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Dataverse, Power Apps, Power Platform

Top 8 picks for the Power Platform Release Wave 2

By Ben den Blanken Leave a comment

It is that time of the year again, the release wave is announced. Here we get a glimpse on what is on the backlog of the product teams. Of course everything on this list is subject to change and Microsoft reserves their major announcements for their big events. However it is still fun going through these items in bulk. So in this post I will give you my top 8 picks and interpretation for this release wave.

Shows the Modern Advanced Find
Modern Advanced Find

Now let me first start that my interpretation is not always the best! For release wave 1 I was skeptical how fast the Modern advanced find would reach the same features as the old advanced find. Boy was I wrong! Not only is it already a great modern update to the interface, it also has all the features you would want. Including the ability to download the FetchXML! It is time to tell your end-users about this as this will be turned on by default in October.

Continue Reading “Top 8 picks for the Power Platform Release Wave 2”
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Power Apps, Power Automate Flow

Make a Flow required in your BPF Stage

By Ben den Blanken Leave a comment

It is good practice to make steps required in your Business Process Flow Stage. This will help guide the user what needs to be completed in the process before moving to the next stage. To add a requirement to a Power Automate Cloud Flow step however, is not as easy as it would seem! In this post I show you how you can make a Cloud Flow step required in a BPF stage.

Last time I promised this was the last blog in a series of posts about Approval Flows. However this is a hidden gem and after my research I want you all to know about this! If you want to know more about Approval Flows inside a BPF, you can check one of these posts:

  1. Get Approval from inside your Business Process Flow
  2. Add Model App record link to an Approval Item Link
  3. Capture the Power Automate Approval result into Dataverse
  4. Automagically update the BPF Stage based on the Approval outcome
Continue Reading “Make a Flow required in your BPF Stage”
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Power Apps, Power Automate Flow

Automagically update the BPF Stage based on the Approval outcome

By Ben den Blanken Leave a comment

Wouldn’t it be cool if we can automatically change the Stage of the Business Process Flow once we get our Approval? It will be especially great if we can do so based on the Approval outcome! In this blogpost I will finish up my posts about Approvals by automatically changing the Business Process Flow to the next stage based on the outcome of the Approval.

This blog is part of a series about guiding users and teams through their work. I have previously blogged about replacing Process Dialogs with embedded canvas apps. We are now 2,5 years further so I would like to present my learnings. There are a ton of new features added to the platform which I would also like to explore. As I write more post on this subject I will add them to the list below.

  1. Task Groups help you guide work in Business Process Flow
  2. Set form fields required based on Business Process Flow Stage
  3. Prettify your Business Process Flow by adding a Code Component
  4. Get Approval from inside your Business Process Flow
  5. Add Model App record link to an Approval Item Link
  6. Capture the Power Automate Approval result into Dataverse
Continue Reading “Automagically update the BPF Stage based on the Approval outcome”
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Power Apps, Power Automate Flow

Capture the Power Automate Approval result into Dataverse

By Ben den Blanken Leave a comment

If you send out an Approval from within a model-driven App, you probably want to see the Approval Result in Dataverse. In this post we continue where we left off in our Approval from inside a Business Process Flow. Let me give you some background on the various Approval Flows and how they work. Including a tip on how to keep your Cloud Flows clean.

This blog is part of a series about guiding users and teams through their work. I have previously blogged about replacing Process Dialogs with embedded canvas apps. We are now 2,5 years further so I would like to present my learnings. There are a ton of new features added to the platform which I would also like to explore. As I write more post on this subject I will add them to the list below.

  1. Task Groups help you guide work in Business Process Flow
  2. Set form fields required based on Business Process Flow Stage
  3. Prettify your Business Process Flow by adding a Code Component
  4. Get Approval from inside your Business Process Flow
  5. Add Model App record link to an Approval Item Link
  6. Capture the Power Automate Approval result into Dataverse
Continue Reading “Capture the Power Automate Approval result into Dataverse”
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Power Apps, Power Automate Flow

Add Model App record link to an Approval Item Link

By Ben den Blanken 2 Comments

When you are deciding if you want to approve an action, you probably want more information then a description. Luckily we can add a link to our Approval request! This is a follow up on my previous post where I showed how to trigger an Approval inside a Business Process Flow. In this blogpost I will show you how to generate a link to the record we are working on.

This blog is part of a series about guiding users and teams through their work. I have previously blogged about replacing Process Dialogs with embedded canvas apps. We are now 2,5 years further so I would like to present my learnings. There are a ton of new features added to the platform which I would also like to explore. As I write more post on this subject I will add them to the list below.

  1. Task Groups help you guide work in Business Process Flow
  2. Set form fields required based on Business Process Flow Stage
  3. Prettify your Business Process Flow by adding a Code Component
  4. Get Approval from inside your Business Process Flow
  5. Add Model App record link to an Approval Item Link
  6. Capture the Power Automate Approval result into Dataverse
Continue Reading “Add Model App record link to an Approval Item Link”
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Power Apps, Power Automate Flow

Get Approval from inside your Business Process Flow

By Ben den Blanken 8 Comments

For some time now we can call Power Automate Flows inside a Business Process Flow Stage. This is perfect for a lot of scenario’s. With this you can automate certain actions. For example we can connect to another system and update inventory. Or we can send e-mail follow-ups to other departments. Or, my favorite, we can start an Approval Flow! In this blog post I’ll share a few of my tricks.

