Tag: PowerApps

Common Errors: Action ‘Initialize_ variable failed’ in parsing JSON.

In this blog we will address the common error we get while parsing JSON array in power automate. It is very common to get null values in the input files.

The first step is to create a trigger for flow. In this blog I have considered manual trigger.

We need to initialize the input variable. In our case it is Array. We can give sample values for our array as below,

The next step is to parse the JSON.

For the content we need to map the Array variable ‘ArrayParse’ that we initialized in the above step.

Click on Generate from sample. A sample JSON payload appears as below,

Click on Done.

The sample schema is generated as below,

{

    “type”: “array”,

    “items”: {

        “type”: “object”,

        “properties”: {

            “ProductName”: {

                “type”: “string”

            },

            “ProductID”: {

                “type”: “integer”

            }

        },

        “required”: [

            “ProductName”,

            “ProductID”

        ]

    }

}

Now test the flow.

We get the error Action ‘Initialize_variable’ failed,

Solution:

We need to remove the type generated by the sample schema manually,

Now the problem is resolved.

We could see the sample output successfully.

Power Automate – Data sources using Environment Variables

In this blog , I will describe how to use environment variables to pass data sources in power automate flows.

Environment variables help us in a great way to reduce the manual association of data sources in each environment.

  • Login to https://make.powerapps.com
  • Navigate to Solutions -> Add New->More->Environment variables
  • Create an environment variable for Site .
  • Choose the Data Type – Data Source
  • Associate SharePoint connector if you have already created. Else create a connection and associate it here.
  • Choose the parameter type as ‘Site’.
  • Associate the SharePoint Site . You can pass the Default site value and a current value ( which is unique for each environment).
  • If the current value is not specified , default value will be used.
  • Once the environment variable for site is created, we need to create one more environment variable for List.
  • Follow the same steps as above and create a new environment variable,
  • Choose the Parameter Type as ‘List’.
  • Under Site , Specify the name of Environment variable we created in above step.
  • Now login to https://flows.microsoft.com
  • choose the flow that is using sharepoint list as data source or create a new flow,
  • In the Site Address – instead of specifying the URL directly choose ‘custom value’
  • Now you will observe that the environment variables are available to use in ‘Dynamic Content’
  • Use the Environment variables created for Site and List respectively,
  • This helps is deploying the Canvas Apps from one environment without manual intervention in Data source connections.