Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 16 Mar 2022

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From YouTube: Automating Scheduled Notifications with Power Apps and Power Automate

Description

In this 20-minute citizen developer-focused demo, Vivek Bavishi shows a Power Apps canvas app created for promoting PowerAddicts events to a global audience (many time zones) that provides an ICS file to registrant in their local time zone! A single flow triggered by a new calendar event automatically performs the following actions. Creates ICS file, short links to ICS download and to join Teams meeting, updates link for time zones, creates promotional tweet, LinkedIn post and WordPress post. This PnP Community demo is taken from the Microsoft Power Apps community call – March 2022, recorded on March 16, 2022.

Demo Presenter: Vivek Bavishi (Hitachi Solutions) | @that_API_guy

Supporting documents:
• Video - Microsoft Flow ICS Calendar Invites (April Dunnam (Microsoft) | @aprildunnam) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU_d71ykRJA
• Shortlinks documentation – Rebrandly API for custom short URLs - Code snippet | https://developers.rebrandly.com/docs
• Timezone - Time Zone Converter – Time Difference Calculator (Classic) | https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter-classic.html
• Timezone - Time Zone Converter – Time Difference Calculator | https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20220518T230000&p1=179&p2=137&p3=102&p4=240&p5=22
• Documentation - What are canvas apps? | https://docs.microsoft.com/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/getting-started
• API - REST API Handbook – Posts | https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/reference/posts/
• Website - PowerAddicts Meetup Hangout Announcements | https://wearepoweraddicts.com/events/
• Blog - https://thatapiguy.tech/

Stay connected:
• Twitter https://twitter.com/microsoft365dev
• YouTube https://aka.ms/m365pnp/videos
• Blogs https://aka.ms/m365pnp/community/blog
• Call attention to your great work by using #PowerAppsCC and #PnPWeekly on Twitter.

A

Hey everyone um I'm vivek bavishi uh today, I'm gonna share what we do on the power addicts. How do we try to automate some of the stuff uh so that it takes lesser time for us to promote the power addicts? Events? Of course we don't get this much of engagement, so we probably are still lacking something and we have scope for improvements, but you'll see what we are trying to do and we'll talk about some of the improvements that we can do as well right.

A

So before we get started uh just a little bit about myself, my business applications mvp. I work as a senior consultant at hitachi solutions being in the kind of part addicted to the community for more than three years and will be forever. These are some of the links where you can find me my blog.

A

I do some videos as well and that's my handle on twitter all right, so quick agenda we'll get through the powerpoint pretty quickly and we'll switch to the flow, um but yeah we've just discussed why we are trying to do this and what's exactly that, we are doing as well all right. So the why, as all of us I mean whoever is contributing to the community, we all know that it's it's something that we take out from our kind of personal time and it's hard to kind of spend time on all these things.

A

So you always look if there is a way to automate things. You want to do that, and that was one of the big reasons which why we thought about using this.

A

The other thing we started off just promoting the event, sharing the team's links, and that wasn't enough, because people wanted on their calendar and as all of us, we don't want to go into the calendar, create the event ourselves and do that. We want some way to just have the ics file and just save it. So that was another reason we have people joining from all over the world. So having something time zone I mean managing the time zone and making sure that it's not confusing for someone.

A

um That was another reason why we wanted to do some automations and the other thing was, unlike the community call, which happens every month. Bar addict's call doesn't happen every month, because sometimes we are just not able to get the speakers we uh it's it just doesn't happen every month regularly, so we wanted a way to be able to trigger it on some event. Otherwise we could just send a ics file for the whole year and keep continuing that so, unfortunately, we are not there.

A

Yet it just takes some time, so we are not doing it on a regular cadence. Yet all right. What and how so uh the flow? I mean it's basically one flow that we are using um it triggers on a new calendar event. You will see that and uh what all are we doing so we are creating uh ics5.

A

There is a great video by our own april dunham, where how you can create ics files using flows. We also create short links, so we are not using bitly, but we are using re brandly.

A

The reason why we use that is because you can change the destination url, so you can have let's say, rebrand or ly slash power addicts. You can keep changing the destination url behind it, so you don't have to create a new link every time and someone has a short link with them. They can always just use that book market and they don't have to keep having a new link so yeah we are using brandy for the short links we create different short links for one for the teams meeting we'll be able to join.

A

It live for the ics file, one for a time zone uh check as well, so we stopped putting the time in eastern because it just didn't feel inclusive that we are doing a worldwide event and we are just putting one time zone on it. Just doesn't make sense, so we don't put a time zone at all. We just put a date and we put a link to a time and date website where people click on it and they can see the time in their time zones.

A

So the the other things that we do, I mean, of course you want to promote the event, so we create a tweet. We create a linkedin post and we also create a wordpress post for the vr poweraddicts.com website, because it's a self-hosted wordpress website. It's not the wordpress.com, hosted website. We can't use the power automate out of box connector, so we have to use some api there. So all that has been packed into one flow and we'll see that in a minute here all right time for the demo.

