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By my count that brings us to 10 different Copilot features in Power Apps. 🤯 The existing 6 are: Create a Table and App from Words Create a Table and App from Excel file Copilot Sidebar for helping Makers Copilot for Users to chat over their data Copilot Answers for precanned queries on data Draft with Copilot on multi-line inputs Wowsers, that is a bunch but good news we get more. Let's break them down below but if you like to see more than read then check out my latest video 4 New Power Apps Copilot Features . Copilot Explain it for Power Apps Now to the left of your formula bar you have a Copilot icon. If you click that icon you have the option for Explain it. This will analyze the code in your formula bar and tell you what it does. For Example here is my sample code: Set(varShowLoading, true); ClearCollect(colFiles, ShowColumns(AddColumns(Gallery1.AllItems, base64, With({varDemoFromAttachmentControl: JSON( Image3.Image,JSONFormat.IncludeBinaryData)},Mid(varDemoFromAttachmentControl, Find(",", varDemoFromAttachmentControl)+1, Len(varDemoFromAttachmentControl) - Find(",", varDemoFromAttachmentControl) -1 ))), base64, Name) ); Reset(AttachmentControl); Set(varShowLoading, false); And if I click Explain it, I get: That is super helpful, especially when you are updating an existing app or trying to understand some code you borrowed from a blog or a video. 😁 Good news, there is nothing to learn or configure here. Just click it and enjoy the power of AI. Copilot writing PowerFX for your Power Apps This is my favorite new thing. Have you ever had an idea in your head for a formula you wanted to write but weren't sure how. No problem. Now you can type // and then your request and boom you have a formula suggestion. For example: In this app, I have added 2 Date Picker controls and 1 Label. In the Label I am going to type //subtract datepicker1 from datepicker2 When I stop typing for a moment you will see Generating It will then show me a suggested formula and if I press Tab I have my formula. That is so cool. Think about it, I gave it some solid hints but, it figured it out. I didn't tell it to use Days, it just defaulted to that because that is the most common. Now what if I challenge it more. So now I am going to rename my DatePicker2 to dpForBuddy and I am going to ask for hours. Can it do it? Of course. That one melts my brain. Look at how vague I was and it worked out a solution. Things to keep in mind with this new feature It is slowly rolling out, you may not have it yet but hopefully soon. It is also available for English so far. If you have an older app, then you will need to enable the feature Power FX formula bar It only works on certain PowerFX functions today. Common functions it doesn't work with yet include Set, Collect, and Patch. It does work for Filter and Search. By my observation functions you would put on a button don't seem to work yet, everything else I have tried does. Look at that nested request It does seem to understand inside of Galleries concepts like ThisItem. Look it even knew to add a space in the name. Do you want to learn more about Copilot? Then be sure to check out my upcoming Live Copilot Training Class . A day full of all things Copilot including Bing Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and all of the fun you can have with Power Platform and AI Builder Copilot. So cool. Hope to see you there. Copilot Ideas for Power Apps Power Apps has had Ideas as a feature for a while. Where you could click on a Gallery for example and it would offer you some formula suggestions. Well now the team has taken that concept to another level with Copilot Ideas. Now when I click on a Gallery I see a Copilot button. By clicking the button you get some suggestions, like we used to with Ideas. The big difference is at the top. Now I can use my own words to get suggestions more in line with what I want, instead of only their suggestions. Here is what I put in for my Prompt I want to filter where Department equals "Executive" and then I want to sort by last name and then first name column Look at the well written formula with real column names added. Now I click Apply and boom my gallery is using this new formula. Using words to get better ideas, that is a great concept. Bing Search power for Copilot for Power Apps Makers Have you ever asked Copilot over there on the right to help with something with your app for it to say Sorry, I don't know about that. Well, now you can enhance what it knows with power of Bing Search. By default it is disabled but you can turn it on for the whole session with the gear at the bottom. Or if you ask a question it doesn't know it will offer. If I click Yes, until I close this chat it will use the power of Bing to get me the answer I need. This is a nice addition. I am also hopeful this paves the way to Power Apps Copilot one day knowing everything in my tenant so I could potentially build apps around documented business processes or requirements. Fingers crossed. Conclusion Power Apps is awesome. Copilot is awesome. And they both keep working together to be more awesome. Technical enough? 🤣 The real key here is you should be embracing these Copilots and you should be on the look out for change. It seems almost every week something new sneaks out. So stay on your toes and keep embracing AI and you will do well. If we can do anything to help you with Power Platform or Copilot hit us up on the contact form below. We have mentoring, training, project services, planning and design, and any other help you might be looking for.

