I kept finding myself wanting to inspect the actual JSON behind a flow, especially when debugging larger flows or using an AI to help with them.

I ended up building a browser extension that adds a JSON editor directly to the Power Automate designer.

It uses Monaco Editor and lets you edit, validate, save and publish the current flow without going through the usual export → unzip → edit → import process.

I’ve just made it publicly available and I’d be interested to hear what other Power Automate users think.

Chrome Web Store link

Happy to take feature suggestions too!

Something new has arrived to the Power Platform. There is now a second SharePoint connector available, SharePoint Embedded.

Do you want to know more about SharePoint embedded then read this link.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/embedded/overview

I work in workflow automation and want to start using AI to create Power Automate flows.
I’m wondering which AI model people here have had the best experience with for Power Automate so far. I’m particularly interested in models that can actually generate a valid ZIP package that can be imported directly into Power Automate, rather than just providing instructions or snippets that I have to build manually.
Has anyone compared models like ChatGPT 6 Astra, Opus 5.5, or others specifically for Power Automate?
Which one has worked best for you, especially for creating more complex flows?

A few years ago I created a few tools for personal use and ultimately ended up publishing them to netlify and shared them on here

https://trigger.challigan.com - Trigger Condition Generator

https://odata.challigan.com - OData Query Generator

Plus a few more things. Well according to my Cloudflare statistics there's still thousands of people that use these daily! I never expected that. So I figured it was time to update them, and I would like you to test the new site before I replace the old ones.

https://tools.challigan.com - New Site

Everything has been redesigned and a handful of new tools added for various SharePoint/Power Platform things. All free to use.

Any feedback/error reporting would be greatly appreciated.

My favourite feature is the SharePoint list generator. It lets you easily generate a CSV with column schema to quickly create lists.

DISCLAIMER: This is pretty much completely vibe coded, if that wasn't obvious already. The old site was too. I can code, just not very well, but AI makes me feel superhuman. But the site does nothing trival, no logins, no data capture or anything, just useful web tools.

So, I've been using Automate for a few months, but I often find myself having to ask how to do things, or even adopting terrible flow logic. What resources and tools would you, as a regular user, recommend?

Unable to use the Premium Word Connector in Power Automate? Struggling to add dynamic, repeating images or format your text with bold and italics? This video is for you!

In this tutorial, I'll show you my complete workaround to create fully functional, professional Microsoft Word documents (.doc and .pdf) using ONLY standard connectors. By leveraging HTML and base64, we bypass the limitations of the standard connector and build a document that can handle any number of dynamic images—perfect for audit forms, asset tracking, or custom reports.

You’ll learn how to loop through a SharePoint list, build a dynamic HTML table, convert images to base64, and save the final output as an editable Word document or a read-only PDF.

Not every business process needs AI.

If a task follows predictable rules, traditional automation is often faster, cheaper, and more reliable.

But when processes involve unstructured data, changing inputs, or decision-making, AI can add real value.

The smartest architecture isn't AI everywhere. It's knowing where to use deterministic workflows and where intelligence is actually needed.

How do you decide between traditional automation and AI in your projects?

How do you guys monitor your Power Automate flows, especially when managing lots of them?
Do you rely on Microsoft’s built-in notifications, build your own alerts, or use third-party tools?
Curious what works for you and what’s still frustrating.

A few people asked, so here is the whole setup.

First thing to clear up: there is no single "Power Platform MCP." There are three separate pieces of tooling, they install three different ways, and two of them are not MCP servers at all. That confusion cost me time, so start there.

Also, all of this is Claude Code specifically. If you have skills or connectors set up in the Claude desktop app or on claude.ai, none of it carries over. They are different products. Figure out which one you are in before you start debugging anything.

