Power Automate

I wanted a flow that takes a PowerPoint template full of {{Placeholders}}, swaps in real client data, and spits out a finished, on-brand sales deck — all from a single button press. The clever bit is that the actual find-and-replace code is written for me by an AI prompt inside Power Platform. It worked… mostly. A couple of placeholders stubbornly refused to replace, and the fix taught me something genuinely useful about how PowerPoint stores text. Let me walk you through it. ...

If you’ve ever needed to dynamically create an Excel file from data in Power Automate — maybe from a Copilot Studio agent, a SharePoint list, or an API response — you’ve probably realised there’s more than one way to skin this particular cat. In this post, I’m going to walk you through three different approaches to generating and populating an Excel file, each with its own strengths and trade-offs. I’ll be using a sample F1 2026 driver grid as my data, but this could just as easily be data passed from a Copilot Studio Agent, a Dataverse table, or any other source. ...

I’ve been wanting to share this one for a while. If you’ve ever needed to generate professional-looking Word or PDF documents from Power Automate — complete with icons, tables, and styled headers — without reaching for premium connectors or fiddly Word templates, this approach might just change how you think about document generation. The trick? HTML that Word understands. In this post, I’m going to walk through the entire flow step by step, explain the key patterns that make it work, and show you the finished output. Let’s get into it. ...

With the Office 365 connectors being retired, now is the time to move your Microsoft Teams automation to Power Automate. Whether you’re replacing old connectors or building from scratch, this post walks you through creating dynamic, real-time workflows using webhooks. In this blog post, we’ll explore a hands-on tutorial for creating dynamic, real-time workflows in Microsoft Teams, using webhooks and Power Automate. If you’re a Teams user or an IT pro looking to streamline tasks and improve efficiency, this guide is for you. Plus, I’ll show you how to overcome common challenges, like data loss prevention (DLP) policies, and secure your flows with app registrations. ...

What if I told you that most of the variables in your Power Automate flows and Power Apps don’t need to be variables at all? In this post, we’ll explore immutable variables — a technique that can dramatically simplify your solutions, reduce API calls, and make your logic cleaner and easier to maintain. This post builds on concepts demonstrated in the accompanying video, where we go beyond the basics to show you practical applications, performance benefits, and best practices. ...

Ever needed to programmatically delete files or folders from SharePoint? Whether you’re enforcing data retention policies, cleaning up processed files, or simply keeping your document libraries tidy, the Microsoft Graph API combined with Power Automate makes it straightforward. In this post, I’ll walk you through every step — from obtaining the right IDs to making the DELETE call. Why Automate File Deletion? There are several reasons why one might want to delete a SharePoint file or folder via the Graph API using Power Automate. Firstly, automating deletion can help maintain the organization and cleanliness of a SharePoint site, especially when dealing with temporary or obsolete files. Secondly, it allows for the enforcement of data retention policies by programmatically removing files that are past their retention period. Thirdly, it can be used to streamline workflows by deleting files that have been processed, reducing clutter and potential confusion. ...

If you’ve been using Apply to Each loops to export Power BI data into Excel, you know how painfully slow that can be. In this post, I’ll show you two much faster and more reliable methods — Graph API and Office Scripts — that will transform how you bulk-load data into Excel with Power Automate. Method 1: Using Graph API The first method involves using Graph API. It’s a premium licensed method that invokes an HTTP request to the Graph API. The Graph API requires the site ID, the file ID, and the dynamic range of the data. ...

Ever needed to bundle multiple files into a single zip from Power Automate or Logic Apps? Creating zip files programmatically in the cloud can be tricky — there’s no built-in action for it. In this post, I’ll show you how to set up an Azure Function that accepts base64 file content for an array of files and returns a compressed zip file. You can then store it in Blob Storage, send it to SFTP, attach it to an email — wherever you need it. ...

Have you ever had a service go down because an Azure App Registration secret expired without anyone noticing? Client secrets and key certificates come with expiration dates, and failing to renew them in time can lead to service disruptions and security vulnerabilities. In this post, I’ll walk you through a super efficient Power Automate flow that monitors your Azure App Registrations for expiring keys using the Graph API and XPath — without the nested loops and API overhead that most solutions rely on. ...

Can you encrypt and decrypt a string using Power Automate? My son challenged me with this question after covering the Vigenère Cipher in school, and I couldn’t resist building it. In this post, I’ll show you how to implement a full Vigenère Cipher in Power Automate — without a single Apply to Each — and there’s even a live version you can try yourself. What is the Vigenere Cipher? The Vigenere cipher was invented by Blaise de Vigenere in the 16th century. It is a method of encrypting alphabetic text by using a series of interwoven Caesar ciphers, with each letter of the plaintext being shifted based on a keyword. ...