Use Power Automate? Switch to the Advanced Settings Immediately

Thinking about how I wanted to write this, it seemed like the best format would be as a Public Service Announcement (PSA), and the reason for that is because for anyone that is using Power Automate on a somewhat regular basis (hell even if you barely use it) you need to switch to the advanced settings ASAP, and I promise, you won't ever look back.

Easy to Use and Loads of Benefits

Now, I'm sure everyone has had one or a handful of Flows that they've shaken their fist at because of one reason or another. I can't promise that switching to the advanced settings is going to solve everything, but it does provide a lot of features that actually help you in building your Flow and it's very easy to get started with using them.

Some of the core benefits are immediately noticeable:

1. Enhanced Dynamic Content Panel includes some simple but handy features such as improved search and show/hide clickable headers to reduce scrolling through hundreds of properties.
2. Multi-Line Expression Editor makes it much easier to read and write complex expressions / formulas, reducing the likelihood of errors.
3. Searching Dynamic Properties while editing an Expression is certainly a small piece of functionality, but its appreciation knows no bounds!!! No longer do you have to try and manage copy and pasting Power Automate properties in and out of the expression editor in order to build a simple formula. It is now easy as pie to start writing logic, search for a property, insert it, and continue writing your formula.

Turning on Advanced Settings

To turn on, all you have to do is navigate to https://make.powerautomate.com and in the top right corner, click the settings icon > View all Power Automate Settings. On the pop-up that appears, turn on the Experimental Features.

Don't be worried by the 'experimental' aspect of it - at the end of the day these are just features of the editor itself, it doesn't make any changes to your flow that the standard editor can't also make, so impact is pretty much none.

Best Part for Last - Format Data by Examples

The last feature to call out which is helpful for seasoned and new makers alike is the Format Data by Examples wizard that Microsoft introduced. This is hands down 100% why all makers should turn these features on asap.

For any action, you can click Format Data by Examples to pull up the Wizard which will help write expressions for you based on your formatting needs! A quick example - let's say we want to format a UTC timestamp.

First select an existing property to format (you can swap this out later), and it will then display the formatting wizard. The wizard asks you for examples of the data that you want to format as well as the expected output. Based on your input, the wizard will try to use pattern matching to then suggest what kind of expression you might want based on the output.

Say Hello to Suggested Transformations

Inputting a UTC Timestamp, the wizard automatically determines that we have a datetime and provides all of the typical formats you might expect.

The benefit here is that since it provided you the transformation, it already knows what you want (roughly) so in some cases you may only need to provide one example. If there are a variety of inputs, you will need to provide them all as examples to improve the output.

Once you've provided enough example / output data, you can then click Get expression. In most situations it will then display the suggested expression and allow you to test values against the expression.

You can then either copy the expression and close the wizard or you can click Apply, and it will insert it directly into your action!

Different than the Co-Pilot Editing Experience

The advanced settings we turned on are intended for the standard editor that will most likely be rolled out sometime in the future. This is different than the Co-Pilot editing experience - which goes much farther in that it can help create actions, insert conditions, and more, based on your dialog with it. In time I'm sure the Co-Pilot editor will become more advanced to support more complex challenges, but until then, turning on the advanced settings is going to provide a ton of benefits today so I highly recommend trying them out!

If you like this type of content, feel free to follow me here on LinkedIn or check out our Kumo Partners Website and Youtube Channel. Also stay tuned for a Power Automate Accelerator course that will be launching through our Kumo Innovation Academy!