A

So let me switch here uh so yeah. This is the flow, so it starts with a new event getting created. I have uh a filter behind it, so if any event that gets created with power addicts meetup only then if, if it has that in the subject line only then it will trigger the flow now, you guys might be thinking it might just create it. If you also send me a calendar event, so today it might but yeah.

A

If I see any error on your behavior after this call, I just put an approval step here, but yeah. The the reason why I did. That is because, if let's say I don't have the time to create this in my own calendar, someone else in our kind of group who is hosting this event can send it to me and it triggers the flow.

A

So um that way we any one of us can trigger this without having to ask depend on one person, so the api keys here for the actions that we're going to use for rebranding in wordpress, and then there are a bunch of expressions here. So one is to get the event description.

A

So we use that in the linkedin post that twitter doesn't has a character limit. As everyone knows, we don't put a lot of stuff on the tweet, but in linkedin we do put that then the teams link. So this is a very long expression, but basically what it does is it finds the the index where this link is starting teams.microsoft.com.

A

So it's going to the body of the event to find that exact link and then it goes to the end of that link finds where that kind of space comes and, after that, it kind of basically we're trying to do some expression to get the the url to join the team's meeting.

A

So I mean I'm not going to go through this all, but yeah you you. If you need some more help. Let me know- and I can I can guide you through this.

A

Similarly, for the start time and the end time again, some formatting to basically get a time in a way that we can use it in the ics file, so creating ics file I'll kind of talk through it once and then go back on the start time end time. It requires a certain format based on the version of the the ics kind of format you're using there's a wikipedia article for this and, as I said april, has a great video on this. So you can look at that, but basically needs the time zone.

A

I mean the time in a certain format and that's what I'm trying to do over here, converting the time that I'm getting here into a time eastern standard time and then using it in here specifying that is it is in eastern standard time and then, if anyone else downloads it, it will change it based on whatever time zone. They are in so some intricacies behind that, but it shouldn't I mean yeah. It's achievable though yeah all this is, I mean the start time and time is to get the kind of ics file.

A

So here I'm creating the ics file. So it's a onedrive action to create a file and the file content. I mean it's not any binary or anything. It's just text.

A

You say that it's filename dot, ics and then you put this ics kind of formatting and it will create the ics file for you now once the ics file is created, you want to create a share link uh now, depending on whether your tenant allows it or not. I mean this is my personal tenants. I'm allowed to create, share links which can be shared outside the organization. So it's a link, scope is anonymous and so yeah this uses the the file id from the previous action and create the share link.

A

So now that we have the share link, we create a short link for the ics file, so this is where we use rebrandly api. This specific endpoint is to create a new ics file. Now this specific link is something that we keep changing, because I mean ics files.

A

You probably could just link to the exit current one, but it's a short link. We name it as power addict, start family, slash september or august based on the month, so it's easier to kind of use. So here you can see all these short things getting created. I'm not doing this manually. All this is being created by this api call.

A

So I mean, if you want to understand how this api works. Again, I have a rebrand, I mean briefly, has an api documentation for all that, so you can look into that and yeah this one. The post call creates a new link, I'm passing the subject, a slash tag, which is basically that power outage meetup this march 22 or flip 22..

A

That's what we're using it here for the slash tag and the destination url, which is a web url that we get from the share link. This domain is basically, I have multiple domains in my rebrandy login, so I use for my own personal website for power addicts as well so differentiate using that domain id. I know the domain id the static value for that, so I'm using directly but yeah you can based on how you are going to use rebranding. You can find that out. So this one creates the share link for the ics file.

A

This one is for the teams meeting so that for the teams meeting we just have one link which we keep basically updating, so it's join us live and instead of creating a new one, we update an existing one. So here, if you see the endpoint is just to create a new one, but here I am specifying the link which I want to update again. I know the static value for that specific short links, I'm just using it directly and then passing the the new destination link.

A

So that's if you're using bitly today, you can't change the destination link, but with rebrandy you can so yeah. If you want, you can use rebrandy for that, and this one is the time zone. One uh again, we are updating the time zone uh check links if you see that here the link, it's a time check um and if I click on that it takes me to this, which is basically so this one.

A

We just had the meetup yesterday, which has all the I mean not all, but a lot of the time zones for different places throughout the world that we covered here, so that people know what's the time in their time zone so yeah, it's basically just a a url based link. So we just change the this iso time. So again it needs it in certain format. We change that, but everything else these these locations are just some numbers in here. So you keep that static and keep changing it.

A

So yeah, that's! uh So those are the three links that we create. Then we do create a linkedin post, uh one thing about linkedin. I have seen this. I don't know if it's an issue on my side, but the connection to linkedin keeps kind of expiring, so you have to keep updating it, so we have sometimes when the linkedin post doesn't get created because I come and check and the linkedin connection has just expired, so something to look for for the linkedin connector, maybe something I should reach out to the producting.

B

Yeah, that's nothing to me too. With that same connector. How often does it seem to lose your connection.

A

If I go about 10 12 days,.

B

Is when it happens to me.

A

Yeah, I guess it's- I haven't checked exactly, but a lot of times that linkedin stuff doesn't get posted and I have to get creative posting just the linkedin stuff automatically then so yeah. I think it happens almost like every two months or so right now. For me.