This blog is part of a series about guiding users and teams through their work. I have previously blogged about replacing Process Dialogs with embedded canvas apps. We are now 2,5 years further so I would like to present my learnings. There are a ton of new features added to the platform which I would also like to explore. As I write more post on this subject I will add them to the list below.

  1. Task Groups help you guide work in Business Process Flow
  2. Set form fields required based on Business Process Flow Stage
  3. Prettify your Business Process Flow by adding a Code Component
  4. Get Approval from inside your Business Process Flow
  5. Add Model App record link to an Approval Item Link
  6. Capture the Power Automate Approval result into Dataverse
Continue Reading “Get Approval from inside your Business Process Flow”
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Power Apps

Prettify your BPF by adding a Code Component

By Ben den Blanken One Comment

The final part about “Task groups”, I promise! In this post I want to show you how to add Power Apps Component Framework (PCF) to a Business Process Flow field. This feature will finish my “Task Group” concept. The final step to guide our user to enter the correct task. Instead of showing a disabled “Yes / No” field inside we want to show a Checkmark Control. Adding a Code Component in BPF field is a feature that kind of flew under my radar and now it’s relatively easy to do so!

This blog is part of a series about guiding users and teams through their work. I have previously blogged about replacing Process Dialogs with embedded canvas apps. We are now 2,5 years further so I would like to present my learnings. There are a ton of new features added to the platform which I would also like to explore. As I write more post on this subject I will add them to the list below.

  1. Task Groups help you guide work in Business Process Flow
  2. Set form fields required based on Business Process Flow Stage
  3. Prettify your Business Process Flow by adding a Code Component
  4. Get Approval from inside your Business Process Flow
  5. Add Model App record link to an Approval Item Link
  6. Capture the Power Automate Approval result into Dataverse
Continue Reading “Prettify your BPF by adding a Code Component”
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Power Apps

Set form fields required based on Business Process Flow Stage

By Ben den Blanken 2 Comments

It is imperative to guide the user through each stage of a Business Process Flow. We can set a lot of fields to required in a business process flow stage. However this does not give the best User Experience. In my previous blog I showed how we could use “Task Groups” to keep the stage clean. But now we need to guide the user what fields are required exactly on the form for this stage. This is also possible using Business Rules. Let me show you how!

This blog is part of a series about guiding users and teams through their work. I have previously blogged about replacing Process Dialogs with embedded canvas apps. We are now 2,5 years further so I would like to present my learnings. There are a ton of new features added to the platform which I would also like to explore. As I write more post on this subject I will add them to the list below.

  1. Task Groups help you guide work in Business Process Flow
  2. Set form fields required based on Business Process Flow Stage
  3. Prettify your Business Process Flow by adding a Code Component
  4. Get Approval from inside your Business Process Flow
  5. Add Model App record link to an Approval Item Link
  6. Capture the Power Automate Approval result into Dataverse
Continue Reading “Set form fields required based on Business Process Flow Stage”
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Power Apps

Task Groups help you guide work in Business Process Flow

By Ben den Blanken 3 Comments

Supporting business users in their work is why I get up in the morning. And in my experience it’s absolutely vital for the adoption of your apps to guide your user. One of the most important tools inside our toolbox of the Power Platform to do so, is a Business Process Flow. On top of that I like to use a concept I called “Task Groups”

This blog is part of a series about guiding users and teams through their work. I have previously blogged about replacing Process Dialogs with embedded canvas apps. We are now 2,5 years further so I would like to present my learnings. There are a ton of new features added to the platform which I would also like to explore. As I write more post on this subject I will add them to the list below.

  1. Task Groups help you guide work in Business Process Flow
  2. Set form fields required based on Business Process Flow Stage
  3. Prettify your Business Process Flow by adding a Code Component
  4. Get Approval from inside your Business Process Flow
  5. Add Model App record link to an Approval Item Link
  6. Capture the Power Automate Approval result into Dataverse
Continue Reading “Task Groups help you guide work in Business Process Flow”
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Power Apps, Power Automate Flow, Power Platform, Power Virtual Agent

My 7 Power Platform Picks for the wave 1 release plan

By Ben den Blanken Leave a comment

Twice a year the Power Platform team gives us insight on where they will focus on for the next 6 months. They do so in a so called release plan. This is not the same as release notes as on any given time these plans might change, post-pone or even scrapped altogether. So please always look at the actual release plan when you want to look at what’s coming!

In this post I give my 2 cents on features that caught my eye. These are not necessarily the most anticipated / shiny new feature. It might be the ones I have personally experienced as a pain point or have some more thoughts about.

a person holding a notebook
Photo by Mikael Blomkvist on Pexels.com
Continue Reading “My 7 Power Platform Picks for the wave 1 release plan”