I wanted to create a list of Power Automate Learning materials that could easily be bookmarked and referred to anytime. I will try to categorize the materials in a few different ways to better help you get to what you need.

Getting Started with Power Automate

What is Power Automate
Power Automate Overview
What is Power Automate Desktop
Power Automate Desktop Overview
Beginner Microsoft Learn Modules
Introduction to Power Automate 
Get Started with Power Automate
Beginner Tutorial Videos
Introduction to Power Automate
Beginner Tutorial YouTube Playlist
Build Your First Flow
Power Automate Community Video Gallery
Learn about Common Connectors
Find Helpful Templates
Visit the Template Gallery
Where to get help
Visit the Power Automate Community Forums
Visit the support page
Interact with the #FlowFam on Twitter
Download Flows from the Community Cookbook
Visit Power Automate Documentation
Check out the blog

Intermediate Material

Intermediate Microsoft Learn Modules
Create More Complex Flows
Implement your first Desktop Flow
Introduction to Expressions
Intermediate Tutorial Videos
Intermediate Tutorial YouTube Playlist
Power Automate Tutorials with Kent Weare
Learn Power Automate Expressions
SharePoint HTTP Connector
Business Process Flows
Power Automate Desktop Playlist
View The Power Platform Community Conference
Power Platform Community Conference
Download and complete Power Automate In a Day
Power Automate In a Day Package
Download and complete RPA In a Day
RPA In a Day Package

Advanced Material

Advanced Tutorial Videos
Advanced Tutorial Video Playlist
Watch the Automate It Show by the PowerCAT Team
View All of the latest episodes of Automate It 
Learn about the CoE (Center of Excellence) Starter Kit
CoE Video Series
Watch the Power Apps & Power Automate Architecture Series by the PowerCAT Team
Architecture Playlist
Power Automate SAP RPA Playbook
View the blog
Download the playbook

Power Automate Desktop

Videos
Power Automate Desktop Basics 
Getting Started with Power Automate Desktop – Part1: Creating Your First Flow 
Getting Started with Power Automate Desktop – Part2: Introduction to the console 
Getting Started with Power Automate Desktop – Part3: Launch and Extract from Excel 
Getting Started with Power Automate Desktop – Part4: Create Subflows 
Getting Started with Power Automate Desktop – Part5: Run a Desktop or Web Application 
Getting Started with Power Automate Desktop – Part6: Using the Desktop Recorder 
Power Automate Desktop – Invoice Processing 
Power Automate Desktop – Web Extraction Part 1 : Price extraction from web page 
Power Automate Desktop – Web Extraction Part 2 : Excel Data Comparison 
Power Automate Desktop – Web Extraction Part 3 : Reading Excel Data using Loops

Administration & Governance

Establishing a Center of Excellence – Center of Excellence Starter Kit | Establishing a CoE (2019) 
Administration, governance and ALM – Blog posts   
Power Platform Guidance – documentation | architecture video series 
Admin and Governance Best Practices –  Establishing an Environment Strategy 
Hands on labs –  Admin in a Day lab | ALM hands on lab 

Community Power Automate Channels

Mariano Gomez: https://www.youtube.com/user/mgomezb1​

April Dunnam: https://www.youtube.com/user/apeyd41686​

John Liu: https://www.youtube.com/user/johnnliu​

Daniel Laskewitz: https://www.youtube.com/daniellaskewitz​

Matt Weston: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8RoXwuc6l4-DI4LHxPjSOg​

Elaiza Benitez: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeIIWnODcCXaN-ERLzeOScA​

Kent Weare: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX6IpQ63nP-LakW3TUpoxNw​

Keith Whatling: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFkK-eTkGSJaw9ULrV4CXCQ​

Vivek Bavishi: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVGIh8qGGlecBCJk6fKI9wA​

Joe Unwin: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv4gsiyRjfB9NlvPPBd2a3g​

Sarah Critchley: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ_qeQBj6-nQtALIWRBbqCQ​