I didn’t know how to build a custom connector using the HTTP step in Power Automate, I wanted to see an example of what someone had already done. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find where someone had bridged that chasm before. Fortunately, I had the encouragement from Shane Young  that I could do it, and examples from so many others, that I didn’t give up! I want to encourage you that you can do it, too, and I want to share with you an example of an HTTP connection to ActiveCampaign . My problem was that I had to create a custom connector to add contacts to ActiveCampaign . Like I said, though, I just couldn’t find an example posted where someone did this with Power Automate. Find settings & documentation The first thing I did (and you should always consider this as your first step, too!) was check with Microsoft Copilot  on how to continue. Copilot gave me generic steps as well as the link to some API documentation from ActiveCampaign .  There is some some good documentation ( ActiveCampaign API documentation ) for programmers on how to do this, however, there’s nothing in there that’s specific to Power Automate. So, I had to put on my thinking cap for this one. The next thing I did was to log into my account to get the critical information to put into my flow. This included the Method, URL, Headers, Body, and Authentication. Unfortunately, the API documentation didn’t lay it out like this, so I had to do some trial and error to get it working. The Method  was straightforward, I needed to do a POST , because I was going to create a new entry. The URI  was a bit trickier, and that’s where the documentation was helpful. The way it’s laid out gives you a menu down the left side with some of the different actions you can do. In my case, I needed to “Create a contact”. I scrolled down the list until I saw “Contacts” and then expanded it, revealing a way to “Create a contact”. As you can see from the image below, I was able to glean some information on the Method, URL, some Headers, and some JSON for the Body. So, at this point, I had the Method , the URL , and some JSON to help with the Body . I had a clue that I was going to need an Api-Token in the Header , but I didn’t know exactly what that meant. Also, I noticed that the code below the URL part (in the image as a “CURL REQUEST”) included two other headers: accept  and content-type ; both or type application/json . Did I need those in my flow? I didn’t know, but I made a note of them. To find the rest of what I needed, I had to log into my ActiveCampaign account. Once you’re logged in to your account, you can go to the Settings > Developer  to find what you need for the Api-Token for the Header. The information you’re looking for to complete your specific URL as well as the Api-Token part are on this page. The URL is what you replace “youraccountname” from the documentation with. The Key becomes the value for the Header “Api-Token”. Though the Settings  didn’t tell me everything that I needed for Power Automate, I also had my login information for ActiveCampaign . At this point, I actually had everything that I needed, and I was ready to begin my flow. Create the flow in Power Automate So as not to break my production flow while I was figuring this out, I created a test flow with two simple steps, a manual trigger and an HTTP step. The three pieces of information that I wanted to pass to my HTTP connector were: First Name Last Name Email address So, I made these manual inputs for my test flow, and I added an HTTP step to my flow. The tricky part was finding out where to put the Key that I copied from my ActiveCampaign account, but here’s how it all worked: Method : POST URL : [my account URL from the Developer info]/api/3/contacts Headers :                 Api-Token [the copied Key from the Developer info]                 content-type    application/json                 accept             application/json The only information that I wanted to send to my ActiveCampaign Contacts list was an email, and a first name and last name. So, I restructured the JSON for my request Body like this: Body :                 {                  "contact": {                  "email": “[the dynamic email input from my trigger]”                  "firstName": “[the dynamic First name  input from my trigger]”                  "lastName": “[the dynamic Last name  input from my trigger]”                   } } I went through some trial and error with the Authentication (under Advanced options), but what worked was Basic  authentication with the Username  and Password  from my account. Here’s what the final test flow looked like: With these settings, I was able to successfully add a contact to my ActiveCampaign contacts list. With the test flow working, I then went back and changed my production flow. Summary Building a custom connector with Power Automate is possible with the HTTP connector! Though I’d never successfully done this before, I want to encourage you that you can do it! Don’t be intimidated by the crazy JSON that you must write and all the Headers and Authentication that you need to include. Find API documentation from the site/service you’re trying connect with (use Copilot for an early assist), build a small test flow, and experiment with the puzzle pieces until you get it to work. When it works, it’s oh so satisfying !

Welcome to your one-stop Power Platform updates blog from PowerApps911! This update covers important changes over the month of April 2024 for Power Apps, Power Automate and Power BI. Power Apps New consent dialog . When accessing an app, users will have a dialog display that will specify the permissions granted them via the app, per the data source, and then will ask them to “Allow” the connections necessary to run the app. If there is any requirement to sign in for a data connection, the user will be able to do this in the dialog actions. The significant difference in what users saw before and now are the specific actions the app will do with that connection, such as “Read records” for a SharePoint list. This feature  rolled out the week of April 15th. Power Platform Advisor . In the Power Platform admin center, you’ll notice the Advisor in the navigation panel on the left side of your navigation menu. What is it? Advisor will scan your environments once a week and provide recommendations for enhancing security, reliability, and the overall health of your tenant. The functionality is somewhat like the App checker within Power Apps, but on a Tenant level. It will provide stats, insights, and recommendations. It can inform you of apps, for example, which do not have valid owners, apps that haven’t been used in the last 60 days, apps that are not in a solution, and apps that are shared with “Everyone” in your tenant, including guest users. Recommendations can be assigned or shared for action. Column names losing their “quotes”.  