If we have a built in connector in power automate and we have an API as well ,
So what is the best way to fetch the data ?
What are the pros and cons ?
Also what will be the best to dump the fetch data - SharePoint or data verse ?
My setup: flow triggers on “When a file is created or modified in a folder.” Every day, 3 files land in the same SharePoint folder around the same time. The flow fires once per file, so I get 3 instances running in parallel — all of them eventually pass my checks and all 3 end up calling my ADF pipeline.
I already have a Do Until loop inside that polls for all 3 files in that SharePoint folder and sets an AllFilesPresent boolean — but that’s a local variable, doesn’t persist across instances. So all 3 runs flip it to true independently and fire the pipeline.
I tried setting concurrency to 1 on the trigger so runs queue instead of going parallel, but that doesn’t actually help — they still all run through the logic sequentially and each one triggers the pipeline.
Is there a native Power Automate way to do this without needing an external list or flag file?
I’ve been trying to let Claude/Codex do useful stuff against my M365 account for a while, mostly boring-but-useful things like read mail, send a follow-up, put something on my calendar, save notes to OneDrive, etc.
The normal path was a wall for me:
Then I realized I was overthinking it. Power Automate already runs as me.
So the pattern became:
That’s it. It’s kind of dumb, but in the best way.
What I have working now:
The nice part is that none of this needs elevated tenant access. Each flow uses my existing delegated permissions. If I can send an email manually, the flow can send it. If I can write to a OneDrive folder, the flow can write there.
The MCP piece is just a wrapper. The actual useful pattern is:
AI/tool/script -> HTTP POST -> Power Automate -> M365 action -> JSON response
The server is roughly 200 lines of Python: FastMCP, httpx, and a config file mapping tool names to PA webhook URLs. The PA flows are usually just HTTP trigger -> action -> response.
One very real gotcha: I copy-pasted too fast and had flow_2 and flow_7 pointing to the same webhook URL for a while. Spent a very confusing hour wondering why the “calendar” tool was behaving like an email tool. So yeah, audit your config file before trusting it.
If people are interested I can clean up the server and post the skeleton. Curious if anyone else is using PA this way, because it feels like a weirdly practical loophole.
I created a VS Code extension called Power Automate Copilot DevKit to bring Power Automate development and AI-assisted troubleshooting directly into VS Code.
- Import and work with Power Automate cloud flows directly inside VS Code.
- View and analyze flow run history within VS Code for easier debugging and AI-assisted troubleshooting (requires admin consent for Flow API).
- Comes with bundled GitHub Copilot (GHCP) skills to guide AI with flow-aware context, troubleshooting patterns, and Power Automate best practices.
- (Optional) Helps developers understand, navigate, and modify flows more efficiently with AI support.
If you want, you can try it out and see if it works
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=TienLongKuan.power-automate-copilot-devkit
Edit:
- 1st login is for dataverse api to load/upload flow.
- 2nd login is for admin consent to use flow api, just skip it if you do not have it.
Hello guys, I hope you are doing well today. So basically, here is what i want:
* Attendees fill the form (Microsoft form) the information mainly the mail is shifted to a excel sheet (this is done)
* The system should read from the list of webinar sessions and choose only the next 1 upcoming one
* It should use that tittle and create a calendar invite (mainly for outlook but also google if it is possible) each attendee should get a calendar separately
----
* I also require sending out reminder emails along with the flyer of each webinar session. but there are more than 300 attendees and i need to send the reminder email to each one separately due to confidentiality of the users email.
BTW - point to be noted - All of this on a organization's database as such there are prohibitions on some things.
THE MAIN POINT IS TO SEND THE ATANDEES PARTICUAL EMAIL SEPARAETLY SO THEY DONT GET ACCESS TO EACH OTHERS MAIL ADDRESS
If you have any question do let me know. I would appreciate the communities help on this matter
Do you know what might be causing this? Could it be a problem with admin permissions? If so, is there a way to work around it?
One of the most common questions I see in Power Platform: how do you call a third-party system that doesn't have a native connector — and how do you handle the case where the user hasn't given you all the required parameters upfront?
Most setups either hardcode the missing values, ask the user for everything at once, or just fail. None of those work in practice.
So I built a Copilot Studio agent that solves both problems in one architecture.
