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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. This post is part about an advanced scenario called Task Groups. Click here for an overview of all related post regarding Task Groups. I also added a sample solution you can import in your own development environment so you can see the entire concept in action!

Keeping people in their flow of work by utilizing Asynchronous work or asynchronous processes is one of the key benefits for Business Process Flows. I have written down my thoughts on this subject here. Find out what asynchronous work is, how Business Process Flow can help and more advanced scenario’s.

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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. This post is part about an advanced scenario called Task Groups. Click here for an overview of all related post regarding Task Groups. I also added a sample solution you can import in your own development environment so you can see the entire concept in action!

Keeping people in their flow of work by utilizing Asynchronous work or asynchronous processes is one of the key benefits for Business Process Flows. I have written down my thoughts on this subject here. Find out what asynchronous work is, how Business Process Flow can help and more advanced scenario’s.

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
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Power Apps, Power Automate Flow, UI Flows

Desktop UI Flows – automate your legacy applications!

By Ben den Blanken Leave a comment

Following up on my previous blog about automating web apps with UI Flows, it’s time for legacy applications. I will show you how desktop UI Flows for windows applications can automate manual entries in legacy systems.

Imagine you are a call center agent and a new customer is calling to place an order. You enter their contact information and order details in your modern CRM system. However your organization still has a legacy order delivery system. Therefore you need to enter all information regarding their order again inside that application.

This can now be automated using Power Automate UI Flows! I record a UI Flow to enter contact information into this legacy system. A regular Flow inside a model-app starts the UI Flow. After the desktop UI Flow creates the contact in the legacy system a unique identifier is created. We grab the unique identifier of the just created contact. And as a result we can add this to our contact record in the Common Data Service. Let’s check out more details.

Scenaro description of the attended UI Flow automating legacy desktop application
Attended UI Flow scenario
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Dataverse, Power Apps, Power Automate Flow

Synchronous and On-demand Flow inside Model Apps!

By Ben den Blanken Leave a comment

Let me first start of with wishing you all a happy new year. I hope you all had a lovely holiday season. I enjoyed a few days off and spent it with my family. On to the subject at hand, synchronous and On-demand Flow in Model Apps. As most of you know Microsoft prefers us using Power Automate Flow instead of Classic Workflow. However there are still some gaps in functionality between the two.

When developing solutions I follow Microsoft guidelines as much as possible. This ensures that the solution is durable and I create the least technical debt. With that in mind, I now keep away from Classic Workflow and use Flow whenever I can. Last few weeks I tried to fulfill business requirements within these restrictions.

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Canvas Apps, D365 CE, Power Apps

Embedded Canvas App – Exploring the OnDataRefresh property

By Ben den Blanken Leave a comment

It’s been a while since my last blog. Life took over, but I now finally got round to it. I want to share my experience with the OnDataRefresh property of the Embedded Canvas App. I will continue with my previous example of replacing a dialog with embedded canvas app.

Previous posts:

  • Click here for part 1. In this post I describe the task scenario and show how to set up the Embedded Canvas App and save the task.
  • Click here for part 2. This describes how to use Microsoft Flow to set the owner of the task as the CDS connector did not allow us to do so.

First things first, let me start by apologizing. I gave you wrong advice in part 1. If you want to use the OnDataRefresh property you need to use a “single line of text” field which is required, rather than creating a new field which I proposed first

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Canvas Apps, D365 CE, Dataverse, Power Apps, Power Automate Flow

Embedded Canvas App – Replacing dialogs – Part 2

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In my previous blog post I started making an embedded canvas app to replace dialogs. I started off by creating the app, the screen, some basic navigation and the form. Finally, I added patch logic to save the screen. If you have not read part 1, do not worry this video shows the functionality. The patch logic shows the Relate function, which is very useful, so I would recommend to check that first.

In this post I want to focus on setting the owner of the task. Setting the owner of the task is important because this allows us to distribute tasks to teams or individuals. An entire team could then process the task assigned to them and work them to completion. In this case the credit check that the finance team has to perform will help us resolve the case.

I wasn’t able to set the owner of the task using standard functionality. The PowerApps CDS connector does not allow for updating the owner field. Neither does the Relate function work after the record is created. But of course I have a solution, we can create a synchronous Flow!

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Canvas Apps, D365 CE, Power Apps

Embedded Canvas App – Replacing dialogs – Part 1

By Ben den Blanken 5 Comments

Embedded canvas apps are generally available since last month! This will be another way to create richer experiences for users using your model apps. Embedded canvas apps only work in the Unified Interface. In this blogpost I will show you how you can easily replace the deprecated dialogs with an embedded canvas app. In contrast to the PowerApps Component Framework, which I previously blogged about, this is a low code solution.

Dialogs were a great way to guide users through more complex decisions . Canvas apps are the Microsoft recommended way to replace dialogs. To showcase how you can replace your dialog I’ve created and implemented a fictive scenario.

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