FlowPro Show: https://www.youtube.com/flowproshow​

Reza Dorrani: https://www.youtube.com/user/rezadurrani28​

Paul and Ash Culmsee: https://www.youtube.com/user/pculmsee/videos

Matt Collins Jones: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUfdlGBMO0T0JOJ-Bp_SVnA​

Chris Huntingford: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFp1rhYg7tMcEy8y6cOJ8FQ/videos

Shane Young: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_OGRP8BYvtGB8eZdPG6Ng​

Jon Levesque: https://www.youtube.com/JonLevesquetech​

Audrie Gordon: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCspdrsKTBXJTGuco6U3KF0Q​

Microsoft Power Platform: https://www.youtube.com/c/mspowerplatform

Tomasz Poszytek – youtube.com/c/TomaszPoszytek

Ameer Basha – Learning Technologies – YouTube

If you would like your Channel added to the list, please leave it in a comment below. I will periodically update this post and include them!

The post Power Automate Learning Resources appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Hello My Friends!

I want to make you all aware about a very special event happening one week from today!

The Power Platform Community Conference #PoPCC is an event unlike most others that we host! This event will feature 16 Sessions given by the community, for the community!

We will have 12 sessions with how-to and upskill style content

2 Sessions will be TED Style talks about life and business change

and 2 Sessions will be Real-world examples, focused on the WHY!

To top that all off we will have an opening session from James Philips, the president of Business Applications, a Keynote from Charles Lamanna, CVP and closing thoughts from Technical Fellow, Amir Netz – Each talking about the importance of community and how it effects all of us.

To get registered for the event and see all of the details visit https://aka.ms/popcc

The post Join us for the Power Platform Community Conference – October 22nd appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Join us on October 1, 2020, from 9–11 AM Pacific Time (UTC -7), for this free digital event. You’ll discover how applied AI unifies and enriches your data. And find out how the updates coming in the next release of Microsoft business applications provide insights from every source of data to give holistic guidance, improve decision making, and enable your organization to automate repeatable outcomes at scale.

You’ll be able to participate in a live Q&A and hear customers share how they use Microsoft business applications to drive success. You’ll also hear from the executives and engineers behind the technology as they discuss new features, capabilities, and how to turn your data into action.

In addition, you’ll get an early look at the new features and capabilities of Power Automate. Here’s a high-level overview:

• Announcing Power Automate Desktop Preview which allows you to automate old, on-premises processes and tasks—from simple data transfers between systems or image searches, to more complex business processes and workflows—all from your desktop.
• Enhancements in robotic process automation include the acquisition of Softomotive which has resulted in the integration of new, low-code features into Power Automate which allows easy automation of any Windows-based task across the desktop and web.

And that’s just the start. Register today to ensure you don’t miss a single update, insight, or in-depth product demonstration from the experts behind them.

Come join us. Together, we’ll reimagine tomorrow.

Register now >

The post See all the Power Automate updates at the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

“I got 99 problems but automation isn’t one.”—Notorious M.S.F.T.

Alright people, let’s show our time-wasters that we mean business by beating back the frustration—with automation.

Welcome to #AutomatedIt! A new sweepstakes that brings the community together to get your workplace frustrations solved. Just share one of your efficiency-killers and we’ll give everyone—from the most experienced Microsoft Power Automate user to the person who has never tried it before—the opportunity to find solutions and celebrate how the community #AutomatedIt!

Oh, plus, each week we’ll select winners—problem-havers and problem-solvers—at random. With new prizes each week, including the Microsoft Surface Go 2, Bose Bluetooth speakers, and YETI mugs, the #AutomatedIt sweepstakes is primed and ready to deliver the goods you want!

What you could win

How to enter

Problem-havers: August 3 – 6, you’ll share either a video or a written explanation on Twitter of a boring, time-consuming, annoying, no-good, much-hated task. Doesn’t have to be long, doesn’t have to be fancy, just has to let us know what’s getting under your skin. Pro tip: use the hashtags #AutomatedIt and #Sweepstakes to be officially entered to win a prize pack. (Seven winners!)