Here's what it actually does:
The architecture — one controlling topic, one prompt driving all decisions, one accumulating variable — is the reusable pattern here. The logistics use case is just the demo. The same setup works for any external system: pricing APIs, ERP endpoints, custom internal services, anything with an HTTP interface.
Three live demos in the video showing the full loop from a vague input to a real API response with carrier options, prices, and delivery times.
Full walkthrough in the comments.
What external APIs or third-party endpoints have you needed to connect to from Power Platform without a native connector? Curious what others are building.
Hi,
I have "when a new email arrives in a shared mailbox (V2) set up as a trigger. It has a trigger condition limiting it to email addresses with my company's domain. It has a subject filter with a word that is in all the arriving email subjects.
The flow consistently runs when I send an email to the shared box, but doesn't run at all or inconsistently for others. Several of those others also have full control permissions so it can't be that.
.I feel like this is a stupid question and there's a simple solution but like I'm trying to automate the new SharePoint calendar and like it works fine except it can't add multiple attendees that it fetched from the outlook calendar. Like, instead of adding multiple people to the column for 1 event it creates the event for each person if that makes sense. And like I know what I'm supposed to do, I just don't know what format I need the input to be so that it adds multiple people in one event item and not 1 item 1 person.
Hey,
I’ve been working with Power Platform full-time and freelancing for like 5.5 years, focused entirely on enterprise-level projects — most of my work has been with organizations of 200+ users across healthcare, manufacturing, finance, real estate, government, and more.
Over that time I’ve delivered a lot of solutions that actually moved the needle for clients, so I’ll share some real examples instead of just listing skills.
Some of what I’ve built:
Enterprise HR & Operations Portal (Power Pages + Dataverse)
External-facing portal for a large organization where employees, contractors, and managers each had different roles and access levels. Built on Dataverse with a complex security model — row-level security, business units, and custom API integrations pulling data from their ERP.
The client went from a fully manual process to a self-service system handling hundreds of requests per day.
Multi-Stage Procurement Approval System (Power Automate + Teams)
Full approval lifecycle for a manufacturing company — requisitions, budget checks, department head sign-off, finance review, and final authorization. Built with parallel branching, delegation logic, timeout handling, and full audit trail in Dataverse. Replaced a process that was running on emails and spreadsheets for years.
AI-Powered Document Processing (AI Builder + Power Automate)
Automated invoice and document intake for a finance client. AI Builder handled extraction, Power Automate handled routing and validation, and everything landed clean in Dataverse with zero manual entry. Cut processing time from days to under an hour.
Large-Scale Automation Overhaul (300+ flows)
Worked with a retail group that had a chaotic mix of legacy flows nobody fully understood. Audited, rebuilt, and restructured the entire automation layer — proper naming conventions, environment strategy, ALM with pipelines, and error handling that actually notifies the right people when something breaks.
Custom Connector + Third-Party API Integration
Built custom connectors for clients integrating with systems outside the Microsoft ecosystem — payment gateways, logistics APIs, government data services. Clean OAuth2 flows, proper error handling, and documented for internal teams to maintain.
A few things I’ve learned building at this scale:
• Environment strategy and ALM are not optional on enterprise projects. They save you from yourself six months in.
• Dataverse security models need to be designed before a single table is created, not after the app is half built.
• Power Pages is seriously underused. For client-facing or partner portals it’s one of the strongest tools in the stack.
• AI Builder has matured enough to use in production. Stop sleeping on it.
I’m currently available for freelance projects.
If you’re building something complex, migrating off legacy systems, or just stuck on something that should work but doesn’t — I’d be glad to talk.
DM me or drop a comment. I’m also happy to answer technical questions here.
Hi! I literally cannot find any MS docs explaining this.
I need an email Draft to be created with the old email chain included, as if a user clicked on Reply, and then went into their Drafts folder.
If I use the Message ID by itself, the chain is not there.
If I use Draft type, the flow just hangs (I tried the plain string Reply and ReplyAll)
Claude suggested the Comment parameter should be used instead.
I can get it to work a little bit if I make the body include the previous email's body, but it messes up formatting.
After 5.5 years building and fixing Power Automate flows across enterprise projects, the same mistakes show up over and over. Not beginner mistakes — mistakes that experienced people make because they work fine until they don't.
