Hi everyone,

I’ve built a free Chrome extension for Power Automate that I’d like to share with the community. It’s called Power Automate UI Switcher. Full disclosure: it was vibe-coded, since my background is only in the Power Platform, but it works surprisingly well.

Besides letting you switch between the new and the classic designer, it has a few handy features:

• Resize the expression editor and, while writing an expression, filter the dynamic content and insert it directly into the expression
• Search for actions or expressions in a flow and even find and replace text
• View and edit the JSON of the entire flow or of a single action
• Open actions and expressions faster in large flows
• View a list of flow runs and filter on any column, including string parameters that are formatted as an object

Give it a try! The extension walks you through the main features itself, and there’s also a guide that covers all of them.

It’s completely free, with no ads and no data collection. You can find it here: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/power-automate-ui-switche/glofemnmpcpglbbchhikjfdmnlpokbic

Feedback and feature requests are very welcome!

Hi everyone,

I'm new to Power Automate and I'm struggling with the trigger for one of my flows.

My flow basically does this:

Data source → Power Automate → Fill Word template → Generate Word document

I originally used an Excel file in OneDrive and manually triggered the flow from Power Automate. The flow itself works, but I don't want the end users to have to go into Power Automate every time.

Everything has now been moved to SharePoint, and I'm trying to find a clean way for users to trigger the document generation.

I'm currently considering replacing Excel with a SharePoint List and triggering the flow from there.

The ideal UX would be something like:

1. User adds/updates the data
2. User clicks something like "Generate document"
3. Power Automate fills the Word template
4. The generated Word document is saved in SharePoint

Would a SharePoint List be the right approach here? Or is there a better way to keep Excel while still giving users an easy way to trigger the flow?

Edit: I just realized that I'm using a premium component in my flow. Does that mean every end user would need a Power Automate Premium license to run the flow from the SharePoint list, even if they aren't directly using Power Automate?

Thanks!

When someone completes a task, exclusively notify whoever's responsable of the next task.

Send a notification whenever all tasks inside a plan have been completed.

Visualize a percentage how many tasks have been completed inside a plan.

Visualize a summary of all plans (through Power BI).

I’m sorta new to PA and I made a flow. I saw the desktop app and downloaded, signed in but it shows a blank page (that I have no flow.
I’ve tried signing in through another browser and I can see my flow and edit.
Is there something I have to turn on??

Hello everyone

For a long time my flow that adds rows to an excel sheet every night has been adding dates with serial format, which Excel can handle easily, normally.

However, a I had to update some stuff unrelated to dates and it started recording dates as ISO (long date with T and Z).

I had it set to iso on the connector advanced parameters, but now it doesn't matter which option I use it always outputs ISO.

I even checked older runs and the input from my flow was ISO and the output was serial.

Does anyone know what might have happened? I never used formartdate time or ticks to convert stuff inside the flow, it just outputted serial serial directly to the excel file.

Obs: I'm editing the excel file on the browser while troubleshooting if that matters.

Thanks in advance

I have a workflow which takes a comma delimited text file (*.txt) and updates an Azure database with the values. The workflow is called by a PowerShell script on a remote Windows Server, which looks to a folder and finds all the txt files in there, and runs the workflow against each one. This process worked fine for about two years. Then last spring, I started getting reports from our users that not all the values that should be updated in the database where. No one changed the workflow, and no one changed the PowerShell script.

After a lot of testing, we found that if the txt file was larger than 2K, only the first 2K worth of lines in the file were processed, and everything after was ignored.

On the suggestion of a consultant, he had me run the PowerShell script which calls the workflow from my own laptop. Yes, I had to duplicate the folder structure to make that happen. Much to my surprise, running the script and workflow from my laptop worked just fine.

So I started looking into what in the environment of the Windows Server would limit the ability to pass all the necessary data to the workflow. Of course our server teams swears they did nothing to the server, no updates that would cause this restriction. But I don't trust them to know what the consequences of their actions would be.

After half a year of cutting the text file down into 2K chunks every week (I automated the process, but still), I am again trying to find what the cause of this could be. Script works fine on my laptop, but choaks at 2K file size when run on a Windows Server. The server is more than powerful enough in terms of memory, processor and disk size.

I realize this is not strictly a Power Automate problem, as the workflow is called by a PowerShell script in an environment I'm sure is the real culprit. But if you have any clue, please pass it on.

Galerinha alguém tem um fluxograma com gatinlhos ações e tudo ,algo didático para consulta

I’ll start by saying I am a quick-learning novice, and as such, this may be an excel question rather than PA. If so, tell me to shoo!

I’m hoping for some guidance on how to auto-assign ID numbers to products when the products are ordered. For example, I might order 4 of product A, 6 of B, and 6 of C. These are on an Excel spreadsheet, each on a separate row - “A”, model number, cost, etc., and quantity ordered as 4. I’d like PA to pick that up (“when an item is modified”) and place it on a second spreadsheet. On that second spreadsheet, I’d like it to find that our current stock is A46, then add rows labeled A47, A48, A49, A50. (I’m okay with using a helper cell for the current stock number if necessary.)

