Minimum Path to Awesomeness

 The advent of chatbots has revolutionized customer service, automating responses to frequently asked questions and assisting in troubleshooting. Power Virtual Agents, Microsoft's tool for creating chatbots, has played a key role in this revolution. However, keeping track of your bot's performance is essential for continuous improvement and maintenance. That's where Microsoft's Application Insights comes into play. In this article, we explore how to use Application Insights for monitoring your Power Virtual Agents' performance. What is Application Insights? Application Insights is a telemetry service that collects data about your applications and provides detailed analytics, enabling you to understand your applications' performance, uncover potential issues, and track usage. Data points gathered by Application Insights include: The frequency of requests your application processes The response time to requests Errors occurring within your application The usage me...

Welcome back, fellow Power Apps enthusiasts and developers! Today we're diving deep into the fascinating world of Power Apps and exploring some of its key components: variables, named formulas, and collections. Each of these tools plays a crucial role in creating dynamic, intuitive apps - but the key to unlocking their potential lies in understanding when and how to use them.  A Crash Course on Variables, Named Formulas, and Collections Before we discuss when to use these tools, let's briefly define what each of them does. Variables are the simplest of the three. They're essentially containers that store a single value. These values could be anything - a number, a string of text, or a Boolean value (true/false). Variables are extremely useful for storing temporary data, like the number of times a user has interacted with a button or the result of a specific calculation.  Named formula s are the next level up. They're an advanced form of variables, with the capability ...

We live in an era where digital platforms and tools continue to evolve, constantly changing the way we communicate and interact in the workplace. That's why today, we're exploring the exceptional benefits of using the "Send a Message in Teams" feature via Power Automate, instead of traditional email notifications.  Collaboration is King  Microsoft Teams isn't just a tool; it's a communal platform. Sending a message through Teams means it's visible to all members involved in a particular channel or chat. This universal visibility ensures everyone is well-informed and on the same page, making communication more efficient and collaborative. Imagine managing a team project through Teams. You can share updates, files, and even co-work on documents, ensuring everyone's looped into the project's progress and helping it move forward smoothly. Such transparent communication is difficult to maintain through email notifications. Engaging, Not Just Informing  ...

In the Power Platform universe, both SharePoint and Dataverse are significant players when it comes to data storage and management. But when should you use each of these as your data source? Let's delve into their pros and cons to get a clear picture. SharePoint Pros SharePoint is an excellent choice for document management and collaboration. It is already integrated with other Office 365 services, providing seamless interoperability. It's easier to set up and manage compared to Dataverse. It offers a user-friendly and intuitive interface for non-technical users. Cons SharePoint isn't designed for large-scale relational data storage. It may not provide the best performance for complex or large data scenarios. Its querying capabilities are limited compared to Dataverse. ...

Introduction Throttling is a common issue that users encounter when working with Power Automate. But fret not, this blog post is designed to walk you through how to effectively manage this challenge. Understanding Throttling While I will not be delving into what Power Automate is, it's important to understand the concept of throttling in this context. Essentially, throttling happens when your flows are making requests at a rate that exceeds the limits set by the service you are interacting with. This results in the service slowing down or even stopping the flow of data, which is what we refer to as 'throttling'. You can learn more about the specific limitations that Microsoft puts in place for Power Automate here . How to Handle Throttling Now, let's delve into how you can handle throttling in Power Automate. Here are a few strategies: Use Delays: Adding delay actions between your requests can he...

If you're a Power Apps user, you've likely encountered situations where you needed to manage large data sets or complex data operations. To ensure smooth and efficient performance, Power Apps relies heavily on the concept of delegation. Although delegation can seem daunting initially, understanding and managing it effectively can significantly improve your app performance and user experience. Understanding Delegation in Power Apps Before diving into how to handle delegation, it's crucial to comprehend what it means in the context of Power Apps. Delegation is the method Power Apps employs to retrieve and manage data. Instead of fetching all the data at once and operating on it locally, Power Apps instructs the data source to perform operations such as filtering, sorting, or aggregation. The data source then sends back only the relevant data. The primary reason for this approach is to efficiently handle large amounts of data, keeping the app responsive and performing well. Wi...

Since I blog about this, I need to tell you how to do this right; otherwise, you might end up facing the same hiccups that I initially did. Today, I will guide you on how to set up Azure Application Insights with Power Apps, Microsoft's fantastic low-code platform for building business applications.  Step 1: Create Your Azure Application Insights Resource  Before we can integrate Power Apps with Azure Application Insights, we first need an Application Insights resource to connect to. 1. Sign in to the Azure portal : Navigate to  https://portal.azure.com/ and sign in with your Microsoft account. 2. Create a new Application Insights resource : In the Azure portal, select "Create a resource" from the left-hand navigation. In the "New" window, search for "Application Insights". Click on it and then select "Create". 3. Configure your Application Insights resource : In the "Create Application Insights" window, enter the details for your...

Choosing the best platform for your business process needs can be daunting, especially when there are so many good options. Microsoft has revolutionized the way organizations streamline their processes with powerful platforms like SharePoint and Power Apps. In this blog post, we are going to delve into the key differences between SharePoint Custom Forms and Power Apps and shed some light on when it would be appropriate to use one over the other. What is SharePoint Custom Form? SharePoint is a robust and comprehensive collaboration platform that allows businesses to create, manage and share content effectively. A crucial feature of SharePoint is its ability to create custom forms. SharePoint Custom Forms allow users to design, build, and manage web-based forms on their SharePoint site. These forms can be used to capture and manage data within the SharePoint environment. The forms can be customized using SharePoint Designer or third-party tools like InfoPath (please note that Microsoft s...

Good morning, afternoon, evening, or night, my fearless automation architects! Is your love for Power Automate as everlasting as that carton of almond milk you swore you'd finish? Well, buckle up, because today we're diving into the fascinating and frequently misunderstood world of the 'Compose' action! But first, let's pop open the hood and see what the Compose action actually is. Is it a finely crafted symphony, delicately harmonizing your every flow? Eh, not quite, but it's not too far off.  Essentially, Compose allows you to create and manipulate data on the fly within your flow, just like a maestro conducting a melody. Only instead of notes and rhythms, you're handling data inputs, variables, and outputs.  Let's break it down into some casual scenarios: The Middleman Maneuver Like a trusted broker in a Wall Street trade, Compose acts as an intermediary in your flow. Let's say you're doing a little bit of data gymnastics between SharePoint an...

Power Apps have become a ubiquitous tool in the world of app development, empowering anyone to build user-friendly applications with little to no coding experience. But as the adage goes, with great power comes great responsibility, and that responsibility is ensuring your Power Apps perform optimally for all users. This is where Azure Application Insights comes in. Azure Application Insights, part of the Azure Monitor suite, is an extensible application performance management (APM) service for developers and DevOps professionals. It offers real-time, actionable insights into how your Power App is performing and where it can be optimized for a better user experience.  Pinpoint and Diagnose Issues Quickly Having issues with your Power App but not sure where they're coming from? Azure Application Insights has you covered. The platform provides automatic collection and detailed analysis of application telemetry data. In plain English, it monitors your app around the clock, instantly a...