Power Platform Governance with Power Clarity

Clear the FOG - let there be Clarity

Clear the FOG - let there be Clarity

Some asked me recently how does my SaaS product Power Clarity work with Microsoft’s Center of Excellence kit.

We can look at this from two directions:

  • Turnkey Governance with Power Clarity (running without CoE)

  • Enhanced Governance with Power Clarity (running with CoE)

  • ALM with Power Clarity

Center of Excellence kit (CoE)

I’m a big fan of CoE built by Microsoft and the community. I love that Microsoft acknowledges there is a need for governance, and the community rises to build tools to help. CoE starter kit is a collection of resources that will be a template to create your own Center of Excellence kit.

Power Clarity is a turnkey solution - you grant your credentials, it starts scanning. You get dashboards, forms and reports and workflows. I want to stress that Power Clarity is an enhanced version of Flow Studio - something I’ve been building since 2018, so it was developed in parallel to CoE, there are similarities, which leads to how they can be used together.


Here’s a list of roadmap on our first year (2020).

Turnkey Governance with Power Clarity (running without CoE)

If you are a company using the power platform and has not developed or deployed CoE - then Power Clarity can be used as a turnkey starting point.

If you don’t know where to start, or how to build one, we will get you started quickly to help you uncover the platform.

If you don’t have a power governance solution, and need one in 15 minutes, we are your… service.

  • No install - we manage it and keep improving it.
    Power Clarity is a SaaS service so the constant improvements are baked into the subscription. (In my opinion, we aren’t very expensive either).

  • Add one or many concurrent scanning accounts

  • Use accounts that are not administrator accounts - Power Clarity can scan with or without admin permissions, or operating in mix mode between different environments. If you have environment admin - you can see everything. If you only has environment maker - you can still monitor assets that you own.

  • Power Clarity performs hourly scanning, because it’s an incremental scanner and very light on API access. We understand at high API throughput - both source and storage can get upset. Power Clarity incremental scanning of a tenant of 1000 (flows/apps) is typically less than 3 minutes.

  • Power Clarity does not require premium accounts

Enhanced Governance with Power Clarity

If you have CoE deployed and already has CDS entities - then Power Clarity can be used to greatly enhance that data collection exercise.

You no longer need to worry about ‘how the data is collected’, but can keep customizing your reporting and utilization of that data to drive your governance outcomes.
In fact, we give you more events, signals, and policy actions you can perform.
We want you to have clarity.

  • Writes to Azure Storage Table and CDS Entities (use Power Clarity to collect data instead of CoE’s admin sync flows)

    (Note: CDS write requires the scanning account to have Premium license for CDS access)

  • Deep API reads into Flows - runs, run actions, run errors and remediation

  • Recall run metadata beyond 30 days

  • When events happen - you can get an email report, or get a webhook call so you can handle it yourself. Power Clarity provides complete tenant flow error reporting without try/catch pattern. Since it’s inception, Power Clarity is a Flow monitoring service as well as a Power Platform governance service.

  • Advanced detection of cross tenant resources

  • Advanced detection of flows utilizing premium licenses

  • Advanced count of flows utilizing API rate limits

  • White and black list filtering of resources (domains, URLs) and connectors

  • Clash detection of flows and DLP policies

  • Clash detection of flows using deprecated actions

Application Lifecycle Management with Power Clarity

Because Power Clarity maintains offline granted access, it can perform advanced active actions to the Power Platform on your behalf, actions that don’t currently have an connector.

  • Flow Studio’s migrate feature (which lets us copy, switch connections and deploy flows), can be invoked from Clarity API call

  • Call Power Platform management cmdlets via Power Clarity API.

  • Continuous backup of flow definitions and Power Apps snapshots

  • Power Clarity provides an advanced GraphQL view of the entire data set available within its stores.

  • Read and reports on managed and unmanaged resources in Solutions

  • History of changes across the entity tracking

See it for yourself

Send me an email john.liu at flowstudio.app to get started.

The Flow Studio journey - first lesson - seed money and salary

stanislav-kondratiev-MdexOj4D-MU-unsplash.jpg

I wanted to write a blog post because I don’t know, I guess you are a technical person that reads my blog, and you might be interested in my journey from a two decade consultant into a sole business owner building a product company.

