation credits go to her as well : “I have been Exploring with Olena (https://msolenacrm.blog/) how to enable the… Continue Reading Olena Grischenko...

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Simple Azure Invoice OCR Tutorial
Aug05

Simple Azure Invoice OCR Tutorial

We are exploring OCR capabilities for invoice processing. This is the article which may help you to understand how it work if you want to train a custom model to use it then with Power Automate. Do you want your own OCR which costs less than a coffee? All credits go to Nick Grischenko. Continue Reading Olena Grischenko (she/her)’s Article on their blog Simple Azure Invoice OCR Tutorial We are exploring OCR capabilities for...

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Create a Power Automate custom connector from Postman V2 Collection
Jul29

Create a Power Automate custom connector from Postman V2 Collection

Postman collections makes the creation of custom connectors in Power Automate easier & quicker. As of time I am writing this article, to create a custom connector using Postman collection in Power Automate the version of Postman collection has to be V1. The current version of collections exported from Postman is V2. There is a NPM package by the name Postman Collection Transformer to rescue… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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How to use form-data and form-urlencoded content type in Power Automate or Logic Apps HTTP action
Jul25

How to use form-data and form-urlencoded content type in Power Automate or Logic Apps HTTP action

Content type multipart/form-data is used to send both text and binary data to the server and x-www-form-urlencoded is used more generally used to send text data in a query string in the form of name value pairs separated by ampersand. In this blog post, let us see how to use the content-type multipart/form-datax-www-form-urlencoded in a Power Automate or Logic apps HTTP action to post… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Azure Storage integration for Power Apps portals
Jul20

Azure Storage integration for Power Apps portals

To answer the question Why? I say we run into some limitations with SharePoint integration. And now we are trying to explore other options. Let’s get started! Enable Azure Storage This is a great blog post here: Want to leverage Azure storage for your documents in PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 portals instead of Notes? Check this out – Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog It’s got… Continue Reading Olena...

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Call a SharePoint REST API as an Application in Power Automate HTTP Connector
Jul18

Call a SharePoint REST API as an Application in Power Automate HTTP Connector

SharePoint connector in Power Automate is very rich with various actions that can make the developers or makers life simple when it comes to interacting with SharePoint data. There might be some actions like Breaking permission to a list itemCreating a siteAdding user to a SharePoint group etc which is not possible through the SharePoint standard connector or MS Graph API as of the time… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Azure Key Vault in Power Automate cloud flow – Could not retrieve values
Jul18

Azure Key Vault in Power Automate cloud flow – Could not retrieve values

Recently I was trying to connect Azure key vault to retrieve certificate details using the action called Get Secret in a cloud flow, as of the time writing this article I am not able to successfully establish the connection. It gave me an error Could no retrieve values as shown below instead of prompting me to enter the credentials to create the connection successfully. To create a… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq Faleel’s...

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Call Microsoft Graph API using a certificate in a Power Automate HTTP connector
Jul04

Call Microsoft Graph API using a certificate in a Power Automate HTTP connector

In this blog post, let us see how to call a Microsoft Graph API as an application in a Power Automate HTTP connector using a self-signed certificate instead of a secret from the Azure Active directory application. Find below the list of actions to enable calling the Graph API Creation of Self-Signed certificateApplication Registration in Azure AD PortalCreation of Power Automate cloud flow… Continue Reading Mohamed Ashiq...

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Handle SharePoint site creation response – The site address is unavailable
Jul04

Handle SharePoint site creation response – The site address is unavailable

There is a possibility to change the SharePoint online site address of an existing site by a SharePoint admin or Global admin. There are different options to change the site URL from SharePoint Admin centerSharePoint online management shell I’ve recently faced a scenario recently, after renaming a site URL https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/site1 to

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Power Automate with Dataverse: Saving API calls to Dataverse. Expand or Link-Entity?
Jul02

Power Automate with Dataverse: Saving API calls to Dataverse. Expand or Link-Entity?

Within Power Automate I am trying to make SINGLE(paginated) call to Dataverse to get the list of Work Orders with the particular status linked to Account but not directly but via extra layer. Also, I can retrieve extra lookup tables which are required by logic. All in a single call because making extra API calls is expensive and evil! The FetchXML query looks like one below: Query WO… Continue Reading Olena Grischenko...

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