Is this achievable with PA & Excel? I would also be okay using Lists if that’s more achievable than Excel.

I’m just not sure how to get it to pick up the quantity and then add that many rows, labeled in sequence. Any nudges in the right direction would be appreciated.

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to build an automation using Microsoft Power Automate (Cloud or Desktop) to transfer approved drawings between two construction document management systems: Oracle Aconex and Asite.

Currently, this process is done manually, and I'm looking for a way to automate it.

Here's the workflow I'm trying to achieve:

1. Access Oracle Aconex: Navigate to a project's document register and identify drawings that have received an updated approval status (A, B, C, or D).
2. Capture document information: Extract the document reference number, revision number, approval status, and other relevant metadata.
3. Download the PDF: Download the approved drawing PDF from Aconex, including any consultant comments or markups.
4. Access Asite: Search for the same drawing in Asite using its document reference number.
5. Match the existing document: The drawing already exists in Asite, so I don't want to create a duplicate.
6. Update the drawing: Upload the PDF received from Aconex to the existing Asite document record and update its approval status to match Aconex.
7. Keep the same revision: The revision number should remain unchanged. Only the PDF and approval status need to be updated.
8. Prevent duplicates: The automation should recognize previously processed drawings and avoid unnecessary updates.

Important details:

• Both systems are accessible through a web browser.
• The drawings already exist in Asite.
• I want to automate the entire process rather than manually downloading and uploading PDFs.
• Ideally, the automation would run automatically on a schedule.
• I'm open to using Power Automate Desktop, Cloud Flows, APIs, or a combination of these.

My questions:

1. Is this possible using Power Automate Desktop with browser automation?
2. Would using APIs for Aconex and Asite be more reliable than browser automation?
3. Has anyone successfully automated document transfers between two construction EDMS platforms?
4. How would you handle updating an existing document's PDF and approval status without creating a new revision?
5. Is there a way to export or generate a Power Automate flow that I can import directly rather than building every action manually?

I'm relatively new to this type of automation and would appreciate any guidance, examples, or recommendations on the best approach.

My ultimate goal is to have a fully automated Aconex → Asite synchronization process for approved construction drawings.

Thanks in advance!

Hi I have 4.2 yoe, worked with PAD, power apps, power automate cloud, ai builder, azure logic apps, azure ai document intelligence, blob storage, azure ai cognitive services. Recently lost my job and when i am trying to shift i am a bit skeptical about future with power apps, should i stay in same or shift to some other thing like data engineer (fabric) or any other tools and skills you would suggest? Also currently i draw 14lpa fixed i am trying to get 23fixed and i am based out of India. So suggestions please,

Am using a barcode reader in a text box field (edit form) so as scan number disappear but shows in view form

Am using a barcode reader in a text box field (edit form) so as scan number disappear but shows in view form

Hi everyone,

Like many of you, I got tired of jumping between half a dozen Microsoft Learn tabs just to verify syntax or look up a function while in the middle of a flow.

To make lookups quicker, I built a free interactive mind map covering the core Power Automate functions. It pulls together syntax, arguments, and quick examples into a single visual view without the endless page jumping.

You can try it here: https://flowsmadeeasy.com/reference-explorer

Take a look and let me know what you think.

Hi everyone,

I'm building a solution using Power BI + Power Automate where users can:

Click Generate PDF to generate 100+ PDFs based on data pulled from a Data Lake and a Word template.
Click Create Draft to create an email draft in their Outlook.

The flow uses actions such as Populate a Microsoft Word Template, which I understand is a Premium Power Automate feature.

My organization has already provided me with a Premium license, and I'll be developing the solution. However, once the tool is deployed, around 4-5 team members will be using it and triggering these flows through the Power BI report.

Work laptop, corporate tenant. Power Automate Desktop is installed (Store version, current). I'm trying to build a simple attended desktop flow for my own use.

In the free personal environment, clicking New flow → naming it → Create just returns me to the flow list. Nothing is created, no error, no toast. Tried several times.

Switched to other environments I have access to (a training env, a sandbox, a few project ones) — there the New button is greyed out entirely and the page shows a "Go premium" wall. That part I understand; non-default environments need premium.

What's confusing me: I thought free attended RPA in the default environment was included with Windows. But looking at my environment picker, I don't see a tenant default environment at all — just named ones. Is that the reason Create silently fails? Does the free tier hard-require the default environment to exist and be visible to you?

Also worth noting: cloud flows work fine for me — I've built flows inside Copilot Studio in one of those environments with no issue. It's specifically desktop flow creation that dies.

Is this just "your admin restricted it, go ask them," or is there something about the default environment I'm missing? Trying to figure out whether this is a config thing I can work around or a hard block.

I have a single flow that uses the "Start and wait for an approval from multiple users" action and basically would like to track who has responded and who we're waiting on so we can send out notifications to the requestor for said approval...