C

The linkedin connector kind of burps and goes oh, is that.

B

Right, that's its connection. Okay,.

C

B

Okay, if you reconnect it, it works fine. In my experience.

C

Interesting, okay, I wonder if that's like some, I know security or privacy or I don't know you know what I mean like there's something.

B

Yeah or like by design.

C

Yeah potentially but I'll.

B

C

I'll flag, that thanks.

A

Yeah no problem, this one is for the wordpress post. So again we change. We just create the content for it here and then I'm creating a wordpress post using this api call. So we have the website via poweraddicts.com, there's a way to create wordpress posts for self-hosted wordpress websites, and you can look at the api documentation for that I'll paste. The link after I'm done presenting here but yeah, then you can just specify the inputs and it will create a wordpress post, and this is where we have the website and under hangout announcements.

A

All these are getting created automatically again saves times for us. We don't have to go in and create this post by ourselves, and we have this and people who subscribe to the website. They get these. When I mean they get a notification when this gets posted, so we get a lot of times people asking oh, how can I subscribe so yeah? This is one way to get these invites in your inbox um easily and the last one is post a tweet which basically is just again just a links in here and post the tweet.

A

Another thing that we were trying to do for a while was sending dms to some of the people so that they can promote the event. um I had some issues so for sending dms you need to get into kind of the twitter api um it doesn't. You can't use the twitter connector for that, but you need to have azure function and everything create because it oauth 1.0.

A

I have a blog post on that so you're using that for a while something- and I have to look back into it, but yeah we keep looking for ways to maybe optimize it make it reach out to more people yeah. This is uh just one way to make it super easy for us, and I know a lot of you who run community events can use something similar so yeah. This is a great way to I mean time zone.

A

Keep it in. Everyone joins from the world right now, so have it keep it inclusive, keep it don't post the time, just put a time zone check and people will know based on when they click on the link and yeah. All these links definitely help people to save the event and make it easier for them to join it so so yeah, that's all. I had um I'll just switch quickly here to some of the improvements so yeah.

A

We were also creating trying to create the image file automatically with speaker names, getting a little bit more creative by doing some image templating and using svg stuff for doing that, we are almost there but yeah. We haven't gotten to it yet yeah. That would be a big step. We can just we don't even how to create the image ourselves. We create that image as a kind of a template.

A

We can use and put people's profile photos from twitter and just their handles, and it will create the image for us yeah. If you have any suggestions, let us know how, through this flow, we are always looking to improve this and making it more reach out to more people, so that more people can join and learn about all the cool stuff and yeah some of the resources. This is.

C

A

Api and the video, where I told about how to create the xps, invite so yep, that's all uh happy to take any questions. If anyone has.

B

You've always got the most awesome automations. I love it. How? How long did it take you to build that out so far,.

A

uh It started slow, I mean I mean I wouldn't say it started, so we started small. uh We started with just a twitter, but then we added we kept optimizing. It we added new stuff. We added the dm thing. We added wordpress, we added bing, then so so yeah it and we added more short links. um So yeah everything starts.

B

Each time you add something something like that.

A

B

A

It saves us a lot of time. I know I don't know gita is on the call, but she is really active uh on organizing some of these things. So she just sends me that invite and.

B

A

We always have a fun kind of waiting for that tweet to get posted with all the links uh yeah. It always kind of feels nice. When everything happens automatically you don't have to do anything.

B

Oh yeah, I'm looking at it the whole time like like a hungry dog like oh, my gosh. I wish we had that because for this call I do it all manually every month and everything so I'm like. Maybe we need to talk with you afterward here, yeah.

A

B

About this, that's awesome.

C

Oh, I was, I literally, am writing a note to my team and I was like you need to go. Watch april's video. You need to watch the vivex thing and we gotta get this, because this is amazing, so, like yeah awesome really awesome, it is. It is funny because it's one of those things where it's like, especially like on the microsoft side too, just to say that, like everybody's got privacy pii, you know all of these things. You know that you have to think about and deal with, and you want it to be easy right.

C

The thing is, if you don't make it easy for people or if there's a broken link or something's, weird or whatever people won't go right, and so, like those of you who are user group leaders as well right like how do you like get this out? We use the aka ms short links right for things and then change behind right. So this is so valuable. It's these little things. Sometimes I think that just make huge differences in the productivity of our lives and like if somebody doesn't know how to do something.

C

It's so frustrating because people don't want to ask about this because it seems like I should just know it, and it's super easy. This stuff is a little complicated right, so the step by step here, y'all so nice. So thank you so much yeah, it's great.

B

If I'm gonna do those little life hacks with power, automate for sure, I might show one next month, I I just did one myself, that's very simple! That is responsible for sending the scores of the kids youth uh scores of the teams. I coach after the game. We need to send them to the league and to the aed and to this one other place, so it pops up on a website. So the same thing you did yeah.

C

Busted out some.

B

Power automate and figured out how to make it a click. Yes, awesome thanks for sharing yeah. Thank you.

A

Thank you for the opportunity.