Problem-solvers: August 10 – 30, you’ll help find solutions to fellow community members’ challenges. You can share the link to a template that solves the challenge or, if you’re feeling ambitious, you can create your own flow and share a screenshot or screen recording that shows the solve. To enter, share a solution to one (or all!) of the three challenges and post your reply on Twitter using the corresponding challenge hashtag and challenge number (e.g. #Challenge1), #AutomatedIt, and #Sweepstakes. (Three winners a week could win Microsoft Surface Earbuds, a Bose speaker, or a Microsoft Surface Go 2!)

Problem-free zone: August 31 – September 6, you’ll check out mini case studies walking you through some of the challenges and solutions, and then share a GIF on Twitter celebrating how participants Automated It! Use the hashtags #AutomatedIt and #Sweepstakes to be officially entered to win a prize pack. (Seven winners!)

FAQs

Am I eligible to win?

Do you work for Microsoft? Do any of your immediate family members? Do you live in a country that isn’t the United States or United Kingdom? If the answer is “no” to all these questions, then yes, you are eligible.

How do I enter?

Show us things! Either problems or solutions, we aren’t picky. Just make sure problem-havers use the hashtags #AutomatedIt and #Sweepstakes, and problem-solvers use #AutomatedIt, #ChallengeXX, and #Sweepstakes.

Oh, and you’ve gotta be following our handle (@MSPowerAutomate)—duh.

How many times can I enter?

• Week 1: once
• Weeks 2 – 4: one entry per challenge, three per week.
• Week 5: once

What if I go back and answer a past question? Am I entered to win this week?

Keep your eyes on that timeline. You can only enter for the current week’s challenges.

How many winners are there each week?

• Week 1: seven
• Weeks 2 – 4: three each week
• Week 5: seven
• Stay on top of it!

How do I find out if I won?

We’ll slide into your DMs! Keep an eye on your inbox every Monday.

What could I win?

Tons of good stuff. A Microsoft Surface Go 2, Bose Speakers, Microsoft Surface earbuds, and prize packs containing BRANDED SOCKS, a backpack, a YETI mug, and more!

If I’ve already won once, can I win again?

You can win once per week! Meaning, if you win in week 1, keep submitting solutions in the following weeks for a chance to win even bigger prizes!

Terms and Conditions

*No purchase necessary. Open to residents of the 50 United States (+ D.C.) and United Kingdom, 18 years and older. Ends September 6, 2020. Read the full Terms and Conditions to learn more.

Eligibility for this sweepstakes is for legal United States and United Kingdom residents only.

The post Share, solve, and win with #AutomatedIt! appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

WOW! The Power Platform Online Conference was a crazy success!

9 Hours | 18 Sessions | 25,000 Live Attendees | 48k Views in 48 hours

So many new skills acquired, so many new people inspired, this event was truly amazing because it was for the community, by the community and supported by Microsoft.

Some cool stats to share:
#PPOC2020 had 642 Tweets about it during the conference, which reached over 2 million people.

#PPOC2020 had representation from Every continent!

Thank you very much to @TygraphTweets and John White for creating this amazing Twitter dashboard for us! Contact them up if you need social statistics for your event!

More stats:

34,538 People registered for The Power Platform Online Conference
over 25,000 Unique People visited the conference during the day
Our peak viewership was 8,896 viewers for any one moment
Our final session of the day closed with 2,287 people still watching
The Video has ALREADY gotten over 48,000 views total

And my favorite stat of all…

2,310,000 Minutes of the #PPOC2020 Conference was viewed Friday! 

In other words….

You all watched 4 Years of Power Platform Conference Content in one single day, collectively!

Special Thanks also due to a couple of platforms that helped make this event possible to be run for community by community!

1. Sessionize – Speaker/Schedule Management
2. Eventbrite – Quick and easy registration / communication

NOW!
For those of you who didn’t get to join us yesterday, Fear Not!
All of the content is available on-demand!!