Previously, when you referred to a column in certain functions (AddColumns/DropColumns/RenameColumns/ShowColumns, Search, GroupBy, Ungroup, and DataSourceInfo) you had to wrap the column name in double quotes, like a text string. Microsoft is phasing in a Power Fx version that will not require the quotes anymore (just like you currently refer to column names in a formula). Microsoft assures us that this will not “break” old apps that still include the double quotes. This functionality is already included in the Power Fx 1.0  update that is forthcoming, but it is a “pre-release” update to the Power Fx version we currently use. Microsoft also plans to add this “no-quote” functionality to the SortByColumns and Validate functions in the months ahead. Enhanced theming for modern controls . First touted in February, custom theming is now available for modern controls. When you select your Themes  icon from the left side navigation rail, you now have the choice to “Add a theme” which allows you to define your own theme to match organizational branding. Theming changes will automatically apply to any modern controls that are part of your app. There are more modern controls customizations coming, but this is one that we can use right now. Import SharePoint lists into Dataverse during app creation . You can now use the Copilot app creation feature for SharePoint lists. Access this feature by selecting Start with data  from the home page in Power Apps. If you select SharePoint as the source, you can choose the site and the list to begin your app with. Power Apps presents your data in a Power Query preview experience where you can edit your SharePoint lists columns and data before importing it into your app (and creating the Dataverse table). Copilot helps with this by selecting proper columns from SharePoint and defining their data type for Dataverse. You can still edit the proposed columns before creating the app/Dataverse table, but this new feature quickens app/data creation from SharePoint data. Copilot answer  control in public preview . We have seen the Copilot component in preview for some time now, but Microsoft has just given us the opportunity to use the new Copilot answer  control. You can enable it in your app Settings > Upcoming features. You can insert it into your app and assign it to a data source. The default setting gives you a summary of your data by selecting the control. If you add a text input control, you can adjust the Question property to use the value of the text input as your question. You can also adjust the Title  property to prompt your users what types of questions to ask, like this example: Intelligent Recommendations for premium licensing . This AI feature is now available in public preview, and it provides recommendations on premium licensing for app users. You can find this feature in the Power Platform admin center   > Licenses and capacity  > Intelligent recommendations . This feature analyzes app usage within your organization every 30 days, and then it provides recommendations for users with Basic Power Apps licenses, active trials, or those who’ve already requested licensing. Think of it as an easy way to quickly see your app users and assign them the licensing/permissions (including security groups) they need to make the most out of the available apps. Recent Power Apps UI Updates 1- Automatically remove data not currently in use You may have noticed a new tool to remove unused data sources from your app. When you select the Data tab, there’s a small broom icon in the top right corner of the panel that quickly and painlessly removes any data sources from your app. See the image below for where to find that. 2 - New context menu When you click on controls in a canvas app, you may have noticed the purple menu of commands that appears just above the control. The idea is to simplify options to modify the control without searching for them. The most common options are available by simply selecting the option. For example, our image below shows a gallery with the context menu option of “Data” selected. Updated and new functions for Power Apps In case you missed it, Shane has done a new video of two new and two improved functions  in Power Apps. He covers the brand-new functions EncodeHTML and UniChar, as well as updates to the Table and JSON functions. New Functions : • EncodeHTML - encodes a string to make it safe for rendering in HTML. • UniChar - generates a Unicode character based on its code value. Updated Functions : • Merge Tables  - combines two or more tables into a single table, an improvement for the existing Table  function. • Flatten JSON  - converts nested JSON structures into a flat table format via the JSON  function formatting option: JSONFormat.FlattenValuesTables . Be sure and check out the video ! Power Automate Relative to Power Apps, Power Automate has been relatively quiet with new features this past month, however, there is a new SAP Connector in preview that works with OData, and Microsoft has included some good resources for helping you understand how Process Mining with Copilot can help your organization monitor, analyze and improve your processes. The SAP OData connector  is a “premium” connector and is still in development, but Microsoft is seeking your feedback to improve it. This new connector supports Basic, Anonymous, and API key authentication. It also can use the on-premises data gateway to connect to SAP. If you’ve not worked with the on-premises data gateway before, you can learn more about installing them here . The new actions available with this connector include create, read, update, delete and query functions for SAP OData. A blog post on Hyperautomation  appears this month in the Power Automate blog. A key part of this blog showcases how process mining is now enhanced by Copilot. If you’ve not used process mining previously, this enhancement really makes it easy to use. Process mining takes advantage of accessing data that’s already available, and Copilot helps you zero in on your most meaningful data and processes. The series of videos in the blog post help you see these companions in action, plus they introduce the Center of Excellence tools available for your organization. Power BI There were a bunch of new features for Power BI released in April including the new 100% Stacked Area Chart, more configuration options for Line Charts, and enhancements to Power BI mobile. See the whole list here . Keep reading for a few more highlights. You can now deliver Power BI paginated report subscriptions to a OneDrive or SharePoint location . Where previously, you were restricted by size limits for emails, this is no longer the case (however, there is a 250Mb limit on the size of the attachment). If your user has access to the OneDrive or SharePoint location, they can view the reports. Licensing requirements are still the same, but instead of receiving a large report in their inbox, report users can simply receive a link to one of these locations. If you’ve not used them before, subscriptions can be fully automated. Another new subscription feature added in April is the ability to add dynamic per recipient subscriptions for Power BI reports for up to 1000 recipients, up from the previous limit of 50. You can now add a Copilot pane to your Power BI workspace . This feature is currently in preview and is a “premium” option (available in a paid Fabric or Power BI Premium capacity with copilot enabled), but it is available to answer questions about your data and even create new report pages based on your prompts to copilot. Copilot is already available to help you write DAX queries, and there’s a great walk-through added this month showing how copilot enhances the DAX query view  in Power BI Desktop. If your organization has a continuously playing PowerPoint slide show that includes Power BI data, you can now refresh to the latest in-slide Power BI data without stopping the slide show to refresh data manually. Within the Power BI Add-in options, you can enable the Automatic refresh in slide show  option and even define the frequency of it. Additionally, the Power BI add-in can help you add a slide title to an empty slide. In Summary… Let’s recap some updates for the Power Platform in April 2024. Power Apps introduced a new consent dialog for app permissions and enhanced theming for modern controls. Plus, importing SharePoint lists into Dataverse just got easier with Copilot. Power Automate introduced a new SAP Connector in preview and we can now use Copilot in Process Mining to better understand our processes and where to improve. Power BI brought more cool features like the 100% Stacked Area Chart and enhanced subscription options. Now, you can even add a Copilot pane to your Power BI workspace for smarter data insights. Stay in the loop with PowerApps911 as we continue to provide information on these game-changing updates!