It’s pretty exciting. Everyone should try this.

This blog post

I was talking to Elaine as she’s visiting Sydney and I was explaining a very critical lesson I’m in the middle of learning, now that my company “Flow Studio Solutions” is 3 months old.

I was also recently talking to Brett and Sandy who gave me a lot of insights into an early day of a founder. Brett asked me several questions and boy he’s a wizard how does he know that’s exactly what I have been doing the whole time.

And there is FIRST LESSON I’m rapidly learning.

When you decided to take part time or taking some time off and start doing your business, you have this tendency to think Oh, the business isn’t taking in enough income, so I’ll just not take a salary for this month. I’ll live off my savings in my personal account.

This is Brent’s wise words to me. Paraphrased

I modified those words into this trick - with the bank details added in.
Please do over. It’s a most simple trick.

  1. Make your business bank account. You should have this anyway, otherwise people can’t pay you.

  2. Transfer money from your savings that you intend to live on, into your business

  3. Give yourself a salary and sent that back to your personal savings every month (to pay your bills)

Now suddenly, you can claim expenses, tax deductions and have a clear idea how much money the business needs to continue paying you that salary.

Also, when you want to seek funding or grants - it is very clear to proof how much does the business need to operate, and how much existing seed money had already been injected into this business.

You can’t proof “oh here’s my savings account I need about $5000 a month” that isn’t your business, that’s your lavish/hermit lifestyle, nobody cares about that but you. But if you had your business sending you a $5000 salary, you can easily provide that as clear proof that’s the cost of the business, every month.

So, that is the first lesson.

Move your savings into your business, pay yourself a living salary, and work on your business, not in your business.

I’m grateful for Brent and Elaine for these conversations.

History

For the details which might make sense why there are different dates in the Flow Studio journey. He’s a rough timeline.

2018 April - Flow Studio the product started as a side project
2018 November - Started accepting Stripe subscriptions
2019 June - Until June, Flow Studio operated under a sole trader business registration in Australia
2019 July - incorporated Flow Studio Solutions - a product company that does a side consulting to build the product.
2019 October - first quarter. This update.

Presentations at the Digital Workplace Conference Australia 2019 I’m looking forward to

It’s really exciting for me to be back at the Digital Workplace Conference again in 2019, this is one of the first major conferences that I was very fortunate to be able to present at, and I have always looked forward to attend, to learn and to give back and present the latest happenings in SharePoint, Office 365, Azure and now also Power Platform.

The Digital Workplace Conference will be on August 6-7 in Sydney.

DWCAU-temp-dates.png


This year I’m presenting a topic (and sorry for the slightly concatenated topic name):

A quick introduction to Microsoft Flow, but rapidly takes audience deeper to see the possibilities of the types of solutions possible


There probably should be a line-break in there somewhere. You have to use your imagination for this title for that missing character, sorry!

Lets try that again!

An introduction to Microsoft Flow: Office 365 - Automated

This is an introduction session on Microsoft Flow, but my aim isn’t to show you a simple alert email. My aim is to explain that we have far transcended “Workflows”. It’s not just workflow. We are way beyond that - what we really have is a full Automation Engine. It is Office 365 - Automated.

Be very careful, writing Microsoft Flow is completely addictive.


The Sessions I want to see!

  • Become The Expert of You – Power Skills for Personal Development - Heather Newman

  • Trust-Based Corporate Culture: How to Kick Fear and Toxicity Out of the Workplace - Heather Newman

  • The Fruit Salad Formula for Implementing Ofice 365 - Debbie Ireland

  • Microsoft Teams Deep Dive – 29 Practical Tips and Tricks - Lee Stephens

  • Making Teams work without understanding Information Architecture - Alistair Pugin

  • A Zero-Hype Introduction to Artifical Intelligence and Machine Learning - Kilash Awati

  • Adding voice interaction to your apps - Brian Farnhill

  • Give your PowerApps and Flows some Vision, Language and Feeling - Rich Burdes

  • How to build a Project Hub with Hubsites and Sitedesign and Sitescripts - Knut Relbe-Moe