To watch the conference in full as it was presented click here:
The Power Platform Online Conference 2020

To watch each session individually, Here is a list of every session and its link:

Introductory Material
Build your first app with Power Apps and Automate – Shane Young
Case Study: How I used SharePoint, Flow, PowerApps, and Forms to build a Speaker Database – Sarah Patrick
Building your first Robotic Process Automation using UI Flow – Kent Weare
Basic Permissions in the Common Data Service – Marc Gerner

Intermediate Material
Build even faster with PowerApps Templates – Sancho Harker
Troubleshooting & Best Practices with Power Automate – Mar Llabmbi
3 Power Apps Techniques for better apps – Odd Modlin
Speaking SharePoint’s Language: HTTP to SharePoint in Power Automate – Ashley Rogers
Less Code More Power, How it’s done! – Yash Agarwal
Intro to Power Apps Portals – Nick Doelman

Advanced Material
End to End Automation with the Power Platform – Hamish Sheild
Rapid Time to Market with Power Apps Bryant Boyer
What the French Toast is Power BI Doing to my Database – Adam Saxton and Patrick LeBlanc
Keeping Track of all those Approvals! – Laura Rogers
Deliver an Enhanced User Experience by Combining Azure, Teams and the Microsoft Power Platform – Frederik Bisback and Clifton Lenne

Administration Material
Power BI Governance & Best Practices – Sara Barbosa and Raphael Santos
CoE: Next level governance of the Power Platform – Paul Culmsee
ALM for Low Code Solutions (PowerApps/Power Automate) – Sultan Al Sharfi

Closing Remarks & Homework
#PPOC2020 and #ShowAndTell – show us what you made! 

And now to follow all of the Speakers on Twitter!
Shane Young
Sarah Patrick
Kent Weare
Marc Gerner
Sancho Harker
Mar LLambi
Odd Modlin
Ashley Rogers
Yash Agarwal
Nick Doelman
Hamish Sheild
Bryant Boyer
GuyInACube
Laura Rogers
Frederick Bisback
Clifton Lenne
Sara Barbosa
Raphael Santos
Paul Culmsee
Sultan Al Sharfi

Please be sure to Follow all of our speakers and thank them for their hard work and awesome presentations! They are worth it as they do these kinds of things all the time!

A Huge thanks from the Power Platform Team!

Its an honor to get to be your host for this landmark event!

See you at the next one!

– Jon

The post The Power Platform Online Conference 2020 Recap appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Its time again to get Registered for the Power Platform Online Conference!

We have 18 Sessions / 9 Hours of content from some of the worlds best speakers coming to you LIVE and On-Demand, Absolutely FREE!!

Ready to jump in?!  Go ahead and get Registered by clicking the link and then check out the Schedule of sessions for the day below!

Cant wait to see you all there!

>>>>>>>> REGISTER HERE<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

>>>>>>>>> VIEW THE CONFERENCE HERE<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

SESSION SCHEDULE

All Session times are listed in EST

The post The Power Platform Online Conference 2020 Schedule appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Hello Power Automate Fans!

I want to make sure you are aware of a huge opportunity we have coming up in the very near future.

The Power Platform Online Conference is happening on March 20th, 2020 and we are looking for speakers! 
What can you do?

We are looking for you to submit your session ideas and abstracts to possibly be chosen to speak at the conference! Hurry though, as the call for speakers closes on February 10th!

There will be spots for all of the various technologies in the platform…
Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents and of course Power BI!
So no matter which area of the platform you are an expert in, we will likely have a track where you can pitch in.

Check out the Call for Speakers and all of the important details in the link below.

Call For Speakers Link

The post The Power Platform Online Conference – Call for Speakers appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

I wanted to drop a quick line to let you know some exciting news! The Power Automate Community has a brand new feature in it, which is bound to get some people excited. Its a new Gallery where you can download flows that other people have built!