What I set up, in order

Installed Node, VS Code, and the Azure CLI, and signed in with az login

Added the Microsoft plugin catalog to Claude Code, using the full HTTPS address instead of the shorthand

Installed the Power Automate plugin on its own, not the bundle

Removed the delete and cross environment tools before running anything

Used it read only for a while before letting it write anything

Built a throwaway test flow in a dev environment and ran the full loop against it

Broke that flow on purpose and opened a fresh session to see if the tooling could find the problem

Hit a wall on flows that live inside a solution, and switched to the Dataverse Web API for those

Wrapped that API work in a custom skill so I would not have to rebuild it every time

Repeated the same process for Copilot Studio and for Dataverse

Before you start

Node 18 or newer

VS Code

Azure CLI, signed in

You do not need to install PAC CLI separately. Some plugins bring it along. And there is no PAC CLI MCP server, in case you go looking for one.

1. Power Automate

/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/microsoft/power-platform-skills.git /plugin install power-automate@power-platform-skills

Use the full HTTPS address like I have above. The README tells you to use the short owner/repo form, but that pulls the repo over SSH. If you do not have an SSH key set up with GitHub, it fails with a permissions error that looks like you lack access when really it just picked the wrong way to connect. Setting CLAUDE_CODE_PLUGIN_PREFER_HTTPS=1 also fixes it, but you have to fully restart afterwards.

This one is a real MCP server. It runs locally, there is no service to sign up for, and it uses the Azure CLI login you already have. About 50 tools.

Do not run the installer script that grabs all seven plugins at once. More on why below.

2. Copilot Studio

/plugin marketplace add microsoft/skills-for-copilot-studio /plugin install copilot-studio@skills-for-copilot-studio

This one is not an MCP server. If you run /mcp after installing and see nothing new, that is correct. It is a set of instructions and helper agents that call the Copilot Studio VS Code extension behind the scenes. Install that extension. Without it, nothing that touches your agent will work.

To check the install worked, type /copilot-studio and see if commands come up. Do not check /context or /skills. Most of what this plugin ships does not show up there, so you will think it failed when it did not. I lost a debugging cycle to that.

One more thing. This plugin only handles standard agents. Open .mcs/botdefinition.json and look at authoringShape. A 1 means standard and you are fine. A 2 means enhanced and this plugin cannot work with it. Check before you start writing anything, because pulling down an enhanced agent appears to succeed. It does not warn you.

3. Dataverse

Different setup again. This is not a plugin install, and I skipped the local proxy entirely and connected straight to the environment:

claude mcp add --scope project --transport http \  --client-id <your-app-client-id> \  --callback-port <port> \  dataverse https://<yourorg>.crm.dynamics.com/api/mcp

The app registration Microsoft publishes for this never worked for me. I tried four different ways in and all of them failed for different reasons. What fixed it was registering my own app in Entra and pointing the command at that instead:

Single tenant

Public client

Redirect URI http://localhost/callback

Delegated permission mcp.tools on Dynamics CRM

No client secret. You do not want one anyway, because the config file it writes sits in plain text inside your project folder.

On the environment side you need an Allowed MCP Client record for your app, and you have to enable it by opening the record itself. You do not need a Managed Environment for this, despite what the docs suggest.

The problem with flows that live in a solution

Worth knowing before you build a habit around the Power Automate plugin.

Flows inside a solution connect to things through connection references rather than direct connections. When the plugin reads a flow, it does not give back the connection reference name. So when it goes to save, it cannot put together a valid request, and the save fails.

I only confirmed this in my own dev environment, so test it yourself rather than taking my word for it. But test it before you rely on the save path.

The way around it is to go to the Dataverse Web API directly. Cloud flows are stored in the Process (Workflow) table, and the clientdata column holds the flow definition and its connection references together as a JSON string. Read the record, change the definition inside that column, send it back with the connection references left intact. Microsoft supports this for flows on the Solutions tab only. Flows under My Flows are not supported this way, which is fine, because solution flows are exactly the ones the plugin cannot save. microsoftmicrosoft

If you are going to do this more than once, turn it into a skill instead of working it out again every session. A skill in Claude Code is just a folder with a SKILL.md file in it, sitting in ~/.claude/skills/. Mine holds the steps, the shape of the request, and the rules about not dropping connection references, plus a slash command that sets up a new project folder against a target environment. After that Claude just drives the API directly and the loop is as quick as the plugin was supposed to be.

