Rajeev Pentyala – Microsoft Power Platform

Refer my previous article for steps to pass json collection from Power Automate to Canvas App.

Now lets see how to pass json collection from a Canvas app to Power Automate flow.

Before we start lets make sure to meet all the prerequisites.

Prerequisites:

• Subscribe to 30 days trial and get Office 365 account.
• Connect to Power Automate portal using Office 365 account to build Power Automate flow.
• Connect to Power Apps maker portal using Office 365 account to build the Canvas App.

Once all prerequisites are met, here is the high level design:

• Create a new Canvas app.
• Prepare a json collection.
• Create a new Power Automate flow.
• Trigger Power automate flow from Canvas App by passing the collection as parameter.
• Read the json collection from Power Automate flow.
• Create ‘Contact’ records in CDS.

Lets get started.

Steps to configure Canvas App:

• Connect to Power Apps maker portal using the Office 365 account.
• Create a new Canvas App.
  • Note: Make sure the same Environment used for Power Automate is selected.
• Add a new button ‘Generate Sample Collection’.
• On button’s ‘OnSelect’ prepare a json collection using ‘ClearCollect’ function as below.

• Once your run the App and click ‘Generate Sample Collection’ button, you should see the collection from ‘File -> Collections’ tab.

Steps to configure the Power Automate Flow:

• Connect to Power Automate portal using the same office 365 credentials used to connect to Power App portal.
• Create a new ‘Instant flow’ by selecting the right Environment.

• Provide a name ‘GetCollectionFromPowerApp’ and select trigger as ‘PowerApps’.
• Now, we need to read the collection passed from Canvas app to a variable. Lets add a new ‘Initialize Variable’ action.

• In the ‘Initialize Variable’ action,
  • Provide variable name by setting ‘Name’ field. I set it as ‘collPersons’.
  • Type: String
  • Select ‘Value’ and click on ‘Ask in PowerApps’. A auto generated name would appear and select the same.
  • 
• Once we receive the collection and stored in a string variable ‘collPersons’, next we need to parse in to json collection.
• Add a new ‘Parse JSON’ action.
• In ‘Parse JSON’ action,
  • set Content as ‘collPersons’ from ‘Initialize Variable’ action.
  • Next we need to provide the json schema coming from Canvas app. To do that, click on ‘Generate from sample’.
  • Copy the json collection formed in Canvas app using ClearCollect function and paste as below.
  • 
  • If no warnings, your ‘Parse JSON’ pane should look as below.
  • 
• Now we got json collection parsed and we are good start final step, creating records to CDS.
• Add ‘Create a new record’ CDS action and select the ‘Environment’ and ‘Entity Name’

• Set the attributes (Last Name and Email) from ‘Parse JSON’ action.

• Once you set variables in ‘Create a new record’ CDS action, flow would automatically wrap the action in ‘Apply to each’.

Trigger the Power automate flow from Canvas App:

Now we have Power automate flow with the logic to read and parse the json collection and add them to CDS as Contact records, lets trigger the flow from Canvas App.

• Open the Canvas app created in above sections.
• Add a new button ‘Share Collection To Flow’
• Select the button, from the ribbon menu, click on ‘Action -> Power Automate’.
• From the pane select the ‘GetCollectionFromPowerApp’ Power app flow.
• After few seconds, you would see the Run() command auto populated. Now pass the ‘collPersonalInfo’ collection wrapped in JSON() function.
  • JSON() function is required to convert the ‘collPersonalInfo’ collection to JSON string as the Power Automate flow expects ‘String’ variable as first action.
• Finally ‘OnSelect’ should look as below.

• Now run the App and click ‘Share Collection To Flow’ button, post run, go to Power automate flow’s history and you should see it ran successfully.

🙂