In today's digital workplace, the ability to customize and automate SharePoint processes can significantly enhance productivity and collaboration. The SharePoint REST API, when combined with Power Automate, opens a world of possibilities, allowing you to extend beyond the limitations of standard SharePoint functionalities. This post explores why the SharePoint REST API is a game-changer, how Power Automate makes it accessible, and provides practical examples to get you started. Why You Should Care About the SharePoint REST API The SharePoint REST API enables you to interact with SharePoint resources such as sites, lists, columns, and more programmatically. This means you can automate complex tasks, integrate with other services, and build more dynamic and responsive solutions for your organization. Understanding how to leverage the SharePoint REST API can transform your operational efficiency and open new avenues for system integrations. The Ease of Use Provided by Power Automate One of the greatest strengths of Power Automate is its ability to simplify complex processes. When it comes to using the SharePoint REST API, Power Automate provides a user-friendly interface and a variety of pre-configured actions that handle authentication and connection details automatically. This drastically reduces the learning curve and lowers the barrier to entry for automating SharePoint tasks. How to Create a SharePoint Site Using Power Automate Creating a SharePoint site via the REST API with Power Automate involves setting up an HTTP request that specifies the site's properties. Below is a basic example of how to structure your Power Automate flow to accomplish this: Method: POST URI: _api/SPSiteManager/Create Headers: Accept: "application/json;odata.metadata=none" odata-version: "4.0" Body: { "request": { "Title": "Your Site Title", "Url": "Site URL", "Lcid": 1033, "Template": "STS#3", "Owner": " your.email@domain.com " } } Here is my example: How to Create a List in Your New Site After setting up your site, you might want to create a custom list to store data. Here's how you can use Power Automate to send an HTTP request to create a list: Method: POST URL: _api/web/lists Headers: Accept: "application/json;odata=verbose" Content-Type: "application/json;odata=verbose" Body: { "__metadata": { "type": "SP.List" }, "AllowContentTypes": true, "BaseTemplate": 100, "Description": "My Custom List", "Title": "Custom List" } Here is my example: If you are enjoying this. Consider checking out our training options. We have on-demand classes, live classes, and even a full 6 months program to teach you all things Power Platform. For more information check out our Power Platform Training . Adding a Column to Your List To further customize your list, you may need to add columns. Below is how to add a single text column to your list through Power Automate: Method: POST URL: _api/web/lists/getbytitle('Custom List')/fields Headers: Accept: "application/json;odata=verbose" Content-Type: "application/json;odata=verbose" Body: { "__metadata": { "type": "SP.Field" }, "Title": "New Column", "FieldTypeKind": 2, "AddToDefaultView": true } Other Things You Might Want to Do With the SharePoint REST API and Power Automate, the possibilities are nearly limitless. Here are a few more things you might consider automating: - Creating Views : Automate the creation of custom views for your lists to tailor how data is displayed. - Managing Permissions : Set up workflows to manage and update permissions dynamically. - Integrating with External Systems : Send data from SharePoint to other systems like CRM platforms, external databases, or even custom apps. - Accessing SharePoint Groups: Always been surprised this wasn't built in so there is a video just for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRnbe1CfQ30 Conclusion The SharePoint REST API is a powerful tool for any SharePoint administrator or developer looking to enhance their site's functionality and automation. Power Automate not only simplifies the process of using the API but also expands the potential of what you can achieve with SharePoint automation. For a full step-by-step guide, including detailed explanations and troubleshooting tips, check out our video tutorial on how to use the SharePoint API with Power Automate . By mastering these skills, you can significantly increase the efficiency and functionality of your SharePoint environment, providing more value to your team and organization. If you need help with this, or anything else big or small in the Power Platform just scroll down the page and fill out the contact form. We would be happy to help.

Configuring your Dataverse security roles will help you keep data from being editable to the wrong target audience. However, if you improperly configure your security role for your lookup tables, you can be in for a headache. This article discusses the problem and the solution! I recently created a Power Apps model-driven app with a main table that had lookup columns to other tables. By using the Power Platform admin center for my Environment, I created two different security roles for the app. On the “Admin” security role I gave complete organization-level access to all the different tables (create, read, update, delete, etc.). For the “User” security role, I gave complete access to the main table and then organizational read  access only to the supporting tables. The problem All was well and good when folks with the “Admin” role were using the app, however, when the “Users” took to the app they noticed that they didn’t have access to any of the supporting tables. Here's what folks with the "User" role began seeing: A perplexing problem! We didn’t want the “User” role to be able to change any of the data, but we needed them to be able to input data into the main table from these supporting tables. One of our PowerApps911 experts, Daniel LeMay, uncovered the problem during a call with the customer. Solving the problem Part A - Don’t start a security role from scratch! When you create a new security role, there are a lot of permissions to various tables throughout a Dataverse environment that you’ll miss. The supporting tables have complex relationships with other tables that you may miss. Some of these permissions are User-level, some are for Business Unit, and some are Organizational access. When you begin thinking about a new security role, think of using a standard Dataverse security role that most closely resembles your users and make a copy of that role to start your new role with that. For example, if you just want someone to have access to the app, but not do any data input, start with the App Opener role. If someone is going to be accessing the app as a user, consider the Basic User  role. There are other roles such as Service Reader, Service Writer and Support User as well. None of these roles is customizable so that you can use these as templates for your security roles. Microsoft has a list of these different roles here . Use one of these as a template. We decided to use the Basic User  role as a template. Here’s a step-by-step guide for how to use an existing Dataverse security role as a template for another security role. 1.      Go to the Power Platform admin center ( https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com ) 2.      Select Environments from the left-side menu. 3.      Select the Environment where you want to create the security role. 4.      In the Access pane there is a clickable “ See all ” link under Security roles. 5.      Find the security role you want to emulate in the list of security roles. Select the “More actions” ellipses next to the Business unit number and select Copy . (You can do the same thing from the Copy button in the command bar.) 6.      Once you select Copy , a dialog box appears where you can enter a name for your new role. Input the name for your role. Then select Copy. 7.      After a few moments, your new role will appear on your Security roles list, and you can continue. Part B - Update your supporting table permissions with Append and Append to permissions. Once you’ve provided all of the necessary permissions for your users to access the main table, you can move to the lookup tables. Of course, you need the user to be able to read the data, however, you also need them to be able to have Append  and Append to  permissions for these tables. Why is that?  In Dataverse, the Append  and Append To  permissions are used to control the ability to associate two records in a relationship. This is particularly important when dealing with lookup tables and relationships in model-driven apps. Append  permission is necessary on a table when it has the lookup  of another table on a form . This permission allows a user to add (or “append”) a related record to the table. For example, if you have a Pet Toys Order table that includes a look up to a Customer table, the user will need Append  permission on the Pet Toys Order table to associate a Customer record with a Pet Toys Order record. Append to  permission is necessary on a table when it is being associated  with another table. This permission allows a user to append the table to another entity. In the example above, the user would need Append to  permission on the Customer table to associate it with a Sales Order record. Back to our model-driven app, if our main table has lookup columns to supporting tables, users will need both Append  and Append to permissions to select options in a form based on the main table. This is because when a user selects an option, they are essentially trying to associate a record from the supporting table (Append permission) to a record in the main table (Append To permission). Summary The two takeaways in my lesson were, one , to always use an existing (and working) security role to create a copy as a new role. Two , to include Append  and Append To  permissions for any of the tables being looked up from my main table.