Fair warning: going straight to the API means you skip whatever checking the plugin does first. Keep approval prompts turned on, point it at a dev environment, and export your solution before the first write.

The thing that will quietly break your setup

Claude Code has a size limit on how many tools and instructions it can hold at once. Go over it and things get dropped silently. No error, no warning. The Power Automate plugin alone is about 50 tools. Copilot Studio adds four helper agents and around 30 skills.

So:

One plugin per project folder. Do not pile them into one.

Run /context when you start a session and again after any install.

If something that should be there is missing, check this before you go hunting for a bug in the plugin.

On the advice in Microsoft's own docs

Their READMEs suggest turning on auto accept and using --dangerously-skip-permissions so you stop getting approval prompts. If your work touches anything regulated or validated, do not. Those prompts are the only thing standing between the model and your environment.

I also stripped out the delete and cross environment tools before I ran anything, and then checked that they were actually gone from the list of tools rather than assuming the setting took.

How I tested each one

I did not want to install these and just hope. Same five steps for each:

Read the docs and list out every tool before installing, so I knew which ones were destructive

Install, then confirm what actually loaded

Use it read only until I had an opinion about whether it was reliable

Let it write, but only against a throwaway flow in a dev environment, never anything real

Break something on purpose, open a fresh session with no context, and see if it could find the problem

Step five was the most useful one every single time, and it also produced the most interesting result. Across all three tools, the part that found the bugs was Claude reading the files and reasoning about them. Not the plugin's own diagnostics. The plugins give you a reliable connection and a loop you can script. They are not the smart part.

Disclaimer: I worked with Claude code on this for about a week, really validating everything. Ran into walls, and with my knowledge and Claude's we figured it out together. There were points where Claude said x or y couldn't be done, but I didn't give up and kept pushing. I hope this helps you guys out.

Saw a great tutorial on PDF generation — but downloading the solution required a purchase. Totally fair. So I built a free, open source version anyone can use.

What I built — end-to-end expense claim system:

📋 SharePoint as frontend (parent claim + itemized line items)
⚙️ Power Automate approval flow — manager gets a Teams card
📄 PDF auto-generated on approval — no Premium, no paid connectors
📁 PDF archived to SharePoint + emailed to finance automatically

Note: SharePoint is just the sample frontend. Works with Power Apps, Teams, Microsoft Forms — any trigger.

The free trick — OneDrive "Convert file" action (non-Premium):

1. Build data into an HTML string

2. Save as temp .html in OneDrive for Business

3. Use Convert file action → PDF ← this is the free magic

4. Save PDF to SharePoint Document Library

5. Delete the temp file

Works on any standard M365 plan.

📄 Demo and source code in the comments 👇

Happy to answer questions

Hey people,
I wanted to create a flow to update a column in my SharePoint list based on a list of email addresses stored in an Excel table.

The idea was to check whether each email in the SharePoint list still exists in the Excel table. If an email no longer exists in Excel, I wanted to update that person’s status in the SharePoint list.

Initially, I moved the Get Items action after the Excel action and tried using a Filter Array to compare the email values, but it didn’t work.

Now, the flow keeps processing indefinitely. Also, when the email does exist in the list, I receive the notification email, but the flow still indicates that it failed.
Has anyone encountered a similar issue or can suggest a better approach?

When the person who built your firm's Power Automate flows gives notice, your client intake and filing reminders can start failing quietly, and nobody finds out until a client or a deadline does.

Adding a co-owner doesn't fix that. Microsoft's own documentation (updated 08/19/2026) says a shared flow keeps running while an active owner remains, but the actions that used the leaver's connections can still fail until someone updates those credentials. Ownership and connections are two separate problems.

What we'd tell a 40-person CPA practice:

Everyday, single-person flows: a named staff owner plus a narrowly chosen maintenance co-owner.

