Manuel T. Gomes

How to use SharePoint’s “When an item is deleted“ trigger in #PowerAutomate? Check out how to use it efficiently, the basics and how it works, tips, and limitations. #Reference

SharePoint’s lists are excellent for keeping data, but one accidental delete could generate a lot of headaches, especially if you don’t notice it. That’s why Microsoft developed the “When an item is deleted” trigger, where you can define Flows that do actions when an item is deleted, like a notification to someone to check the “Recycle bin” and see if the item should have been deleted or…

How to use the Excel “Add a key column to a table“ action in #PowerAutomate? Check out how to use it efficiently, the basics and how they work, tips, and limitations. #Reference #PowerPlatform

If you do operations in Excel using Power Automate, you know that you need to use a “Key Column” and a “Key Value” pair to identify the item you want to operate on. For example, if you use the “Delete a row” action, you need to provide it so that Power Automate knows what element to delete. But what about if you don’t have a “Key column”? You can create one yourself directly in the Excel file,…

If you’re using Power Automate with Excel, I’m sure you’ve wondered about key columns and why they are required. It’s a good question, so today, let’s explore what they are and why we need them to manipulate data in #PowerAutomate?

If you’ve used the Office 365 connector for Power Automate, you’ve noticed that many of the actions require you to provide a “Key Column” to do simple actions like updating a row, for example. Many people get confused when they see it since it’s not common in Excel, so today, I want to explain what a “key column” is and why it’s necessary for Excel’s actions to work. The problem Tables in Excel…

This week's podcast recommendation, "Sandra." A fiction podcast by Gimlet Media about a virtual assistant named "Sandra." I'm looking forward to Season 2, but I think it won't happen 😔. #podcast #recommendation @Gimletmedia

Have you ever wondered how Siri or how other virtual assistants work? Sandra is a virtual assistant that is quite accurate. To be precise, too accurate, since it dominates everyone’s lives, but there are some secrets in how it works. Podcast premise Sandra is a scripted show about everyone’s favorite AI with the same name. Helen finds herself working in a company that owns Sandra and starts…

This week's book recommendation, "Give Yourself the Gift of Done." A book by Jon Acuff in the mindset necessary to finish your projects. #book #recommendation @jonacuff

If you never read a book written by Jon Acuff, you have to read this one. He has a fantastic sense of humor applied to complex topics like finishing a goal or a project that we all struggle with. The best example happens every year on the 1st of January. We all start the year full of hopes, dreams, and objectives. But after a few days, we stop them. In fact, 92% of people quit the new-year goal…

Welcome to Function Day. This week we focus on SharePoint’s “ISNA” Function. One new function, every week, with tips, tricks, and stuff you should know. #sharepoint #ISNA

Following the “IS” functions theme, we have the ISNA function. This checks for the “#N/A,” an error that we know all too well in Excel. These functions return TRUE or FALSE, depending on the value that they are checking. Usage It follows a simple pattern. Value Example: Col1 has the value "#N/A" ISNA([Col1]) will return: TRUE You don’t necessarily need to check for errors, but you…

This week's app recommendation, “Airmail.” One of the best and feature-rich email apps I’ve used. #app #recommendation

Who likes email? I would bet that a lot would say no, but there’s something worse nowadays. Good email apps are few. Most apps are low on features, invade your privacy and make something that is not nice to do even worse. Airmail is a feature-rich app that you can use with almost all email services you can remember. Sidenote Apps that provide features like snoozing or collaboration need to…

Your users don’t read the “user manual” or check the “intranet” for news? Of course not. Because it’s boring, there’s a better way. Actually two. Blogs and Videos. #tutorial

The last time I wrote about SharePoint, I focused on making it your team’s “face” to the company. A quick summary, sharing information is hard and knowing where to find it is even worse, so I want to help you minimize these issues. They won’t go away, but at least we’ll try to make them a little bit better. Today we’ll focus on two tools that can help you a lot in propagating…

Using Microsoft Forms to validate user's data is one of the best-forgotten features. Think of a team that inserts a lot of data. And the effort to keep it consistent and correct. What if this was automatic?  #microsoft #forms #tuturial 