1. No error handling whatsoever Most flows are built assuming everything will work. No try/catch scope, no failure branch, no notification when something breaks. The flow just silently fails and nobody knows until someone complains that nothing happened.
2. Testing only the happy path Everyone tests when the approver approves. Nobody tests what happens when the approver is on leave, rejects with no comment, or their license expires. Edge cases are where flows die.
3. Hardcoded values everywhere Emails, URLs, IDs, and environment-specific values buried inside actions. The moment you move from dev to production or someone changes a mailbox, the whole flow breaks and you spend an hour hunting down where that value was hardcoded.
4. No concurrency control on loops Apply to each runs in parallel by default. If you're writing to a SharePoint list or updating a record inside a loop without controlling concurrency, you'll get race conditions and duplicate or missing data.
5. Connections tied to one person's account Built the flow using your personal connection? The moment that person leaves the company or changes their password, every flow using that connection dies. Use service accounts.
6. No documentation Six months later nobody — including the person who built it — knows what the flow does, why certain conditions exist, or what that specific expression was supposed to handle.
Most of these take five minutes to fix during development and hours to debug in production.
If you're working on a Power Automate project and want a second pair of eyes, or need something built properly from the start. DM me.
[deleted]
I’m new to Microsoft Power Apps, so apologies in advance if this is a basic question. 😅
I wanted to ask if there’s a way to find ready-made inventory templates or sample apps created in Power Apps. I’m currently exploring it for inventory management and would love to learn from existing setups.
Wondering if PowerAutomate would be the best solution here. We receive hundreds of vendor invoices by email daily. We need to move these to specific folders in File Explorer, then rename the pdf to be the invoice # contained within the pdf.
Thanks in advance for any help!
I've been using AI to try to build this flow, but I just give up.
TL;DR: I want to make a flow that reads a ~2,000 page document that groups and exports based on the Claim Control Number (upper right hand corner--here is a sample). I want the PDF to be named after said Claim Control Number. The groups are not a set number of pages.
Long version:
Every month, my company prints Defectives reports for vendors. My team splits the work based on the first letter of the vendor's name (I'm D-J). We sort through our stacks by hand, then scan them BACK IN. This is a complete waste of time and paper.
The list of defectives vary by length for each vendor, obviously. You can group the pages based on vendor number (upper left) OR you can see a TOTAL on the last page of each report. The claim number changes every month (This month is 20260430DEF- but next month will be 20260531DEF-). I want to put the file in a folder, run my flow, then it outputs my file for me. (Then we have to upload to each vendor's website individually... :/ no Sharepoint access.)
Ultimately, I'd like to create a flow for every type of report we give to our vendors. But that's for another time. I consider myself moderately tech-savvy, but this is kicking my butt. ANY help at all is greatly appreciated!
Hi, I’m looking to work with Claude Code + Power Automate to level up my automations. Does anyone use this setup?
I am currently trying to figure out what I am doing wrong on a power automate flow that I created. We are receiving an submission from a Survey123 form where the person will have 1+ attachments that I would like to have sent as attachments in an email to a department. i am doing an apply to each cycling through the attachments and doing an http get and then passing the body of that http to an array.
{
"Name": "@{items('Apply_to_each_2')?['name']}",
"ContentBytes": "@{body('HTTP')?['$content']}"
}
I am then doing the same thing for a report created in sharepoint where I am appending to the same array as above with
{
"Name": "@{outputs('Create_file_2')?['body/Name']}",
"ContentBytes": "@{body('Get_file_content')}"
}
The problem I am having is the attachments are being shown in the email but they are corrupted and cant be opened or if the pdf is openable its an empty white page even though I can see the file in our sharepoint.
I had a consistent flow that was working reliably for weeks. It fills out a web form and clicks buttons, that's it.
Now suddenly I had to go and repair every single reference to each web element. Particularly buttons and panes. I don't understand why. At first I thought maybe the site had changed, but even the part that involves saving through Windows Explorer (which should remain the same) was broken too.
I updated each one and it added more info to the existing reference and I added an image as backup. I don't want to have to keep doing this. Does anyone know why this happens or how I can make these references to my elements consistently accurate?
There is a web automation flow which runs fine attended but not unattended.
The error is unable to contact with browser check extension. But i have tried everything from removing re adding it, updating the power automate desktop.
Anyone knows how to fix this?
