Advanced Power Automate

Many Microsoft 365 teams build simple Power Automate flows for notifications and basic approvals. Scaling these to enterprise workloads brings challenges like parsing complex data formats, integrating with other Power Platform tools, and ensuring flows run efficiently across environments.

In this masterclass, Paul Stork (15-year Microsoft MVP) delivers practical techniques across six advanced areas. He draws from real client projects, including a flow optimized from nine hours to one hour and 15 minutes. Expect demos on JSON and XML handling, solutions packaging, performance tweaks, child flows, and error recovery.

What You Will Learn

- Parsing JSON data using expressions when dynamic content does not show the needed fields in Power Automate actions

- Converting between XML and JSON formats with built-in functions, and handling common translation issues

- Triggering Power Automate flows from Power Apps for backend data processing and display

- Integrating flows with Power Virtual Agents bots to process and return data dynamically

- Creating Solutions to package flows, Power Apps, and Virtual Agents for organized development and environment promotion from dev to test to production

- Optimizing flow performance with rules that reduce run times dramatically, as shown in a client example

- Implementing child flows using two methods, one simple and one advanced, to break complex logic into modular components

- Designing flows with error checking scopes for recovery and troubleshooting when issues arise

Key Takeaways

1. Master JSON syntax for expressions. Paul explains how to access filtered-out dynamic content directly, a skill essential for advanced flows pulling data from APIs.

2. Package everything in Solutions. Moving individual flows between environments breaks dependencies, so use Solutions to transport complete app sets without rework.

3. Use child flows for performance gains. Split long-running flows into parent-child structures, choosing between instant triggers or HTTP calls based on your needs.

4. Apply simple tweaks for speed. Paul shares rules like minimizing actions and parallel branches that cut his client's overnight flow from nine hours to 75 minutes.

5. Build error-resilient flows. Wrap risky actions in scopes with configure run after settings to retry or notify on failures, improving reliability.

About the Speaker

Paul Stork is the owner and principal architect of Don't Panic Consulting. A 15-year Microsoft MVP in SharePoint and Office 365, he is a triple super user on Power Platform forums for Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents. Paul has authored books on the platform and is writing an O'Reilly title on Power Automate, with this session material feeding directly into those demos.

Who Should Watch This

This session suits Power Automate builders who have created basic flows and now face production hurdles like slow performance, data parsing issues, or multi-environment deployments.

You will gain the most if you integrate with Power Apps or Virtual Agents, manage dev/test/prod pipelines, or troubleshoot unreliable flows in enterprise settings.

Seasoned developers may find JSON/XML basics familiar, but Paul's child flow methods and real-world optimizations offer fresh ideas for scaling existing solutions.

Teams can review the workshop's slide deck and solution files for hands-on replication, though data sources may need setup.

NB: These are the solutions as shown in the workshop; however you may hit issues downloading due to not having the data sources behind them. They are shared in the hope you will be able to review the rest of the code and setup.