Similar to the Power Apps App Gallery that you all know and love, the Flow Cookbook will operate nearly the same! Upload your flow .zip file, a screenshot, some information about the flow and voila! off and running!

to get a detailed look at the cookbook and some instructions on how to start using it, check out the announcement post in our community from the Power Automate community manager, Gabriel.

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/News-Announcements/New-amp-Improved-Power-Automate-Community-Cookbook/m-p/440388#M105

The post The New Flow Cookbook is here! appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

This is a common use case which is a regular topic within the community!

Encodian is one of our trusted Power Platform connector partners which contains a whopping 33 different actions covering document format conversion, redaction, watermarking, OCR, PDF to PDF/A, data extraction, merging, splitting, securing, search and replace, archiving (ZIP files!) and a whole boat load more!

Flow Overview

Many organisations include the document approval sheet in the document either at the start or end of the document. Using this approach requires the user to manually update the approval table which is difficult to manage especially when using an automated approval process to generate an approved version of the document, i.e. you can’t change the document once it’s approved! And you can’t really complete the approval table (dates, comments) until the approval process is complete.

This Flow will demonstrate how to dynamically generate the approval sheet from Flow approval data and add it to an approved rendition of the document (PDF).

Let’s build the Flow!

Navigate to the SharePoint document library which will store and manage the documents that will be sent for approval.

Click ‘Flow’, click ‘Create a Flow’

Click ‘Show more’

Select the ‘Complete a custom action for the selected file’

Click ‘Continue’

Select the default name of the Flow text and change to ‘Submit for Approval’

Add a SharePoint ‘Get File Content’ action to the Flow

Configure the ‘Get File Content’ action as follows:

Site Address: This must be set as per the ‘Site Address’ value set in the ‘Get File Properties’ action

File Identifier: Select the ‘Identifier’ property returned by the Get File Properties’ action

Add a ‘Start and wait for an approval’ action to the Flow

Select the required approval type – this demo uses the ‘Approve/Reject – Everyone must approve’ approval type

Complete the ‘Start and wait for an approval’ action configuration as follows:

Title: Set to ‘Official Document Approval Request’ or similar

Assigned To: Enter the users who will be asked to approve the document

Details: Enter additional detail if needed using markdown

Item link: Select the ‘Link to Item’ property returned by the ‘Get file properties’ action

Item link description: Select the ‘File name with extension’ property returned by the ‘Get file properties’ action

At this stage the Flow approval process is now complete. The next stage is to create the official rendition of the document, obtain the approval data and build the approval sheet that we will insert info the approved PDF document.

Add a ‘Initialize variable’ action

Name: Set to ‘ApprovalSheetHtml’

Type: Select ‘String’

Value: Copy and paste the contents of the ‘ApprovalsheetHtml-InitialValue.html’ file

              NOTE: This action is required later within the Flow… more details to follow

Add a ‘Condition’ action

Choose a value: Select the ‘Outcome’ property returned by the ‘Start and wait for an approval’ action

Equation: Set to ‘does not contain’

Choose a value: Enter ‘Reject’

This step is optional; it demonstrates how to change document content using Power Automate. In this example an action is added to update the document footer to specify the correct approval date:

Inside the ‘If No’ branch, add some relevant handling to inform the requesting user the approval has been rejected (see example below):

Inside the ‘If Yes’ branch;

Add the ‘Search and Replace Text’ Encodian action

File Type: Select ‘DOCX’

Filename: Select the ‘File name with extension’ property returned by the ‘Get file properties’ action

File Content: Select the ‘File Content’ property returned by the ‘Get file content’ action

Phrases Search Test – 1: Enter [APPROVALDATE]
Phrases Is Expression – 1: Select ‘No’

Phrases Replacement Text – 1: Select the ‘Completion Date’ property returned by the ‘Start and wait for an approval’ action

NOTE: If required you can specify exact font size, colour, etc. otherwise the current format of the word document text will be inherited.