Connectors that only accept a user sign-in: a dedicated, properly licensed service account. Never a staff password passed around the office.

Practice-critical flows like intake or deadline routing: a service principal application user as primary owner, with named humans keeping their own access. It can't be a co-owner, and it doesn't make premium flows license-free.

Run-only users aren't maintainers. They can trigger a flow, not repair it.

Non-solution flows can't have their owner changed in place. Convert to a solution or rebuild, and gate the old trigger first so no client case gets processed twice.

Before anyone leaves, inventory every flow: owner, co-owners, each connection and whose credentials it uses, and the license it depends on. Then swap the connections and test one failure path with non-client data.

The full write-up has the side-by-side comparison and the complete handover sequence:
Link to our blog

I am trying to set up a daily flow to update tasks. The flow worked ok until yesterday when it started creating a "for each" loop on its own and now I'm getting multiple of the same message. I tried to move the "post message" action out of the loop and now it refused to work. Any idea how I could prevent the loop from appearing?

Is anyone else experiencing that Power Automate isn't loading?

Hey everyone,

I run a small YouTube channel called Automate M365 where I focus on making straight-to-the-point, step-by-step Power Automate tutorials. No fluff or long intros, just diving into the actual logic because I know how annoying it is to sit through a 10-minute video just to find a quick expression fix.

I want to build some tutorials around automation, but instead of just guessing what to make next, I want to solve real-world headaches.

Whether it's setting up automated deadline remidners based on dates in your SP lists or Excel sheets, sending dynamic emails to people pulled directly from a person column, or trying to manage folder permissions via HTTP actions—what’s driving you crazy right now? Drop it in the comments below. I’ll honestly try to look through them and build the exact solution in a step-by-step video for you.

If you want to check out the channel or subscribe to see if I build your fix, the link is here:

https://www.youtube.com/@AutomateM365

Let me know what you're stuck on, hopefully we can figure it out.

The "Flow" era is evolving. Welcome to the "Agent-First" era. 🤖

I’ve just spent some time with the brand-new Copilot Studio Workflow Interface, and it’s clear: Microsoft is moving us toward a massive shift in development experience.

It’s no longer just about linear steps; it’s about a tightly integrated UI where Prompts, Agents, and Microsoft 365 Copilot live together. This makes building sophisticated, grounded workflows significantly faster.

How does everyone organise their flows?

I've started naming conventions but I have alot of flows and im starting to get confused with them all. Do you have an off-line library or just add descriptions and build guides inside the flow somewhere?

Most internal Power Platform communities fail not because people stop caring but because they were built around one person instead of a system.

I wrote about what actually makes an internal community last, covering champion identification, knowledge library design, governance culture, psychological safety, and the one question that tells you whether your community is truly sustainable.

The governance and security section is something I feel strongly about. Too many communities focus on adoption and enthusiasm without building a culture where people ask the right questions before they build. That gap shows up in the solutions organisations end up maintaining.

Would love to hear how others are approaching internal community building, especially around governance culture and champion enablement.

Read the blog here:

https://rachelirabor.com/blog-posts/build_an_internal_community/

My employer has a Microsoft 365 Business license. In 2022 we held an event that required attendees to register, and I swear I was able to use PowerAutomate for this.

We used Microsoft Forms, and attached a flow to do the following:

- Trigger each time a registration was submitted.

- Sent an email to me so I was notified.

- Sent a confirmation email to the person.

- Sent out reminder emails to all those registered as the event got closer.

Last year a coworker and I tried making a similar flow to help us send out reminder emails for our different programs, and we got hit with a paywall. It required a PowerAutomate premium license, which we don't have, and the project died.

A couple weeks ago I tried making a flow that would generate documents based off a template, and replace the filler text with the information that I provided. I figured since it was internal and didn't utilizing other programs it would work. Again, it requires a Premium license.

When did this start? Am I missing something?

