Power Automate User Group August 2026

Gabriela Zelaya

https://youtu.be/RyIOAcgwH6U

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• Hackathon and Workshop Announcements: Erik provided updates on the bbdevdays hackathon deadline, described the available tracks, and shared information about upcoming Power Platform regional workshops, including advanced and beginner sessions for Power Automate and Power BI.
  • Hackathon Submission Details: Erik announced that the bbdevdays hackathon closes on September 8th, encouraged participants to submit their Power Automate flows, and explained that there are four tracks available for submissions. Erik also offered to help with team formation and provided a link for more information.
  • Regional Workshop Information: Erik shared that the last Power Platform regional workshops are approaching, with Silicon Valley registration closed but possible late entries, and highlighted upcoming sessions at bbcon and in DC, including both advanced and beginner Power Automate workshops.
• SKY API and Documentation Updates: Erik announced new features in the prospect, opportunity, and payments APIs, including the ability to delete opportunities and enhancements to direct debit payment webhooks, as well as improvements to the SKY API documentation for better clarity.
  • API Feature Additions: Erik described updates to the prospect and opportunity APIs, such as the ability to delete opportunities and retrieve prospect and constituent IDs, and noted that the payments API now allows access to related records for specified transactions.
  • Webhook Enhancements: A new webhook was added to the payments API to provide event notifications when direct debit payments are finalized, addressing the uncertainty around bank processing times.
  • Documentation Improvements: Erik mentioned that the SKY API documentation was reorganized and clarified, with improved navigation and additional explanations to make it easier for users to understand the available features.
• Automating Email Opt-Outs Using Consent and Query APIs: Christopher sought guidance on automating the process of marking records with 'request no e-mail' by leveraging consent tracking and solicit codes, with Carol, Austen, Ashley, and Erik providing detailed advice on using queries, deduplication, and Power Automate flows.
  • Consent Versus Solicit Codes: Christopher explained the need to automate marking records as 'do not e-mail' when a 'request no e-mail' is present, preferring to use consent for date tracking. Carol and Erik confirmed that using consent is more future-proof, especially as NXT encourages its use.
  • Query Setup and Deduplication: Carol described her approach to building a consent-based query, highlighting the challenge of duplicate records when constituents unsubscribe from multiple channels. She uses a union operation to deduplicate results and shared her query structure with Christopher.
  • Power Automate Flow Construction: Austen and Carol guided Christopher through building a Power Automate flow using the query API, including starting a query job, polling for completion with a 'do until' loop, parsing JSON results, and looping through unique system record IDs to process each constituent.
  • Transitioning to Luminate Online: Erik and Christopher discussed nuances in Luminate Online, where unsubscribes can be managed at the interest group level, allowing more granular control compared to global opt-outs, and noted limitations in querying solicit code dates.
  • Sample Flows and Resources: Ashley and Austen referenced community posts and sample flows, recommending that Christopher review Ashley's webinar and template for practical implementation, and Carol offered to share her flow for further reference.
• Managing and Re-Sequencing Constituent Codes: Josh presented a challenge with re-sequencing constituent codes to ensure 'alumni' is the primary code, receiving input from Hallie, Kevin, Austen, Carol, and Ramandeep on approaches using Power Automate, connector versions, and sequence correction strategies.
  • Re-Sequencing Logic and Workarounds: Josh described his workaround for re-sequencing codes by adding a dummy code and then deleting it to force the correct order, as direct updates sometimes resulted in duplicate sequence numbers.
  • Connector Version Considerations: Austen suggested trying the newer constituent connector in Power Automate, which allows explicit sequence updates, but Josh reported similar issues with both old and new connectors.
  • Alternative Approaches: Hallie and Carol proposed sorting and re-adding codes or using a reference list to determine sequence, while Ramandeep shared that deleting and re-adding codes in Razor's Edge corrected sequence issues in her experience.
  • Primary Code Identification: Josh explained his logic for identifying alumni based on graduation status and updating the primary code accordingly, confirming that his approach works but seeking a more efficient method.
• Building and Troubleshooting Gift Notification Flows: Jasmine requested help setting up a weekly large gift notification flow in Power Automate, with Hallie, Austen, Ashley, and Erik walking through the flow structure, connection issues, and recommending more efficient templates for batch notifications.
  • Flow Structure and Scheduling: The group explained the basics of scheduled flows, including setting triggers for daily or weekly runs, configuring time zones, and using variables to manage notification recipients.
  • Connection Troubleshooting: Hallie guided Jasmine through checking the status of the list gifts connector, confirming that the connection was valid and suggesting limiting the number of gifts for initial testing.
  • Conditional Logic and Email Handling: Hallie and Austen recommended modifying the flow to check for at least one gift before sending notifications and discussed the importance of using arrays to aggregate gifts for batch emails, rather than sending individual emails for each gift.
  • Template Recommendations: Austen and Hallie pointed Jasmine to the 'daily gift digest notification' template, which efficiently compiles multiple gifts into a single email, and encouraged reviewing community posts for further customization.
• Tag Updates and Querying in Orion NXT: Hallie inquired about the timing and queryability of tags, specifically for fundraiser assignments, with Glen, Kevin, and Austen clarifying that tags are updated nightly and can be accessed via lists but not directly through the API.
  • Tag Update Timing: Glen noted that tags are updated nightly according to the web view settings, though the exact time zone is unspecified, and Erik confirmed that processing may vary across environments.
  • Tag Query Workarounds: Kevin and Austen explained that while tags are not directly queryable via the API, they can be accessed by creating lists filtered by tags and then using those lists in Power Automate.
• Using Intersection Expression in Power Automate: Austen demonstrated the use of the intersection() expression in Power Automate to efficiently find common values between arrays, with Hallie and Kevin discussing advanced use cases and nesting for more complex comparisons.
  • Intersection Function Basics: Austen explained that intersection() returns common values between two arrays, which is useful for checking if a constituent has specific codes without looping through each value.
  • Advanced Use Cases: Hallie asked about comparing more than two arrays, and Austen and Kevin discussed nesting intersection expressions to handle multiple arrays, enabling complex matching scenarios such as identifying alumni who meet several engagement criteria.