I got this question from a friend about how to validate user’s data. I’m paraphrasing, but here’s the gist of it: I have an Excel file that my subordinates use but they mess up the data all the time. I want to validate the data so that the reports are generated correctly. This is quite a common problem. It’s not directly related to Microsoft Forms, but it’s something that it can solve…

This week's podcast recommendation, “Automators.” A podcast by David Sparks and Rosemary Orchard about automation and productivity. If you need a Power Automate guest host, I’m available 😀. #podcast #recommendation @automatorsfm

Automation is one of the essential tools that you can have on your tool belt. I believe in this strongly and try to automate as most as possible, and you can find some other automation tools that you can use to speed up your life on this website. “Automators” provides useful guidelines in online services and other tools to automate stuff. The only downside is that Power Automate is not featured,…

This week's book recommendation, "The Magic of Thinking Big." A book by Dr. David J. Schwartz about how your mindset influences how successful you'll be. #book #recommendation

The Magic of Thinking Big is a self-help book where Dr. David J. Schwartz gives us strategies to be our better selves and success in the areas we want to be the best you can be. He was a motivational writer and coach and published this book, now famous, in 1959. This is probably the oldest book yet that I recommended but for a good reason. Every strategy, exercise, and the concept is timeliness…

Welcome to Function Day. This week we focus on Power Automate's “substring” Function. One new function, every week, with tips, tricks, and stuff you should know. #powerautomate #substring #tip

The substring function is widely popular and widely used. We have the need all the time to parse the string to get sections of it. Think of, for example, a name where you want to extract the first and last name to store it in the database, or a full URL where you want to extract the domain for later reference. There are many useful things you can do with this function, but let’s first see how it…

This week's app recommendation, "Shortcuts." The gold standard of automation on your iOS devices. #app #recommendation

Today’s recommendation is focused on automation but iOS exclusively. I don’t like to narrow my suggestions, but “Shortcuts” is a tool on a level by itself. It was born as Workflow, an app distributed in the App Store, and it provided a simple drag-and-drop approach to scripting and automation. Now it’s “Shortcuts,” and it’s a prime citizen in your iOS device, allowing you to do very complex tasks…

What is a Scope in Power Automate? I’ll explain what it is, how to use it, and some hidden features that can make your life easier. #powerautomate #tuturial

As Flows grow more and more in complexity, managing one becomes important for fixing issues, testing, and maintenance. Power Automate provides a wonderful tool for us to do that called “Scope.” A Scope is an action that “groups” other actions inside it. You can consider it as a box that encompasses all actions under it and can be collapsed better to display the “sections” of your Flow. How to…

Microsoft Teams now enables Approvals. I’ll show you how to use them, but there are other “gems” right there for you to use. Here’s where to find them. #microsoftteams #tutorial

I’m always surprised by the level of energy and resources that Microsoft is putting on Microsoft Teams. There are a lot of features coming out every day, and we all benefit from them. ”Approvals,” for example, is now generally available, and it’s an amazing feature that can fly under your radar. I want to showcase today “Approvals” and show you some other cool hidden features that you can take…

This week's podcast recommendation, "Burn Your Passport." A podcast by Nazeem Hussain n the funny horrors of traveling, from a comic perspective. #podcast #recommendation @nazeem_hussain

The title is misleading because this is a comedy show by Nazeem Hussain, an Australian comic. In “Burn You Passport,” Nazeem interviews other comics, and super funny conversations ensue, some about traveling but not all. Podcast premise The show is unique because it is a theme (traveling), but nothing is prepared since it’s an interview show. People talk about their adventures (or horror…

This week's book recommendation, "Do the Work: Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Wa." A book by Steven Pressfield in overcoming the resistance that stops us from finishing our projects. #book #recommendation @SPressfield

The full title is “Do the Work: Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way,” and it’s quite true. Many times we get into our own way because we overthink and underperform. Why you stop doing things or not even start them, like new year’s resolutions or a goal you want to achieve? If it’s something you really want, it’s strange that most of us give up, but this book explains why. Book…