Add the ‘Convert to PDF’ Encodian action

Filename: Select the ‘Filename’ property returned by the ‘Search and Replace Text’ action

File Content: Select the ‘File Content’ property returned by the ‘Search and Replace Text’ action

PDF Filename: Select the ‘Filename’ property returned by the ‘Search and Replace Text’ action. The Encodian action will automatically ensure that the output filename has a PDF extension.

Click ‘Show advanced options’

Remove Markup: Select ‘Yes’, this ensure that any comments / tracked changes are removed from the resultant PDF document.

The next step is to create the approval sheet. We have several options/approaches which would work; if the document already contains an ‘Overview/Title Page’ we could:

Use the ‘Insert HTML to PDF’ action to insert the approval sheet at a specific location within the PDF document.

Use the ‘Insert HTML to PDF’ action to append the approval sheet to the end of the PDF document.

Split the source PDF document into two separate documents using the ‘Split PDF’ action, create the approval sheet using the ‘Convert HTML to PDF’ action and the merge the three files in the correct order using the ‘Merge Document Array to PDF’ action

However, we advise our customers not to include an ‘Overview/Title Page’ or ‘Approval Sheets’ in the actual documents as these can easily be added dynamically when needed, providing enhanced control and options for adding these types of pages in a document. This is what we’ll now do…

Add an ‘Append to string variable’ action

Name: Select the ‘ApprovalSheetHtml’ variable

Value: Select the ‘Responses Approver email’ property returned by the ‘Start and wait for an approval’ action

NOTE: This should automatically place the ‘Append to string variable’ action in a ‘Apply to each’ loop.

Value: Enter the following text

<tr>

<td class=”TdData utilW100″>@{items(‘Apply_to_each’)?[‘responder’]?[‘displayName’]}</td>

<td class=”TdData”>@{items(‘Apply_to_each’)?[‘responseDate’]}</td>

<td class=”TdData”>@{items(‘Apply_to_each’)?[‘comments’]}</td>

</tr>

Underneath the ‘Apply to each’ loop, add an ‘Append to string variable’ action

Name: Select the ‘ApprovalSheetHtml’ variable

Value: Enter the following text

</table></div></div></body></html>

Add a ‘Insert HTML to PDF’ action

NOTE: This screen shots of the ‘Insert HTML to PDF’ action show some configuration options (Page Number, Page Size, Page Orientation) which are currently under deployment and may not reach your region for another 2 to 3 weeks.
Filename: Select the ‘Filename’ property returned by the ‘Convert to PDF’ action

File Content: Select the ‘File Content’ property returned by the ‘Convert to PDF’ action

HTML Data: Select the ‘ApprovalSheetHtml’ variable

HTML Insert Location: Select ‘Prepend’

 
NOTE: If you cannot see the ‘HTML Insert Location’ your region has not yet received the pending updates, simply click ‘Show advanced options’ to update the ‘HTML Insert Location’ option

The approval sheet containing document information and approval details has now been added to the document. You may now wish to dynamically add a document title sheet.

Optional Document Title Sheet Insertion Example

This is already a lengthy post, so we’ve just included a basic example for dynamically creating a document title sheet as a taster!

A Word template is retrieved from SharePoint, the Encodian ‘Search and Replace’ action used to replace placeholder text with the document title and approval date, a PDF rendition is created and then merged with the actual PDF document which already contains the approval sheet.

The resulting title sheet document:

Final Flow Action

Add the resulting approved document to the required location. In this example we’ll simply add the file back to the originating location.

Add a ‘Create File’ SharePoint action

Site Address: This must be set as per the ‘Site Address’ value set in the ‘Get File Properties’ action

Folder Path: Select the ‘Folder Path’ property returned by the ‘Get file properties’ action

Filename: Select the ‘Filename’ property returned by the ‘Insert HTML to PDF’ action

File Content: Select the ‘File Content’ property returned by the ‘Insert HTML to PDF’ action

Let’s Test!

