Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 12 Oct 2022

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Parsing JSON in Power Apps

Description

Receiving information in JSON requires parsing to use it in a Power App. In this 7-minute citizen developer-focused demo, let Cat Schneider share her insights on JSON, key-value pairs and RegEx. See a flow that takes a JSON string to parse, inserts information into an HTML table and then sends the result to a Power App – shows up as key value pairs in a gallery. Solution development lessons learned, and resources shared. This PnP Community demo is taken from the Microsoft Power Platform community call – September 2022, recorded on September 21, 2022.

Demo Presenter
• Cat Schneider | @YerAWizardCat

Supporting materials
• Standard - Introducing JSON | https://www.json.org/json-en.html
• Article - Power Fx: Introducing ParseJSON | https://powerapps.microsoft.com/blog/power-fx-introducing-parsejson
• Documentation - Help with Regex to cleanup data and parse JSON | https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/Help-with-Regex-to-cleanup-data-and-parse-JSON/td-p/1611086
• Samples – Cat’s Power Apps Samples | https://github.com/CatSchneider/powerapps-samples

Stay connected
• Twitter https://twitter.com/microsoft365dev
• Call attention to your great work by using #PowerAppsCC and #PnPWeekly on Twitter.

Learn more
• Microsoft 365 Unified Sample gallery - https://aka.ms/m365/samples
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community in YouTube - https://aka.ms/m365/videos
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community Blog - https://aka.ms/m365pnp/blog
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community - https://aka.ms/m365/community

A

A

All right here we go so somebody say something about cats and Jason. So, probably not, but you know, I am Kat. Schneider I am a Power Platform enthusiast I'm. Also a self-taught coder developer programmer had fun with it for a while. Here, I am a Scientist by nature and by nurture. If you will and I'm native Floridian there's six months that I don't have any control over, but I love making the impossible possible and trying to teach others how to do that as well. So something about Jason, I'm Kitty.

A

It's actually JavaScript object, notation, otherwise known as Json, which is what you ask. It is a lightweight data, interchange format that is easy for you and I to read, as well as for machines to take in and give back. So. Okay, all right, so key value pairs are the what is Json. It's made up of a key which is also known as a field name or a column name, and then that key value pair makes a record when it's inside of curly braces and when you have multiple records all within side of square braces.

A

You have a table of Records.

A

So the problem or the puzzle, the reason that I'm here presenting today is We, have forever had this Json function within powerapps was really great at you, giving it a record or a table of records and string back, but the problem- you don't just decode Json right in powerapps right, so we only had really two options available to us is you could have premium connectors which in my tenant, that was a No-No we weren't paying for it. So the other option is you had to be really good at parsing it using regex expressions.

A

um I am not one of those! That's really good at that, but lo and behold, right before my presentation, Microsoft developers put out this new parse Json function. That is not what I'm here to talk about, but just so you guys know in case you wanted to parse Json in the future. There is a function. That's out there, it's experimental! If you don't see it, you may have to change your uh authoring version in order to get that, but there's a blog post about it and there's a bunch of documentation.

A

So if you're interested check it out, so I was able to parse Json, actually using some regex and granted. I am not a master of regiments I happen to be trying to get some information from SharePoint.

A

There was a HTTP request that Todd just talked about where I was trying to return a bunch of information. It was coming back as Json I was trying to pull it back into a power app and I was trying to figure out how to get it in there. So I decided to turn it into an HTML table and I happened to notice some unique features of this HTML table.

A

So all of my keys, they were always going to be in header tags of the HTML table. So I was able to use this short little regex expression.

A

All of the rows were always going to be within the table row tags, which meant that I could use this short expression and then I knew that all the rows were containing the same number of cell tags as tags, but they were always going to be in the exact same order.

A

So I could use this expression to get all of those cell tags and then this formula or function instead of functions here I was able to call the power automate, give it the information and have it spit the information back out if it was a record I, was using an ungroup function to get all the pieces and parts, but a table of Records I didn't need to do that. So this here is an example of a record that I'm trying to parse with this solution. Here it's from the users 365 table and it's my record.

A

It's just a single record when I come in here and click on the parse Json function or the parse Json button. I get the input of that string into the trigger and then I check to see if it's a record or if it's a table, if it's a record, I, add some Square braces and then I convert it to Json feed it to the HTML table and then feed that output back to the power app.

A

So once I did, that I was able to put all of those key value pairs into a gallery that allowed me to see all of those values and then I could actually go back in there and make changes to those values actually use that to push back.

A

This here is an example of trying to use a SharePoint site collection to get some information here. I wanted to get all the lists and libraries put in the URL for my site: collection click, this button, which then triggers my power automate, which triggered that SharePoint site collection.

A

That then goes in as the trigger and instead of the flow that I just showed you here, I actually updated it. So the input is the site address that I just put in the text box and then I use that result to put into the HTML table and push back into powerapps.

A

Doing that same thing, I then get a list of all of those lists, and libraries through SharePoint I can click on one of those lists and I get all of the key value pairs all of the data or the properties from that list. Library.

A

So some of the lessons that I learned, sometimes when you're stuck on a problem, you've got to take it all the way back to the original.

A

What was the issue, what was I trying to solve and sometimes put it into its simplified parts by abstracting I was able to come up with the solution and that you don't need a degree or 30 years of development experience in order to solve a problem that you or others might be having within the Power Platform, so low code, no code happens to be a great equalizer and allows many people to get in there and do the things that they need to do in order to make their lives easier.

A

Community is a fantastically helpful resource. Please use it, don't abuse it. People will not go out there and figure out your entire solution, but you can ask for help and people are there to help you. That is all for me. Awesome. Thank you guys.