Flow

Function Friday - Coalesce

I had intended to cover the XML XPath function this week. But due to some time constraints I needed to make this a quick hit this week, so I’m going over the coalesce function instead. The coalesce function is quite simple. You pass in any number of arguments and coalesce returns the first item in that list that isn’t a null value. coalesce(<item1>, <item2>, <item3>, ...) The function looks at each item in the order that they are passed in and whatever the first one that isn’t null is will be your output value. You can pass in variables or static values.

Friday, October 21, 2022 | 1 minute Read

Function Friday - JSON Manipulation

Apologies for the delay. It’s been a rough few weeks lately. A lot of the work we do as developers is to pass data back and forth. Typically these days that data is passed in JSON format (though the usage of XML is still fairly widespread). Sometimes we need to make changes to that data as it passes through. Thankfully, Power Automate provides a few functions to help you work with JSON data.

Friday, October 14, 2022 | 3 minutes Read

Function Friday - URI Parsing Functions

Sometimes you need to work with URI (uniform resource identifiers) in Power Automate. URIs point at something, like websites, files, and so forth. You should be familiar with their most common format, the URL (uniform resource locator): https://barretblake.dev/blog/?hello=23 The first portion (“https”) identifies the protocol or scheme. The second portion (“barretblake.dev”) points to the domain, or server, where the target is located. And the next portion (“blog”) points to the specific resource on that target server. A URI can also include optional parameters to be passed in. In the example above we’re passing in the parameter “hello” and a value for it of “23”.

Friday, September 16, 2022 | 3 minutes Read

Function Friday - Date and Time Wrap Up: Timezones and Ticks

This time I’m walking through the remaining Date and Time functions. These include the functions that convert between and work with timezones: convertFromUtc, convertToUtc, convertTimeZone, utcNow. But first, we’re going to take a look at ticks. Ticks Just what the heck are ticks, anyway? Ticks are an integer value that represents the total number of 100-nanosecond intervals that have elapsed since January 1, 0001 at 12 am midnight, Universal time. These numbers can obviously get quite big. For example, the ticks value of September 9, 2022, at 10:00 AM UTC time is 637983144000000000.

Friday, September 9, 2022 | 4 minutes Read

Video: Power Automate - Starting with a Template

A new video this week. I delve into how quickly you can create a Power Automate flow using one of the thousands of provided templates. https://youtu.be/cjMJvRuHAsc

Tuesday, September 6, 2022 | 1 minute Read

Function Friday - More Date and Time Fun: startOf and dayOf

Previously I’ve walked through how to do some date math, formatting, and parsing. Now I’ll drill into a few of the other date and time functions around getting certain values related to a particular date and time. dayOf Functions There are three functions that are closely related: dayOfMonth, dayOfWeek, dayOfYear. All three function in the same manner. They return a numerical value that represents the particular DateTime’s value in reference to the current month, week, or year.

Friday, September 2, 2022 | 2 minutes Read

Video: Creating Our First Power Automate Flow

Another introduction video. This one covers an overview of creating a simple flow in Power Automate. https://youtu.be/AFUt1VoNMUc

Tuesday, August 23, 2022 | 1 minute Read

Function Friday - Formatting and Parsing Dates and Times

This week I’m looking at formatting and parsing date and time values in Power Automate. This can be a great pain when working with data in your functions for a straightforward reason: DateTime values come in many different formats. And different systems will require different formats for your DateTime values. And that’s before you even consider the pain of timezones. formatDateTime We’ll first look at formatting. The formatDateTime function takes a DateTime string and converts it into a different format. The pattern is as follows:

Friday, August 19, 2022 | 4 minutes Read

Function Friday: Date and Time Addition

This time I’m going to start delving into the date and time functions of Power Automate. Date and time is one of the most painful parts of working with flows. The reason for that is that sometimes a DateTime value is a DateTime, sometimes it’s a number, and sometimes it’s a string. Usually it’s a string… mostly. And it’s hard to know which it is at any given moment. Then add to that plethora of different formats that a DateTime value might take to and from all the various external systems and you have another layer of complexity. And for yet one more level of complexity, we’ll add in the issue of timezones.

Friday, August 12, 2022 | 3 minutes Read

Video - A Brief Introduction to Microsoft Power Automate

This week I’m presenting my first YouTube video: A Brief Introduction to Microsoft Power Automate. Give it a view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MNnKel_9V8&ab_channel=BarretCodes

Tuesday, August 9, 2022 | 1 minute Read

Function Friday: Data Type Conversion Functions - Arrays, JSON and XML

This time we’re wrapping up the last of the data type conversion functions. We’ll cover the more complex data types: arrays, JSON, and XML. array The array function creates an array from a single input data element. The format is simple: array('<value>') And as an example: array('hello there') // returns ["hello there"] To be honest, there’s no reason to use the array function. The createArray function allows you to pass in multiple data elements and you get the same result.

Friday, August 5, 2022 | 3 minutes Read

Function Friday: Binary, DataUri, UriComponent, and Base64 Conversion Functions

This time I’m going to delve into conversion functions for base64 and binary. Both are typically used to convert binary files such as images and zip files back and forth between formats that various connectors need in order to process them. It’s also sometimes used to generate hashes used for checksums, certificates, and encryption. base64 The base64 function is used to convert a string into a base64 encoded version of a string. The pattern is:

Friday, July 29, 2022 | 3 minutes Read