Power Automate

Power Automate — Full Product Reference

This skill provides comprehensive knowledge for designing, building, troubleshooting, and governing all Power Automate product areas: cloud flows, desktop flows/RPA, Business Process Flows, AI Builder, Process Mining, Approvals, custom connectors, governance, and ALM.

Product Areas at a Glance

Base URLs

Supported APIs

Dataverse Web API:     https://{org}.{region}.dynamics.com/api/data/v9.2
Power Platform API:    https://api.powerplatform.com/powerautomate/environments/{envId}
AI Builder API:        https://{org}.{region}.dynamics.com/api/data/v9.2/msdyn_AIModels
Process Mining API:    https://api.powerplatform.com/processinsights/environments/{envId}
Approvals API:         https://{org}.{region}.dynamics.com/api/data/v9.2/approvals

Legacy API (Diagnostic Only — Do Not Use in Production)

https://api.flow.microsoft.com/providers/Microsoft.ProcessSimple/environments/{envId}

Cloud Flow Management (Dataverse Web API)

Core Endpoints

category values: 0 = Classic workflow, 5 = Cloud flow, 6 = Desktop flow, 9 = BPF

Enable/disable:

PATCH /api/data/v9.2/workflows({workflowid})
{ "statecode": 1 }

statecode: 0 = Off/Draft, 1 = On/Activated.

Flow Run Status Values

OData Query Patterns

# Active cloud flows
GET /api/data/v9.2/workflows?$filter=category eq 5 and statecode eq 1
  &$select=name,statecode,workflowid,modifiedon&$orderby=modifiedon desc&$top=50

# Flows by owner
GET /api/data/v9.2/workflows?$filter=category eq 5 and _ownerid_value eq '{userId}'
  &$expand=ownerid($select=fullname)

# Flows with recent failures
GET /api/data/v9.2/workflows?$filter=category eq 5 and statuscode eq 2
  &$orderby=modifiedon desc

Trigger Types

Recurrence example:

{
  "type": "Recurrence",
  "recurrence": {
    "frequency": "Day", "interval": 1,
    "startTime": "2026-01-01T08:00:00Z",
    "timeZone": "Central Standard Time",
    "schedule": { "hours": ["8","17"], "minutes": ["0"] }
  }
}

Solution-Aware Flow Concepts

Connection References

Decouple connector configuration from concrete connections:

• Defined in solution as a component
• Must be re-mapped on import to target environment connections
• Allows same flow to work across dev/test/prod without editing

Environment Variables

Values kept in unmanaged layer for per-environment overrides.

Managed vs Unmanaged Layers

Use Remove active customization to revert unmanaged changes.

Retry Policies

Limits: Max 90 retries, max 1-day delay, min 5s delay. Triggers: 408, 429, 5xx. Retry-After header is honored.

Run-after statuses: is successful | has failed | is skipped | has timed out

Scope-based try/catch/finally:

Scope: "Try"           → business logic
Scope: "Catch"         → run after: Try has failed
  Log error, notify
Scope: "Finally"       → run after: Catch succeeded / failed / skipped
  Cleanup, release locks

Connector Throttle Limits

Platform burst cap: 100,000 actions / 5 minutes across all flows in an environment.

Plan Types & Licensing

AI Builder credits: Separate from PPR. Included in Premium (500 credits/user/mo); pooled at tenant level.

Required Permissions

Common Error Codes

DLP violations: Flow suspended — resolve by moving connectors to same DLP group, splitting flow, or requesting exception.

Core Design Patterns

Approval Flow

1. Trigger: item created/modified in SharePoint or Dataverse
2. Start and wait for an approval (Approve/Reject - First to respond)
3. Condition on outcome → approved branch / rejected branch
4. Wrap in try/catch scope
5. Retry policy: none for approval actions (avoid duplicate requests)

Resilient Integration Flow

1. Scope-based try/catch/finally
2. Exponential retry on external API calls
3. Concurrency limit: prevent parallel runs causing throttle
4. Compose actions to capture intermediate state for debugging
5. Error notification in catch (Teams adaptive card)
6. Cleanup in finally (update status record, release locks)

Solution-Aware Deployment

1. Build flow in dev inside a solution
2. Use connection references (never hardcode connections)
3. Use environment variables for all config values
4. Export as managed; import to target; re-map connection references
5. Set environment variable values in target layer

Failed Run Investigation

1. GET /powerautomate/environments/{envId}/flowRuns?workflowId={id} — find status: Failed runs
2. Check error.code + error.message
3. 429 → check throttle table, add delays
4. 401 → re-authenticate connection
5. DLP → check connector group placement
6. Resubmit: ResubmitFlow management connector action

Decision Tree

1. New flow architecture (trigger, branches, retries, idempotency) → /flow-design
2. Failed / timed-out / intermittent run → /flow-debug
3. Pre-promotion readiness check → /flow-deploy-check
4. AI Builder model setup → /pa-ai-builder
5. Custom connector creation → /pa-custom-connector
6. BPF design → /pa-bpf-design
7. Governance, DLP audit, CoE → /pa-governance
8. Full setup & onboarding → /flow-setup

Progressive Disclosure — Reference Files