  • Success Factors in a Thriving Yammer Network - Rebecca Jackson

  • How to Govern PowerApps and Flow - Paul Culmsee

  • Governance & Adoption for Microsoft 365: Making the Marriage work - Megan Strant

But that’s not all

I’m at the conference both days and plan to hang around for the workshop day too. So if you have any questions on

  • Microsoft Flow, PowerApps, Power Platform Governance solutions

  • Azure LogicApps, Azure Functions

  • SharePoint, PnP, Microsoft Graph, SPFx

  • Flow Studio startup journey

  • The latest imaginations in the mind of a mad man

And whatever in between…
I’m available for a chat!

The value of a Physical Conference

I always feel the top value of a physical conference is being able to stash away two or three days to focus and immerse in an environment with like-minded people, we talk tech, have the same challenges, but may have solved some of them with our own personal takes of that experience.

We are very much alike - when we are together in the same conference - we are introduced to new ideas that gives us a much broader perspective than we would usually see when we are so focused on our immediate day to day business problems.

I treat it as a relaxed edu-vacation. Seek out the sessions that broadens my capacities. And grab hold of the presenters and get a deeper discussion to take that back with me.

I would love to see you (see you again) at the Digital Workplace Conference 2019. If you see me you should say Hi John - I want to ask / I want to tell you about <THIS THING>

Presenting a roadmap to learning and mastery of Microsoft Flow at Collab365 Microsoft Flow Virtual Summit

All the Flow you can eat!

c365-fvs-john-liu.png

https://events.collab365.community/microsoft-flow-virtual-summit-agenda/

I managed to squeeze in last minute with a session on “A roadmap to learning and mastery of Microsoft Flow” this is an advanced session aiming to cover a wide range of techniques and pointing out the pitfalls along these milestones.

The session is near the very end of the Flow Virtual Summit. So I hope you would join me live. (As of this post - the Flow Virtual Summit is on right now). If you want to catch the video on demand after the session, you will need to purchase an All Access Pass.

The review of milestones and roadmap is suitable for learning or navigating our learning along Microsoft Flow.


Affiliate Discount for Flow Virtual Summit All-Pass users

Flow Studio is affiliated with Flow Virtual Summit to offer an additional $20 off the first year of your subscription if you have an Flow Virtual Summit All Access Pass. So this is how it will work.

First year - US$80
Subsequent years - US$100

After July, where Flow Studio’s price increases to US$200

First year - US$180
Subsequent years - $200

So if you have purchased an Flow Virtual Summit All-Pass and is interested in purchasing a Flow Studio subscription - let me know!

Enjoy the show

https://events.collab365.community/microsoft-flow-virtual-summit-agenda/

100 Flow-jutsu of the FlowNinja

The_original_Jedi_texts.png

Upon reaching a numerical significant milestone of 100 FlowNinja flow-lifehacks. I wanted to review the full list and provide that list here for your glorious consumption during bedtime reading.

Some of them have additional detailed blog post, some of them have an detailed YouTube video - some of them have additional videos or blog posts from the community that added more details to the picture we are all painting together.

Some lifehacks are no longer needed, as Flow has gained that ability natively. Sometimes a connector has changed. Sometimes, I’ve rolled the feature into Flow Studio.

So this is a curated list of the lifehacks, the Flow-jutsu of the Flow Ninja. With small amounts of commentary like someone scribbling notes next to old hacks recalling the wisdom (or insanity) at the time.

Enjoy. Read a random one.

Let me know if there’s a specific Flow-lifehack that you liked but wanted a video or a full blog post. I can tell the blog rate is less than 10% of the tweetstorms. And there’s very little YouTube content of these as well. Both are situations I’d like to improve.

