Some API's return a 302 redirect url, which Postman and other web clients automatically follow. Unfortunately its not that easy in Power Automate so here's how to fix it

📢𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗙𝘅 𝗶𝗻 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗸𝘁𝗼𝗽 now supports 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻?
It is a powerful feature which allows you to inject variables, expressions directly into a standard string. It makes creating and formatting strings easier and more readable.
Used in programming languages. Also available in Power Apps and now in Power Automate Desktop.

𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲:
🔷 Power Fx in PAD – 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 String Interpolation
="Welcome, " & vFirstName & " " & vLastName & ", " & "this is a nice update in PAD Version 2.41"

🔷 Power Fx in PAD – 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 String Interpolation
=$"Welcome, {vFirstName} {vLastName}, this is a nice update in PAD Version 2.41"


❗Key points to note and benefits:
🔹String interpolation strings begin with a $
🔹Use curly braces {} to evaluate and embed the variable or expression
🔹Both, normal text or interpolated strings can be used anywhere within that line of text
🔹No need of any ‘&’ operator, thus easy to read as well as write formatted strings.
🔹This is applicable only for Power Fx enabled desktop flows (in preview). The "=" sign in the beginning is the Power Fx notation.

Below screenshot shows an output in 𝗣𝗔𝗗 using Power Fx – 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 String Interpolation

Check out my post for a sample on how Power Fx in PAD can be used.
https://lnkd.in/dd4cMTcH

This feature is released in the February update Version 2.41

https://lnkd.in/dcFCtD5N

Problem Statement:

Power Automate Desktop currently does not have an option to set categories to Outlook emails.

These are what categories in Outlook are. They can be default ones like Blue Category, Orange Category, or you can customize your own ones as shown below.

Power Automate Desktop Solution:

1. Launch Outlook and Configure the desired parameters for retrieving emails as per your specific criteria.

Here the email with the subject as "test email" in Inbox folder is configured.

2.  For the sake of this example only 1 email with the subject "test email" will be retrieved.

Hence, we are storing the unique EntryID of that email in a variable.

3. Here we are setting a variable with the desired Outlook categories

- Can pass single or as shown we are passing two categories at once.

- IMP: Make sure that you have the correct spelling of the category name as per the list of already configured categories in the outlook application. First screenshot of this write-up.

4.  Here we are simply passing the above two variables to a Vbscript which will do the rest ie; setting the category to the email having the specified EntryID.

VBScript Code:

Option Explicit

' Create Outlook Application object
Dim objOutlook
Set objOutlook = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")

' Get the message by its ID
Dim objNamespace, objMessage
Set objNamespace = objOutlook.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set objMessage = objNamespace.GetItemFromID("%EntryID%")

' Check if the message is found
If Not objMessage Is Nothing Then
    ' Set the category
    objMessage.Categories = "%CategoriesToSet%"
    objMessage.Save ' Save changes
    
   ' MsgBox "Category set successfully."
Else
    'MsgBox "Message not found."
End If

' Clean up
Set objMessage = Nothing
Set objNamespace = Nothing
Set objOutlook = Nothing

5. The overall PAD flow would look as below.

*I have also attached the txt file of the entire flow which you need to copy-paste inside a blank Flow editor.

The flow is built in PAD version 2.41

6. Thats it. The email output after running the above PAD flow is as follows.

7. Attached .txt file of the flow to copy-paste into a blank PAD editor.

When you copy paste the code chances are that Power Automate Desktop adds some slash characters especially in the vbscript and you may see some errors. Single back slashes may become double back slashes. To fix, take the vbscript code snippet posted above and paste it directly into the "Run vbscript" action. 

User story: 

Create an access team whenever a new row is added to the Accounts table. Add the creator of the new row and their manager to the access team. Automate this process using power automate flow. 

What is an access team?

Access teams are a type of team that can be created in the Microsoft power platform to enable an extra level of security to your application. Access teams empower us to have a record level of security for our dataverse tables. Now, you might be wondering, when we already have some ways to achieve security in dataverse why use access teams?

Consider a scenario where an Azure Active Directory group has already been established for the purpose of restricting user access to a particular application. However, you do not want everyone in that AAD group to access all the records of that application. That is, you want some people to access only some records based on the ownership of the records. This is where the access group can help. With the help of power automate flows, you can automate to create access teams dynamically.

Everyone has their own particular style when making flows in Power Automate, and that is part of the beauty of being a developer. But development by its very nature is about sharing and learning from others (its why Stack Overflow is probably most visited developer site).

So after making far too many flows, I've pulled together what I think of as the best approach to Power Automate (and many other RPA tools), and it's called the 'Direct' methodology.