Are you searching for real-world use cases of Microsoft 365 Copilot? Perhaps you're curious about how it can streamline your daily tasks. Here, I share the top five ways I personally use Microsoft 365 Copilot to enhance my productivity and efficiency across various Microsoft Office applications. Enhanced Communication with Copilot Chat One of my favorite features of Microsoft 365 Copilot is its intelligent chat functionality available through Chat . This feature acts as my personal assistant, helping me locate documents and emails quickly without manually searching through folders and files. Below you can see a real situation I encountered. I knew Daniel had shared something with me but I couldn't find it. I spent about 10 minutes on it before the 💡 went off and I asked Chat. Found it on the first try. Pretty cool! Recap Teams Meetings with Copilot Using Microsoft 365 Copilot within Microsoft Teams has transformed how I handle meeting recaps and follow-ups. The AI provides detailed recaps of meetings, identifying key points and assigning action items, ensuring that no critical information is missed. Here you can see a Teams recap of one of my Office Hour sessions that we run monthly for Training students. You can see who talked when, and a break down of what we discussed. I can even click into those notes and get more details and links to the portion of the meeting where talked about that. If you attend a lot of Teams meeting this is the best feature ever. Live Copilot Training If you are using Copilot with Bing, Microsoft 365 Copilot, or using it with Power Apps and Automate to enhance your apps we have a great Jumpstart training class. Copilot Jumpstart is a one-day LIVE class that takes you through all things Copilot with hands on labs, lecture and Q&A all taught by yours truly. Hope to see you there! Coaching by Copilot in Outlook Let's just be honest. I am known for writing short, to the point emails. Not mean, but often not empathetic enough for most people. Sorry. Coaching by Copilot is my life saver. I write my really short, to the point email and then I run the tool and bam, it smacks me in the face with everything I should do better. 🤩 It doesn't change any of my words, just nudges me in a nicer direction, so hopefully over time I just write better stuff. (doubtful 🤣) Simplifying Excel Tasks I am not as good at Excel as I should be. 🫤 While I can write simple formulas anything more is beyond me. And don't get me started with things like Pivot Charts. No. So for me, using Copilot for Excel to explain and write formulas for me is a big win. Below you will see a couple of screenshots of it in action. Very helpful. Automating Microsoft Forms Creation with Copilot Who doesn't struggle with a blank screen when trying to create a survey? Yes, you know some of the things you want to ask but not all of them. In steps Copilot to help. After teaching my live Training Class a couple of weeks ago I needed to generate a survey. So, I jumped to forms and used the below prompt as a jumping off spot. Yes, I fed it some of the questions, but it rounded out my survey to be more meaningful. There you have it. 5 ways I use Microsoft Copilot today to make my life easier. And isn't that the point. 🤩 Making my day better and it is worth its weight in gold. If you want to see these tips in action, check out the video My 5 favorite M365 Copilot features to see all of the fun in action. Or if you need help with rolling out AI in your company then reach out via the form below. We are already helping forward thinking companies train and plan for how AI will change their business.

Often to get the most out of our business solutions we create with Power Apps we want to tell the user we need them to do something. The most common way is with an Outlook email or a Teams message. But did you know there is another way? You can send true Mobile style notifications for your Power Apps by creating a quick little flow. These notifications can be sent to your Mobile phone, your Tablet, or even your Smart Watch. Power Apps Send Notificationv2 To send these notifications you will use the action Power Apps Send Notificationv2 in a Power Automate Cloud flow. What is even cooler is not only can you send the notification, but you can control what it says, what app it opens, and you can even pass parameters so you could have it open to a specific item or screen through what is called Deep Linking . Practical Applications of Notifications The versatility of PowerApps notifications allows for a wide range of applications, from simple reminders to complete specific tasks, like filling out timesheets, to more targeted alerts directing users to particular work orders or tasks within the app. The goal is to streamline communications and ensure that critical information is delivered and acted upon promptly. Some Examples: Create a Power Automate cloud flow that runs every morning at 9 AM and checks for all past due approvals in your Expense Report app. For everyone it finds send a notification to the mobile devices of the approver. Add a button in your work order app for requesting a status update. Have the notification open the Power Apps app straight to the work order in question and display the message from the requestor. Every time a new document is uploaded to SharePoint notify the project team with a quick notification, keeping everyone up to date. To see a hands-on walk through, then check out my video on Setting up Power Apps notifications . Where you will see the App and Flow with all of the notifications working. If you would like help with adding this to your existing apps, we would be happy to help. 🤩 Just scroll down the page and fill out the Contact Us form. We can do everything from a 30-minute session to fix a minor issue to a 30-month project to build you the world's greatest Power Apps app.