Before you test, we advise reviewing the following blog post which outlines how to share your Flow with users correctly to ensure connections are shared with the correct configuration to negate the need for users having to enter unnecessary connector authentication information such as API Keys:

Reference Guide: Prevent users needing to enter an API Key in Power Automate

The ‘run only users’ configuration for this demonstration flow has been set to the following configuration:

Go to SharePoint and start the Flow

Click ‘Continue’

The approved PDF file with embedded approval sheet should have been created

Closing thoughts…

Although this post has focused on the creation and manipulation of a PDF document, this could also be achieved with a Word document (docx) using the ‘HTML to Word’ and ‘Merge Word Documents’ actions to replace their PDF equivalents.

The post Intermediate | Flow of The Week: Create and insert a document approval sheet using Flow approval data appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Today’s post is written by Ed Gonzales; Community Super User and all around superstar!

As part of a series intended to help non-developers (like me) brave some of the intimidating aspects of Power Automate, I wanted to cover one of my favorite expressions in a very simple Flow…split().

Split is used to break up text string into an array, or a ‘table of substrings’ using a delimiter of your choosing.  You can also use a zero-length (blank) string, which will result in each character being broken out individually.

In today’s example, we’ll use the function to extract the first and last name from an Email address which is formatted as firstname.lastname@email.com.  We’ll use a manual trigger with a text input to get started, but you can insert this after any step passing your desired text string.

Click “Add an input” and select “Text”.  Even though we are collecting an Email address, selecting “Email” will cause Flow to try to resolve the address to your specific tenant.  Next, we’ll add a Compose action so we have a place to manipulate our string from the manual trigger.  Click in the input field for the Compose, and then choose “Expression” to start building:

Looking at the sample input, Ed.Gonzales@email.com, we’ll want to first split on the ‘@’ which will give us two elements: “Ed.Gonzales” and “email.com”.  Then, we can further parse the first element on the period, which will produce two more elements, “Ed” and “Gonzales”.  With nested functions, I like to start in the middle and work my way out, so the first iteration will begin by typing “split(“ in the expression box, then clicking back to “Dynamic content” to select the input from the previous step.  Add a comma and your delimiter (‘@’) in single quotes.  It should end up looking like this:

split(triggerBody()[‘text’],’@’)

Flow assigns numbers to each element (beginning with zero), so if I only want the first element of the output array, I’ll add a [0] at the end like this:

split(triggerBody()[‘text’],’@’)[0]

This should result in an output that is only “Ed.Gonzales”.  To further separate this part, I’ll add another split before the original, and then add a new comma at the end with ‘.’ as the second delimiter.  The second iteration should look like this:

split(split(triggerBody()[‘text’],’@’)[0],’.’)

This should give two elements “Ed” and “Gonzales”.  So now, it’s just a matter of assigning one element to a Compose for FirstName, and another for the LastName.  Using my original Compose for FirstName, I just added the [0] at the end of the whole thing to only look at the first element.  Also, to reduce complications later, I’ll convert everything from an array back to a string using the function of the same name:

string(split(split(triggerBody()[‘text’],’@’)[0],’.’)[0])

Copy that step and change the last element selection to [1] to grab the last name:

string(split(split(triggerBody()[‘text’],’@’)[0],’.’)[1])

The results should look something like this:

From there, you can add the data into whatever connector you’d like.

Play around with it, make mistakes, and learn along the way!

Try. Fail. Learn. Repeat.

Ed Gonzales has been working in technology for twenty-five years, covering many roles and developing new ones along the way.

His journey to bring customer relationship management (xRM) solutions to his current employer led to thought-leadership awards and recognition from leading industry experts and his peer community group.

Ever the polymath, his current endeavors include aviation science, aquaponics, and fostering orphaned kittens.

More information and his personal blog can be found at flyingpolymath.com and you can also connect with him on LinkedIn at /in/edgonzales.

The post Intermediate | Flow of the Week : Expressions for Non-Developers Part I appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.