Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 20 Jul 2023

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From YouTube: Introduction to Power Automate Chrome Extension

Description

📺 In this 13 minute demo Michał introduces us to a Chrome extension which facilitates management and duplications of Power Automate actions. Objective here was to make it more easy to copy actions between environments and more. It utilizes the built-in My Clipboard feature in Power Automate.

This community demo is taken from the bi-weekly Microsoft 365 & Power Platform community call 20th of July 2023

✨ Presenter
• Michał Kornet (Logamic)

📖 Learn more
• Power Automate Actions - Chrome Extension blog post: https://michalkornet.com/2023/05/23/Power-Automate-Actions-Chrome-Extension.html

💡 Learn more about the Microsoft 365 & Power Platform community
• Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Unified Sample gallery - https://aka.ms/community/samples
• Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Community in YouTube - https://aka.ms/community/videos
• Microsoft 365 & Power Platform - http://aka.ms/community/home

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Thank you for having me on the call uh glad to be here. My name is Mikhail cornet and today I will present the Chrome extension I have created to enhance management and duplication of our automate actions. uh So, let's start with a quick introduction route I'm a SharePoint developer with experience in creating intranets and automating processes for clients worldwide. This particular tool has been developed together with my wife Olga, who is also available at the call.

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We are both passionate about Microsoft cloud stack and have been involved in numerous projects between the same technology domain throughout years uh feel free to find us on LinkedIn, or you can visit my personal webpage, where we have recently started sharing content related to Microsoft 365 area. So, let's jump into today's topic, so we all know how powerful the platform tools are. Yet there are some specific challenges we encountered using using power automate, particularly with the SharePoint platform.

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Our objective was to create a solution that could address them all in a simple compact form, so we identify several areas for improvement: for example, creation of missing SharePoint HTTP request. uh Let's imagine, for example, uh search query post request, for example, or limited action portability, uh so it's not so easy to transfer data between different flows. Of course we can copy the fall flow, but it's not so easy to to copy only Frac, some fragments between between tenants, for example.

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Another issue is persistency of action storage, so we can collect actions in my clipboard section, but it's not so durable and reliable way and the result of our efforts is the Chrome extension with a range of useful features uh that can enhance our work, and hopefully yours as well. So, first of all, the extension allows recording actions directly from SharePoint. You can effortlessly record and capture actions. You execute manually in SharePoint, online, environment or I have also second method how to make a how to record actions, but I will show it promptly.

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Secondly, we introduced Community blocking integration with a proper structure of code of your page. You can release or from other site, consume actions shared by community Through, various blocks or other sources to boost your performance in creating similar workflows, but in different environments or even antennas. We enabled easier duplication of actions uh you have already defined in your flow. Now we can copy actions between different environments with is no matter of source.

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All the actions you copy are started using Chrome storage, so you can use them in more persistent way, so it's uh yeah much simpler than the currently so now we will go through these features in live demo. So let me switch to my uh Chrome browser.

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Okay, so I will begin with the base concept which we notify. uh Simply currently, we have a section which is named My Clipboard and, of course we can copy some actions inside of it. But what is also interesting uh when you copy it using this function? You also copy the code of this particular action to your system clipboard. So, for example, when I copy it back to the power automate editor, then it's it's possible to put something in this section.

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So having this knowledge, uh we built a solution, the Chrome extension, which can uh simply get the information from this section and put also uh actions to to this section of power automate editor. So our tool is accessible from the toolbar of the Chrome. We are on the SharePoint page, so we can. We have button to start recording the actions and simply what we can do. It's yeah, it's a simple refresh and, as you can see, we already have some requests, which are uh added which are invoked by SharePoint on the background.

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So because we have the simple list web part, uh then it means that we use, for example, render list as data data stream request. I will stop, recording it now, because we have too much uh actions already. We need only one. Let's imagine that we needed to get only the at least items from this list, another method to to get the requests or or the actions it's a SP editor.

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It's also the Chrome extension, which has the pnp.js console section where you can invoke um functions and requests from pnpjs, and we can again we can start recording from from our tool and so using Ctrl D. We can invoke some requests in in behind right, so uh the default ones are one one request to get the web data.

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Also, the the request to get to something from a graph API and something from taxonom Let Me Maybe run this one as once again and as you can see, we have we catch all of those requests here in our tool. So we have the information about web. We have graph call to me endpoint, and we have also process query which is corresponding to uh to get data about taxonom.

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Okay, so you can, you may be wonder how to use it in the power automate. So simply, we need to go to the power automate Editor to my clipboard section and we need to choose the actions which we would like to copy into the uh to this section. So we have the second button copy items and after accepting this pop-up, we have these actions in in the section. So maybe I will show two examples. Maybe process, query and graph call.

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So in the process where we, as you can see, we have all data filled out, so it's a method site address, also headers. Some of them are necessary. Some of them are from from browser, so maybe we can delete them and also we have information in the body. So it's not so easy to to create this kind of a SharePoint HTTP request alone, but yeah we can simply create it with our tool.

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The second example is the uh the graph call and, as you can see, it's a different type of action. It's the HTTP action and again we have all information filled out, but in this case please remember that it has like a authorization token, which will be expired in in some time. So you need to to have it work. You need to make a proper authorization to this action. So let me save it.

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I need to choose data connection, let's save it.

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And let's run the test.

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And, as you can see, everything passed successfully so yeah, we have here information from the graphical another feature of the tool. It's uh as I mentioned before um connection with the community blocks. So this one is the example of the article which we have created about about usage in the power automate and inside. We have some description: how to build the flow, also how to configure the each of action, and if your page has a structure like this, that has some hidden elements with this particular class and inside you have a correct.

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Json of the action then aware tool will recognize that there is something interesting on this page. So using this button you can copy all actions which are listed, which are in the on the page right. So, as you can see, we have, for example, variable we have some switches and and so on and again we can go to the to my clipboard section of the flow.

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uh We go to different tab in our solution and we can choose again. uh Let's take the variable and maybe the switch uh switch action.

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And, as you can see, we can also copy the full action, so it's much much easier way to copy something from the community block. Instead of filling out every text input yes, and the same is with the uh with the switch. So more complex actions can be also copied.

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The last feature: it's about copying actions between different environments. So because we use the storage of the Chrome extension of the Chrome, then we are able to you know to to create something on one flow, and maybe we would we don't want to copy the false on different environment on tenant, but we would like to copy only some of the actions.

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So then, uh when this clipboard action is opened and we can go again to our solution, uh let me clear this list and we have the last button get my clipboard actions, so we can click it, and then we can copy all actions which are stored in the clipboard, but in more persistent way. So then, if you would like to transfer these actions to different uh environment, so my method is to open uh incogito video window to log into with the different account on different tenant, and then all actions are still there right.

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So you can also use one particular action instead of default flow, so yeah, let's come back to to the presentation.

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uh Last but not least, you may wonder how to get the Tool uh so good news, you can add it to your Chrome browser dialect directly from the store or follow the guidelines on my personal page, so it's available on a Chrome web store. uh You can simply install from here or you can go also to my GitHub account and here the the code is stored, so we can check it. Also. There is a description: how yeah what features it has and also how to build a package paneling and how to install it manually.

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If you find any issue issues, then please let me know you can also put some comments into issues section.

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uh Okay, so thank you for your attention. Of course, if you have some ideas or concepts, what can be added or improved to the tool, I'm eager to listen to your feedback, so once again, reach me on reach me out on LinkedIn or GitHub and yeah. So that's all from my site, big, thank you for being here with me and see you around foreign.