In the world of Power Apps development, creating applications that are both efficient and user-friendly is paramount. A frequent requirement from users is the ability to save their progress in forms or multi-screen applications and return to it later. This is where the 'Save as Draft' functionality becomes essential. In this blog post, I will guide you through the process of implementing the 'Save as Draft' feature in your Power Apps, enhancing your app's usability and user satisfaction. Video: Save as Draft in Power Apps is available if you would like a walkthrough of all of the app functionality for saving as draft. The screenshots below are from the app built in the video. Why Implement 'Save as Draft'? Imagine your users are filling out an inspection form that spans multiple screens. Midway, they are called away for an urgent task. Without a 'Save as Draft' option, they would have to start over, leading to frustration and decreased productivity. Implementing 'Save as Draft' allows users to pause their work and resume later, exactly where they left off. The Basics: To begin, you need to understand the core concept behind 'Save as Draft.' It involves storing the user's progress in a table or collection, with a flag indicating the draft status. This allows the user to stop part way through the process and come back later to finish. When you implement it, you can make it as automatic or manual as you would like. Either just saving for them as they move from screen to screen or offering them a button to Save as Draft when they would like too manually do so. A lot of how you implement it depends on the size of your app and the use case. Step 1: Designing Your Inputs Design your inputs with user experience in mind. Use multiple screens to segment the data collection logically. Remember, each screen's progress needs to be savable as a draft. Step 2: Implementing 'Save as Draft' Here's where the magic happens: 1. Creating the Draft: Use the `Patch` function to create a new record in your data source, marking it as a draft. 2. Saving Progress: As users navigate through screens, use `Patch` to update the draft record with their inputs. 3. Resuming Work: Provide a gallery where they can see draft records, or some apps use OnStart to automatically return the user to where they left off. This requires you to load the draft record and set the defaults of your inputs to pull from that record. Step 4: User Interface Considerations Provide clear indicators and options for users to save their progress as a draft. A 'Save as Draft' button, visible on each screen, can make this functionality intuitive. Though if you want it seamless you may just make the next arrows do the saving for you. Best Practices: - Testing: Thoroughly test the 'Save as Draft' feature across different scenarios to ensure reliability. - Feedback: Implement user feedback mechanisms to refine the draft-saving experience. - Optimization: Regularly review and optimize the data structure and logic to handle drafts efficiently. Conclusion: Implementing a 'Save as Draft' feature in Power Apps can significantly enhance the user experience, making your app more robust and user-friendly. By following this guide, you're well on your way to mastering this essential functionality. Remember, the key to successful implementation is understanding your users' needs and testing thoroughly. If you need help implementing Save As Draft in your App then scroll down the page below and fill out the Contact form. We can help you with a 30-minute screenshare or with a 30-month project and everything between.

Let's face it, users can use all of the help they can get responding to customers. While they may have the best of intentions, some days, they just aren't on their A game with those customer service or work order replies. Well, never fear AI doesn't have bad days and can come to the rescue with putting a bit of that much needed polish on response. In this blog post we look at two ways to enhance your existing Power Apps with AI to fix those user responses. AI prompts allow you to use your awesome prompting skills to craft the perfect response and the necessary inputs to get a response that not only follows your business pattern but also sounds like the user. While Draft with Copilot isn't as customizable but still a great option if you users are writing well and just need a bit of polish. If you want a deeper look at adding either of these to your app and see them in action, check out my latest video  Elevating PowerApps with AI: A Guide to Enhanced User Inputs Why Integrate AI into PowerApps? The integration of AI into PowerApps brings forth a myriad of benefits. It transforms mundane and often error-prone user inputs into polished, professional communications. This enhancement is crucial, especially in scenarios where user inputs directly influence customer perceptions and business outcomes. By leveraging AI, PowerApps can offer: - Improved Clarity and Professionalism : AI can refine user inputs, ensuring messages are clear, concise, and free of common errors. - Enhanced User Experience : Personalized and well-structured responses make interactions more enjoyable and engaging for users. - Increased Efficiency : Automated AI enhancements save time for both app users and recipients by reducing the need for manual corrections and follow-ups. Two Pathways to AI-Enhanced PowerApps 1. AI Prompts via Flow or Direct The first method employs AI Builder, a feature of AI Builder, and Power Automate (Flow) to enhance user inputs. This approach not only corrects grammar and syntax but also enables you to provide context, structure, and even personality into the responses tailored to your business needs. Technology : This method utilizes AI Builder's capabilities within Power Automate to create custom AI prompts. These prompts can analyze user inputs and generate improved outputs based on predefined criteria. Use Case : Consider a work order management app where technicians input updates on their tasks. Using AI prompts, a simple "Job done" can be expanded into a detailed update, informing the customer about the task completion, potential next steps, and a personalized thank-you note. Below is an example AI Prompt. As you can see, I used my prompting skills combined with inputs from the App to get a great response. I even allowed the tech to pass his or hers own personality in to really refine the outcome to sound like the tech. 2. Power Apps Draft with Copilot Feature For those seeking a more straightforward implementation, Power Apps recently introduced a built-in Copilot feature named, Draft with Copilot. This option provides AI-assisted text generation with minimal setup, making it an accessible tool for app developers at all levels. Technology : The Copilot feature is built directly into Power Apps, requiring no external flows or tools. It leverages AI to suggest enhancements to user inputs based on context and the initial input provided. Use Case : In a customer feedback app, users often leave comments or suggestions. The Copilot feature can help refine these inputs, encouraging more structured and constructive feedback, which can then be automatically formatted into a report for the management team. Below is an example of the Draft with Copilot interface in Power Apps. As you can see you can drive tone and length but you aren't able to add additional inputs other than the text to update. Implementing AI in Your PowerApps Whether you choose the flexibility and depth of AI prompts via Flow or the simplicity of the Co-Pilot feature, integrating AI into your PowerApps can significantly enhance user interactions. Here are a few tips for getting started: - Identify Key Areas for Improvement : Look for parts of your app where user input directly affects business outcomes or customer satisfaction. - Start Small : Implement AI enhancements in a single feature or app section to gauge user response and effectiveness. - Gather Feedback : Encourage users to provide feedback on the AI-enhanced inputs to further refine and improve the experience. Conclusion The integration of AI into PowerApps opens up new possibilities for app development, offering a pathway to more refined, personalized, and efficient user interactions. By choosing the method that best suits your needs, you can elevate your apps from simple tools to sophisticated solutions that anticipate and exceed user expectations. Dive into the world of AI-enhanced PowerApps and witness the transformation in your apps' effectiveness and user satisfaction. If you need help with adding AI to your Apps and Flows or are looking to roll out Copilot and don't know where to start then we are here to help. Scroll down the page and fill out the Contact Us form and we will get you connected with one of our AI experts.