# Flow-jutsu URL
1. Wait until Fire Changed HTTP+Webhook https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/974544103336587268
SharePoint Technically when we have double triggers this will make more sense. Imagine every wehbook trigger can become an in-flow webhook action.
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2018/3/design-a-delay-until-sharepoint-file-changed-httpwebhook-for-microsoftflow
2. Convert PDF to DOCX via CloudConvert https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/978567033431375873
3. Path to Flow-zen https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/979391202146398209
4. Change SharePoint Permission via MSGraph https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/981232222886752256
MSGraph Now use Send HTTP To SharePoint
5. Flow to cancel self or other Flows https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/981870155864027136
Custom Connector Feature rolled into Flow Studio
6. Condition on Trigger https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/983303622501974022
Blog Serge Luca https://sergeluca.wordpress.com/2018/04/11/trigger-your-flow-only-when-a-document-is-created-from-a-specific-content-type/
7. Conditional IP Address on Trigger https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/983709086050009088
8. Approval API via custom connection https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/983727787746869249
Custom Connector Feature rolled into Flow Studio
9. Learn Select https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/986078352116076545
10. Two expressions https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/986770637401149441
11. Flow Governance https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/986796382198480899
12. Flow Editor two hacks https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/988957057234567170
13. No hack to celebrate Send HTTP to SharePoint https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/991679434817028097
14. Read Flow Connectors with Flow https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/992087115394514945
15. Meta Flow killing other Flows https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/992742309585301505
Custom Connector Feature rolled into Flow Studio
16. Make document set with slug https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/992767564253089792
17. Make Excel Chart from Graph https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/993483364253425664
18. Batch connector for Teams https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/996415365235159040
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2018/9/make-a-wishing-wand-why-we-need-a-microsoftflow-custom-connector-for-msgraph-batch
19. Copy DocumentSet files https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/996423332688883713
20. Flow Studio Kunai https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/999337159684325376
Flow Studio Flow Studio marked the beginning of my work to make the hacks I do usable by the power user via an easy to use app. Without Flow Studio - many of my hacks requires a developer to integrate.
21. Flow Studio duplicate https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/999409304384884736
22. Flow Studio Cancel all runs https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/999694426745139200
23. Flow to VSTS https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/999916443385843712
24. Flow Studio tags https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1000397356020350981
25. Save Flow to VSTS https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1000693670285209600
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2018/5/save-all-your-flows-to-vsts-via-http-rest-in-8-actions
26. Infinite Recursion of Fails https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1000894383099592704
27. Read O365 admin center messages https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1001050653752418305
28. Flow Studio filter by Trigger Type/Kind https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1001485562543394816
29. Multiple SharePoint subscriptions set up https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1002747531506245632
30. Trick the Flow Editor about Update Flow action https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1003621682924273664
31. Calling AzureFunction with webhook https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1003776181420736512
32. Resubmit multi-Flow Runs https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1004365335183540224
33. Send iCal https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1007041490642563074
34. Fast init const https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1007214566076366851
35. Use Flow to Site Design and Site Script https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1007657494099853313
36. World Cup from Flow https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1011173203916382208
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2018/6/how-to-get-live-fifa-worldcup-results-via-microsoft-flow-into-your-sharepoint-intranet
37. Watch twitter Followers https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1012012172694585349
38. Flow Studio middleware is Flow - github feedback https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1012155223136063488
39. Flow Studio run ID https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1012718772635856897
40. Retrieve 5K+ rows with paging https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1015121443921596416
41. Emojis are valid name https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1017190651245486085
42. RSS ideas https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1018669034571644928
43. Upload binary from PowerApps via Hacked Flow Button https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1022991595015000064
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2018/7/the-simplest-no-code-solution-to-save-pictures-files-from-powerapps-to-flow
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxJ6z3-qrrA
44. Filter string exercise https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1026440991291523072
45. Filter string Xpath translate() https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1026456982511702016
46. Turn on Forms Split On https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1028565758920421377
47. Coalesce() because expression editor broke https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1028998499818385409
48. Please tell my future self to do timesheets https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1032164950142119936
49. Use Flow to process thumbnails as datauri image https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1034127895415799809
50. Flow O365 Azure Event Grid https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1038389017098637312
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2018/9/from-office-365-to-event-grid-all-our-events-must-flow
51. Greasemonkey script for Flow Expression Editor https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1041000509677592577