Of course when an approval gets sent out that's the moment the flow is paused and as users are responding to the approval there's no real way to track who has responded as far as I can see?

Tried going down the path of creating a SharePoint list to log approvals and their information but standard approvals in power automate doesn't have a "get approvals" action to get all past and present approvals?

Is there a solution out there I'm not seeing? Any help is much appreciated.

Hi All,

I have a flow where I am creating a teams site on the back of a form, the site is created, permissions added and follows a specific naming convention.

As part of this flow I would like to also create a standard set of about 7 folders, I use the 'Creat new folder' action but as the site has been created yet I am relying on variables. I have tried a few different recommended iterations from Copilot and other Ai's but I'm completely stuck. I'm hoping someone has achieved this before or even let me know if this is / isn't possible.

I would be very very greatful!

I would like to seek help if this is possible:

MS Forms > Save the Excel File to a Sharepoint Site and then > Email to a recipient with the attached excel File from accomplished MS Forms

Last month I posted a JSON knowledge base of PAD ROBIN actions that I documented with Claude AI, so models stop writing desktop flows that PAD rejects. Getting a flow that pastes clean is half the job. The other half is getting it into an environment and running it without clicking through the portal, and there's no single place that documents that either.

There has been no Robin language reference since 2021. I documented one with Claude AI. PAD actions with paste-validated examples, 100% free on GitHub. : r/PowerAutomate

So I wrote it down: PAD_Robin_Deployment_KB.md, in the same repo. It covers:

• Signing in once for Graph, the Flow API and Dataverse with one device-code sign-in and refresh token.
• Discovery: pulling the user's real environments, connections, connector operations, sites and lists, so the model stops inventing them.
• Cloud flows through the Flow API, plus the Dataverse workflow table route: creating, turning on and off, and starting a run.
• The definition rules the API enforces, each with the exact error message you get when it's broken. I re-tested 25 single-change variants of one flow against the current API, and several old "rules" turned out not to be needed.
• Desktop flows: validating before delivery, delivering by paste, running them from a cloud flow, and reading the result from flowsessions.
• A troubleshooting table of about 30 error messages, with what actually causes each one.

Every claim is marked Proven, Re-confirmed or Measured, all checked against PAD 2.73.

It also documents writing desktop flows straight into Dataverse: creating them from scratch, inputs and outputs, child flows, and cloud connector actions inside desktop flows, including SharePoint writes with dynamic schemas. That part is not supported by Microsoft. It was proven on one environment, attended runs only, so try it in a test environment first.

Repo: https://github.com/JoeG592/pad-robin-action-kb

Same license as the action KB, CC BY 4.0, so use it however you like, commercially included. Like last time, I built this with Claude AI. The data is free regardless.

If something in the guide doesn't hold on your tenant or PAD build, an issue with the error text is the most useful thing you can send.

I'm currently building a SharePoint and Teams governance/provisioning solution and I'm wondering whether I'm reinventing the wheel.

Our environment is moving from traditional file servers to SharePoint Online, and we're trying to put proper governance, automation, and self-service processes in place from the start.

At the moment I'm building:

• Power Apps request portal
• SharePoint Lists as the backend
• Power Automate provisioning flows
• Teams and SharePoint governance processes
• Approval workflows

The goal is to allow users to:

• Request a new Team
• Request a SharePoint site
• Request new document libraries
• Add/remove members and owners
• Request channels
• Submit governance-related changes

Typical flow would be:

1. User submits a request
2. Approval process starts
3. Validation checks run
4. Team/Site gets provisioned
5. Permissions are assigned
6. Audit log is updated
7. Requestor receives notifications

What I'm struggling with is not the technical implementation itself, but knowing what a mature setup looks like.

Questions for those who have already built this:

• Do you have any proven Power Automate templates for Teams/SharePoint provisioning?
• What approval patterns work best?
• How are you handling governance and lifecycle management?
• Do you use configuration-driven provisioning (templates/profiles stored in SharePoint)?
• How do you handle archiving when Microsoft Purview isn't available?
• What flows turned out to be essential that you didn't think of at the start?
• What flows did you build that turned out to be unnecessary complexity?

I'm especially interested in real-world examples, architecture diagrams, sample flows, governance templates, naming standards, approval chains, and lessons learned.

At this point I feel like there must be organizations out there that have already solved 80% of these challenges, and I'd rather learn from their mistakes than make all of them myself.

Any examples, screenshots, GitHub repositories, solution accelerators, or war stories would be greatly appreciated. 🙂

Hey everyone, im trying to think on solutions for a problem that i have and i tried to search for using google but im too dumb to understand the python responses.
So, i need to send a series of emails, A, B, C and D where ill only send B if A is unanswared and so on, im currently doing this manually checking if someone responded me, how can i create a automatization using power that check if the mail was answered and to send the nexts mails in case of not?
also its possible to just put a list of contacts and automatically send the mail A for them?
thanks in advance if someone take a time to help me and sorry for my bad english