Power Automate – Nishant Rana's Weblog

Using Coalesce Function to handle null value in Power Automate – Dataverse

Recently in one of our flows, we were getting the below error –

InvalidTemplate. Unable to process template language expressions in action ‘List_rows_:_Region’ inputs at line ‘0’ and column ‘0’: ‘The template language function ‘replace’ expects its first parameter ‘string’ to be a string. The provided value is of type ‘Null’. Please see https://aka.ms/logicexpressions#replace for usage details.’.

One or more fields provided is of type ‘Null’, a different type is expected.

This was because the replace function that we were using for the Filter rows property of List Rows (Dataverse) had the variable value as null.

Below was our dynamics expression where we replaced apostrophe with 2 single quotes – https://nishantrana.me/2023/02/27/how-to-handle-single-quote-apostrophe-in-filter-rows-in-power-automate-dataverse/

replace(replace(variables(‘varFieldData’)?[‘myVariable’],‘_’,’ ‘),””,”””)

The solution was to use coalesce function, to replace null with a blank string as shown below.

replace(replace(coalesce(variables(‘varFieldData’)?[‘myVariable’],”),‘_’,’ ‘),””,”””)

Similarly, we can use coalesce function to provide a default value.

The coalesce function will evaluate its arguments in order and will return the first non-blank or non-empty value. If all the arguments are blank or empty strings, the function will return blank.

After using the coalesce function, our flow was successful.

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How to – Handle single quote/apostrophe in Filter Rows in Power Automate (Dataverse)

Say for e.g. we have the below flow, which finds the lead having subject as “My Test’s Value”

On running it we get the below error

To make it work we can make use of replace function here.

replace(variables('Subject'),'''','''''')

‘ = to espace

‘ = special character

replace(variables(‘Subject’),‘‘‘‘,‘‘‘‘‘‘)

Please refer to the helpful post- https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/power-apps-power-automate/how-to-handle-single-quotes-in-the-filter-property-with-get/m-p/2617747

This time it works successfully.

ChatGPT – quick to correct and give the right answer.

Hope it helps..

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Resolved – Request to XRM API failed with server error: ‘Message: Timeout occurred when calling the XRM api’ Code: InnerError: Type: System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException Message: A task was canceled in Power Automate

We were getting below Timeout error while trying to save our Power Automate flow.

Request to XRM API failed with server error: ‘Message: Timeout occurred when calling the XRM api’ Code: InnerError: Type: System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException Message: A task was canceled.

It could be because of some issues at the product end – some outage or server load. It lasted for around 15-20 minutes for us, after which we were able to save and test our flow successfully.

Hope it helps..

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How to – Hide Approve / Reject Button in Approval Email in Power Automate Approval Workflow

Recently we had a requirement to remove or hide the Approve and Reject buttons from the approval email as we wanted the user to manage it all from the Approval Center.

The way we implemented this is by replacing the Start and wait for an approval action with Create an approval, Send email notification and Wait for an approval action.

For Create an approval action, set Enable notifications as No this makes sure no email is sent.

Followed by– in the body, specify Send an email notification the Approval Center link.

Followed by Wait for an approval, specify the Approval ID there.

And the Condition control and the required logic.

After running the flow, the user will get the email and can click the link to navigate to the Approval center.

The user can then take the required action from within the Approval center.

The flow will wait for the user

Also, check – Implementing approvals with Teams notifications

https://powergi.net/2021/07/11/use-power-automate-approvals-with-teams-notifications-only-no-emails/

Check other articles on Power Automate Approvals

Approvals – Power Automate & Dynamics 365

Hope it helps..

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How to – configure Facebook Webhook Validation with Power Automate Flow (Dataverse / Dynamics 365)

Recently we were working on Facebook Leads integration with Dynamics 365. Webhook for Leads can be configured to send real-time notifications of the Leads ads changes.

The first step of setting up Webhook requires creating an HTTPS endpoint that can process 2 types of HTTP Requests – Verification and Event notifications.

Here we will see how to configure the Power Automate flow for verification.

https://developers.facebook.com/

Select Business for the app type.

After the App is created, select Webhooks to be added to the app. Click on Set up.

Next click Subscribe to this object. Here we have User selected.

For getting leads notification we need to select Page

Preview in new tab

And subscribe to leadgen object

It asks us to specify the Callback URL and Verify token.

Back in Power Automate create a Flow with Request type Trigger, followed by Parse JSON and Response actions.

For HTTP Request, select GET as the method, as FB will send a GET request to the endpoint URL, with the verification requests included in the endpoint of the URL.

Next, Parse the JSON and specify the Content and Schema

Content –

 triggerOutputs()['queries']

Schema –

Lastly in Response, set Status Code as 200 and Body as hub.challenge.

Here FB expects the Endpoint to verify the hub.verify_token (which we haven’t set up yet) and respond with hub.challenge value after verification.

Save the Flow, and copy the URL generated for the HTTP Request trigger.

Back in Meta for Developers, in edit user subscription paste the Callback URL and for now in place of token specify any value and click on Verify and Save.

We should now have a Webhook endpoint (Flow) successfully configured

We can also see our Flow ran successfully.

Here in the example we configured the webhook validation for User events, for Facebook Lead we need to configure it for Page, the other options available are Permissions, Application, Instagram etc.

Please check –

https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/nl-nl/blog/connect-facebook-workplace-to-sharepoint/

Hope it helps..

{
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        "hub.mode": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "hub.challenge": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "hub.verify_token": {
            "type": "string"
        }
    }
}

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Fixed – change the owner of the Flow or Flow client error returned with the status code “Forbidden” and ConnectionAuthorizationFailed in Power Automate

Recently while trying to change the owner of the workflow we were getting the below error

Flow client error returned with status code “Forbidden” and details “(“error”:X [“code”: “ConnectionAuthorizationFailed”, “message”: “The caller object id is ‘ffcdd1fc-2858-4019-9a96-19d73ae124c8″. Connection ‘providers/Microsoft.PowerApps/APIs/shared_commondataserviceforapps/connections/shared-commondataser-87229e07-1003-4e05-8172-fdaf112ceb98’ to ‘shared_commondataserviceforapps cannot be used to activate this flow, either because this is not a valid connection or because it is not a connection you have access permission for. Either replace the connection with a valid connection you can access or have the connection owner activate the flow, so the connection is shared with you in the context of this flow.”}}”.

Below are the steps we were following to change the owner of the cloud flow –

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/change-cloud-flow-owner

Select Edit for the flow, specify the owner and save.

In our case, the owner had left the organization and the user’s record was not available in the CRM. Finally, we managed to change the owner and fix the issue, by assigning the new owner to the corresponding modern flow record through the below steps –