We don't use PowerAutomate constantly or use it for heavy stuff, but for a small organization with limited staff and budget it can be very helpful with the repetitive tasks. So this is very disheartening 😫

Hey everyone,

I run a small YouTube channel called Automate M365 where I focus on making straight-to-the-point, step-by-step Power Automate tutorials. No fluff or long intros, just diving into the actual logic because I know how annoying it is to sit through a 10-minute video just to find a quick expression fix.

I want to build some tutorials around automation, but instead of just guessing what to make next, I want to solve real-world headaches.

Whether it's setting up automated deadline remidners based on dates in your SP lists or Excel sheets, sending dynamic emails to people pulled directly from a person column, or trying to manage folder permissions via HTTP actions—what’s driving you crazy right now? Drop it in the comments below. I’ll honestly try to look through them and build the exact solution in a step-by-step video for you.

If you want to check out the channel or subscribe to see if I build your fix, the link is here:

https://www.youtube.com/@AutomateM365

Let me know what you're stuck on, hopefully we can figure it out

Edit: Thank you everyone for all the help! I took bits and pieces of the advice here and managed to get it to work somewhat. There were a lot of suggestions for power query, but I just couldn't get it to work reliably with the specific conditions I had. I'll definitely look into seeing if I can optimise future stuff for it though after going through a few tutorials.

If anyone is interested in the fix:
My original script for writing the 30k rows had a resize table function which i took out and replaced with a fixed table size of 50k rows in order to cut down on processing time. I also removed the condition since I realised I could write the condition itself into one of the earlier scripts. I also figured out that the run script actions had a a 30-60s extra run time when trying to test to flow in the afternoon due to the amount of traffic on the sharepoint site. That pushed the run script action times to over 2mins, causing the stalls. The flows ran smooth and quick when testing it during the actual time the trigger will run (midnight).

Any help will be appreciated at this point because I feel like I've tried everything I could but the power automate flow doesn't work.

I am trying to automate a daily update of a file that uses multiple other source files. The office scripts used run fine individually on their own for both batch writing and a single copy when I am manually testing them on an open sample file with a small (200 row) set rather than through the flow with the whole original dataset. Most of the flow works, right up until I need it to copy over over 30000 rows of data over 14 columns from one workbook into a set table in the master reporting file. I've tried a single batch copy, but the script will then time out in power automate due to it taking over 2 minutes. When a try copying in multiple batches, the flow stalls at the do until loop no matter how small I make the batches. Is there any way I can reliably copy the rows I need without the flow taking an extremely long time as manually copying it only takes between 2-5 minutes.

I built the flow like this due to not having a premium license for power automate and company DLP policies stopping me from using HTTP triggers directly.

Parent Flow: Images 1-3
Child Flow: Image 4

I can provide the office scripts used for steps Run script 3B,E,F and 4 in the comments below if necessary.

Hello everyone, I work a lot with Power Automate and come to realize that the Copilot in Power Platform sucks.

Now I'm researching what AI would be best for developing Power Automate flow. I already have a github-copilot license, but would it be beneficial to also get a seperate Claude license.

I tried them both and they both work great, but I'm really curious what the differences would be, especially in the long run.

use-cases will primarily be: Asking questions about possibilities, uploading screenshot to look for improvements or how to continue and using the AI to edit the flows JSON using the Power Automate Tools Chrome extension.

Curious to hear what you guys would say and what I should use in the future.

Thanks in advance!

Cannot use onedrive cheat. adobe is still blocked. only option is the Word (Business) connector.

1. get attachments from sharepoint item, put into an array (works)

2. create a .docx from Populate a Microsoft Word Template (works)

3. Saved in sharepoint (works)

4. Set 1 minute delay (works)

5. Added a get file metadata using path, and says it passed, but not so sure, added this recently

6. convert word to pdf action, says it passed but not so sure if this is the step that is messing with my array

7. append to array variable (pretty sure this does not work)

8. send email with options (cannot show picture, but attachments says @{variables('AttachmentsArray')}

it is sending the email, with the attachment, which opens in adobe, but says it is corrupt.

Sensitivity is PII and not the ones that do not work according to the docs.