The script required frequent update each time when Flow designer is changed. It is something I chose not to maintain overtime. Instead, I put my work into Flow Studio's UX which I can control 100%
52. Windows Timeline https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1043127835026542592
53. Make new Flows from definition https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1045601880687009792
54. Create SP shortcut links https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1048745194932162560
55. Large datasets in Excel - after this I advice using MSGraph to talk to Excel https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1048780585395613696
56. HTTP is not Request https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1051976806117646336
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2018/10/microsoft-flow-http-trigger-request-trigger-and-you-probably-dont-want-to-use-it
57. Hiding variables out of sight https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1054538605090095104
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2018/10/hiding-your-microsoft-flow-valuables-i-mean-variables-out-of-sight
58. Meta designer hack more space https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1055604626530201605
subsequent Flow designer update now uses Monaco editor for Output - Monaco editor does not resize easily when the output panel's height is auto'ed
59. HTML from Markdown https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1056680928880222208
60. Send email with wishing wand https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1058000420872699909
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2018/11/sending-email-with-inline-images-via-microsoftgraph-and-microsoftflow
61. Make Flow Button optional https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1058035361945837570
this is now native in the Flow button designer
62. Creating HTML format in custom definition https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1063359432115908608
63. Action tracked properties https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1066533813734371328
64. Custom actions idea https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1066868834575953920
65. Setting variable with value of itself https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1067444794471866368
66. Hack Flow Button arg into date https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1068837222743367681
this is now native in the Flow button designer
67. Sort in Flow https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1069950601935507457
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2018/12/how-to-implement-sort-with-microsoft-flow-in-3-actions-within-a-loop
68. EnsureSiteAssetLibrary https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1072632744495247365
69. Split On false https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1072887142018244608
70. Set like status https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1074217196551696384
71. Google sheet to google cal https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1075278120968572928
72. Fast string replacement with 2 select https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1080296618258194433
73. Use Parse JSON to check types https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1083200955074600961
74. Intersection vs filter array https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1083637928876593153
75. Link to current Flow Run https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1087360914406264832
76. MomentJS in Flow https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1090957263492153344
77. For Selected DocumentSet https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1095426221234520064
78. Use ValidateUpdateListItem https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1097445738483576833
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2019/2/flowninja-hack-78-modifying-modified-by-and-modified-time-with-microsoft-flow
79. ExcelRest https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1101635675063967745
80. Stop flow SharePoint self trigger with validateUpdateListItem https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1101689848891494400
81. Battleship Outlook Calendar https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1102532924883103744
82. Group BY CAML https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1103772032150384641
83. Date Projection and let me count the days https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1105392290074288128
84. DecodeUriComponent for new line https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1108481776102440960
85. Black art of calling internal API on swagger https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1109745736541888512
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwJto7zvfyk
86. For Each via CSV https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1110180968285921280
87. Upload File via Unused Outlook connector https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1115336767031468032
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2019/4/flowninja-hack-87-lock-microsoft-flow-powerapps-trigger-to-upload-images-to-sharepoint-with-ease
YouTube Chaks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K78YUppinuQ
88. SharePoint modified only trigger https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1116856001385209856
89. Auto reply in Github when issue is closed https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1119237739969277952
90. Fix parallel blocks via Edit JSON https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1120698508388868096
91. A power user friendly method of connecting hundreds of sites, lists and libraries to a single Flow https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1121055884749053953
92. Geofence pokemon go https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1121775858174160896
93. When connections break - send email https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1125793444700409857
94. At-mentions in Microsoft Teams https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1126745361219899393
95. Fast sync of SharePoint list via batch https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1127240425868107777
96. Excel variable names https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1129715544712597504
Blog http://johnliu.net/blog/2019/5/workarounds-needed-to-use-the-excel-connector-in-microsoft-flow
97. Export Email .eml to SharePoint https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1136501325615620096
Blog https://www.oneplacesolutions.com/news/save-important-emails-to-sharepoint-with-microsoft-flow.html
98. PowerApps Trigger headers https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1138017912222961664
99. Paste snippets from text https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1144055910538465281
100. Thanos Outlook Snap https://twitter.com/johnnliu/status/1145932038941237248