Diving into Power Apps development can be thrilling, yet the complexity of database concepts often acts as a stumbling block for many beginners. Understanding the intricacies of normalization, relationships, primary keys, and more is crucial for creating efficient, scalable, and robust applications. This blog post aims to demystify these database concepts, providing you with a solid foundation to enhance your Power Apps development journey. Let's break down these concepts into digestible pieces, ensuring you're well-equipped to structure your data optimally across various data sources like SharePoint, Excel, SQL, and Dataverse. Good database design isn't just about storing data; it's about doing so in a way that ensures your application runs smoothly, scales effortlessly, and remains robust over time. Good database design lies at the core of application performance, scalability, and long-term health. By correctly structuring your data, you not only enhance the user experience through faster load times and smoother interactions but also pave the way for future growth and adaptability of your app. This fundamental aspect of development safeguards your project against potential pitfalls, making it a critical area of focus for developers aiming for success in the Power Apps ecosystem. And if you want to see all of this in action then check out my YouTube video Intro to Database Concepts for Power Apps People where we continue the fun of breaking down these lessons. Understanding Tables, Rows, and Columns At the heart of any database are tables, rows, and columns. Tables store your data in a structured format, with rows representing individual records and columns depicting the attributes of those records. The Importance of Normalization in Power Apps Database Normalization is the process of organizing your data to reduce redundancy and improve data integrity. By dividing your data into related tables and establishing relationships between them, you enhance the database's efficiency and scalability. In the screenshot below, you see how our simple employees table becomes two tables through the process of normalization. Removing the redundancy. Grasping Primary Keys and Foreign Keys Primary keys are unique identifiers for each record in a table, crucial for ensuring that each record is unique. Foreign keys, on the other hand, are used to establish a link between two tables, acting as a bridge that connects related data across tables. In the above Example: ID is the primary key of the Employees Table DeptID is the primary key of the Department Table DepartmentID is the foreign key of the Employees Table Power Apps Relationships: One-to-Many and Many-to-One Understanding relationships between tables is key to structuring your data effectively. One-to-many relationships allow a single record in one table to be linked to multiple records in another, whereas many-to-one relationships are simply the inverse, with multiple records in one table linked to a single record in another. So in our example you would say Employees has a Many-to-One relationship to Departments. Departments has a One-to-Many relationship to Employees. It is the same relationship, just depending on which direction you are speaking from determines how you say it. In SharePoint and Dataverse when you create a Lookup column you are creating a Many-to-One relationship, you just didn't know it. That is because the data sources are doing the work for you. If you wanted to do it with SQL Server you would create your own. Many-to-Many relationships Imagine instead of choosing one Department you wanted the ability to choose multiple departments to associate with one employee? That is called a Many-to-Many relationship. In the example below we decided to add a new table called Charities. We also added a mapping table called Mapping Table. 🤣 If you look at the Mapping Table you will see that Nicola is associated with both Frog Friends and Pet People. You figure this out by looking at the Mapping table. EID is the primary key in the Employees Table. CID is the primary for the Charities Table. Connect the dots and you see Nicola is associated with 2 Charities, Chewy with 0, and Shane with 1, Super Snakes. In a Many-to-Many relationship instead of adding a foreign key column you will use a third table, called a mapping table. This table defines all of the data connections. SharePoint and Dataverse support both of these columns also. Join the Learning Community at Power Platform University If you're looking to dive deeper into these concepts and master Power Platform, consider joining our comprehensive six-month program at Power Platform University. With live sessions, hands-on projects, and personal mentorship, you'll be well on your way to becoming a PowerApps pro. More information on Power Platform University . Conclusion Database management is a fundamental skill for any PowerApps developer. By understanding and applying these database concepts, you can create more efficient, scalable, and maintainable apps. If you need help with Database design in your Power Apps just scroll down the page and fill out our Contact form. We would be happy to help!

Hello friends, here’s your one-stop summary of the new features for the Microsoft Power Platform introduced in February 2024. Power Apps Copilot is getting a new job description as a grammar editor for canvas apps. Draft with Copilot is a new premium feature releasing in Preview for the US region very soon. It enables an app user to use Copilot to assist them in text input. This is (initially) only available in English, but Microsoft touts that it will be especially useful for app users not working with an app in their native language. You can see a sneak peek here . Model-driven apps are also getting some Copilot love with form fill assistance. Since model-driven apps data entry is predominantly via forms, this seems to be a nice feature to speed data entry. It will also be an English language option with the “New Look” app enabled. See it in action here . Microsoft is including multi-language support from the “Create an app” Copilot feature available from the Power Apps homepage. Supported languages now include Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. To get the full functionality, you still need to operate in a premium environment that includes Dataverse. You can learn about this here . In the Power Platform admin center, there’s a new preview feature to block unmanaged customizations  in Microsoft Dataverse environments. This setting keeps anyone from creating or importing any unmanaged solutions or customizations to the environment, helping organizations to enforce application lifecycle management. Did you know that you can now call SQL Server stored procedures in Power Fx? Just introduced on “Leap Day”, this preview feature eliminates the requirement to use Power Automate to assist you. This one is quite loved by our team SQL experts since it simplifies the process of bringing data into the app. You will have to enable this via the Settings > Upcoming features > Preview. You can learn more about this feature in the Connect to SQL Server from Power Apps documentation . Power Automate AI Builder models continue to improve to get you the ability to quickly customize a pre-configured model that extracts standard invoice fields. The invoice model gives you a starting point for that to speed you down the path of training the model to pull typical values from invoices, and then allowing you to customize it by continuing to train to recognize other fields in the invoice. By invoking the AI Builder steps into your flow you can pull invoice data from documents and use it wherever you need it. Power Automate for desktop got a new update in February that now allows Picture-in-Picture run mode. What this means is that a user can run desktop flows in a separate virtual window on their desktop without disrupting other work the user is trying to do. Additionally, if you’re into string interpolation, you can now input Power Fx expressions into text. Both features are preview features available now. Power BI There are a LOT of features tweaked in Power BI over the month of February. You can input DAX calculations directly on a visual. “Visual Calculations” can greatly simplify how you modify your visual to show the data you want, including some simplified automated calculations, without writing complex DAX logic. Another add-on is called “Dynamic Subscriptions”, allowing you to create customized emails to deliver dynamic Power BI reports with filtered data to designated people. The technique to do this resembles Dataflows and setting it up includes a similar interface. You can put the process on a schedule as well. The subscription process can deliver a customized email with the filtered report image and even a PDF attachment. The Power BI Desktop Home screen has changed to resemble something like you might encounter when you open OneDrive. You’ll see a quick link at the top to create a “New” report, a Recommended section that updates automatically, and then a list of recent reports. Copilot is getting more work in Power BI by offering help in writing descriptions for measures (in your data model view) based on text or code in the measure. Descriptions will appear when you hover over a measure in your report view, providing better feedback on the measure without having to open it up for a look. You can get a good preview this and all the new PBI features here . Copilot Studio If you missed the news, Power Virtual Agents has migrated over to Copilot Studio. The only significant update for February is that you can now publish a Copilot to directly to a SharePoint site. You can learn how to do shenanigans like that here . The link also introduces you to Copilot Studio, if you are not familiar with the transformation begun last November. In Summary I hope this summary whets your appetite to try out what's new the Microsoft Power Platform. Collectively, we're excited with some of these deployments that we've been waiting quite a while for and know that they're going to have an immediate impact on app development. Stay tuned to PowerApps911.com for more!

Are you ready to take your Power Apps and Power Automate projects to the next level? APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are your secret weapon, seamlessly integrating with various services like SharePoint, Outlook, Dataverse, and more. But if you're new to the world of APIs, fear not! This beginner's guide is designed to demystify APIs and show you how to harness their power in your low-code applications. What is an API? At its core, an API is a structured way to communicate with a system. It's the bridge that allows your Power Apps and Power Automate flows to talk to external services, fetching data, sending commands, and performing a myriad of tasks that extend the functionality of your applications. Think of it as a common language that your app uses to interact with the world outside its boundaries. Why Should You Care About APIs? APIs are everywhere, integrated into almost every digital service we use. By understanding and utilizing APIs, you can significantly enhance the capabilities of your Power Apps and Power Automate projects. From automating routine tasks to pulling in real-time data from external sources, APIs open up a world of possibilities for your applications. Even if you look just a little under the covers in your Apps and flows today you will see they are using APIs to talk to your data sources like SharePoint. Look at the screenshot below where we use Monitor to look at the raw information that comes back when you Filter a Gallery. Thankfully Power Apps handles making this data useable but learning what it is doing opens a lot of doors to you doing bigger and badder things. If you have no idea what that says, then this video and blog post are for you. There is a video that has a much deeper look at working with APIs and Json here: Intro to APIs for Power Apps and Power Automate Getting Started with APIs The easiest ways to use APIs with Power Apps and Power Automate is to use the HTTP action in a Power Automate Cloud flow. Here you will fill in the blanks from the API Documentation. In the video I show using this documentation JSONPlaceholder - Guide ( typicode.com ) but you can use any API you want. After following the info in their Guide I get the following. Method Methods with APIs are how you communicate with APIs. The documentation will tell you which to use but understanding at a high level what each does makes the documentation easier to follow. The Methods are as follows: Get : Retrieves data from a server at the specified resource. Post : Sends data to a server to create a new resource. Put : Updates a specific resource completely with the data provided. Patch : Applies partial modifications to a resource. Delete : Removes the specified resource from the server. Headers and Queries The Headers and Queries are dependent on the API. Often here you will add things like the format you want the request to be sent in like JSON or XML. And sometimes you will need to include things like authentication. Once again, the documentation will guide you. It isn't unusual not to have headers or queries. Not sure I have ever had queries. Body When you are sending info to the API this is the meat of your request. It is often blank on Get requests but most of the other requests this is where you are saying do this thing. From the example above we are doing a Post to create a new item and the Body contains the details that we want for our new item written in JSON format. Working with JSON in APIs JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is the lingua franca of APIs. It's a lightweight data-interchange format that's easy for humans to read and write and easy for machines to parse and generate. Understanding JSON is crucial for working with APIs, as it's the format you'll use to send requests and receive responses. JSON at its simplest is just text in curly brackets. Something like this { "title": "foo", "body": "bar", "userId": 1 } The {} signify that you are creating a record (item). In that record you then have a column called title and the value of that is foo. The body of your record is bar and the userID is set to 1. In the video we spend more time on this but if you ignore all of the {} and "" and : and just read it as fancy text then the info isn't that scary. When working with APIs you will use JSON both in the request, our POST and in the response you get back from the API. Above is the response we got back from performing the API POST in flow. At first glance it looks like chaos but is it really? If I asked you what was the Location can you figure it out? Take a second and just read the text.... isn't the location just https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/101 See, JSON doesn't have to be that scary. Practical Examples Let's dive into some practical examples to see APIs in action within Power Apps and Power Automate: Fetching Data from SharePoint : Imagine you want to display a list of items from SharePoint in your Power App. By making an API request to SharePoint, you can retrieve the data and dynamically populate a gallery in your app. Sending Data to Outlook : Need to automate email notifications? Use an API to send data from your Power App to Outlook, creating and sending emails automatically based on your app's logic. Turning off my lights : What? Yeah, my light switch is an IOT device meaning it has an API. So I can write a flow to turn it on and off. This video shows it: Power Automate HTTP action, Rest API, and IOT Tips for Success Start Simple : Begin with straightforward API requests to get comfortable with the process. Use Documentation : Leverage the extensive documentation available for most APIs to understand the required request formats and available endpoints. Practice with Public APIs : Experiment with public APIs (like JSON Placeholder) to practice making requests and handling responses without worrying about authentication. Conclusion APIs are a powerful tool in the Power Apps and Power Automate ecosystem, offering endless possibilities for enhancing your applications. By understanding the basics of API communication and practicing with real-world examples, you'll be well on your way to unlocking the full potential of your low-code projects. Remember, the world of APIs is vast and varied, so never stop exploring and learning. Happy coding! If you need help working with APIs and JSON in Power Apps and Power Automate then scroll down the page and fill out our Contact Us form. We are happy to help. 😎