This month, dive deeper into HTML with Yusuf's expert guidance on customizing tables in Canvas apps. Follow step-by-step instructions to master HTML usage, complete with a handy tool for crafting HTML formulas. In Canvas apps, while Gallery or Data Table controls are handy for creating table views, there are instances where we need to utilize our data in emails or previews for generated PDFs. Use Case Example:   You have a canvas app that generates an invoice, which is then sent via email. However, before the user submits the invoice, you want them to see a preview of what it looks like.   Solution:   In your app, users fill out a form and/or enters data that gets patched into your data source for each Invoice Line Item. For this example, I’m going to use this collection:   ClearCollect ( colInvoiceLineItems , {LineNumber: 1 , LineName: "Monthly Power App Development Services" , LineAmount: 2000 }, {LineNumber: 2 , LineName: "Stock Photography Assets" , LineAmount: 810.70 }, {LineNumber: 3 , LineName: "Monthly Power BI Development Services" , LineAmount: 1750 }, {LineNumber: 4 , LineName: "Monthly Training & Support" , LineAmount: 725.10 })   *To use the above example collection, insert a button into your app and copy and paste the above code into the Buttons OnSelect property.   Now, we can start creating an HTML table.   HTML table uses the following tags:   ·  Table ·  Table Header ·  Table Row ·  Table Data   Step 1 | Insert an HTML Control into your canvas app   Step 2 | Enter HTML Text   In the HTML Text property, delete the sample text in there and enter:   "   Line NumberLine NameLine Amount      " & Concat ( colInvoiceLineItems , "" & LineNumber & "" & LineName & "" & LineAmount & "","") & ""   This is how the HTML table shows with the above code: Now let’s break down the code to understand what’s been entered: Step 3 | Formatting your table   A helpful tool to create/write an HTML formula is   https://wordtohtml.net/   You can use the web app to write out what you want, for example, I can create the table formatted like the below and it will populate the HTML code on the right. I can then copy and paste that into my app make the appropriate edits so the HTML Text property is this:   "               Line Number          Line Name          Line Amount      " & Concat(colInvoiceLineItems,      "          " & LineNumber & "          " & LineName & "                       " & LineAmount & "          ",      "") & " "   Which looks like this: You can get fancy and change column sizing, make the widths fixed or responsive, add conditional formatting, etc.   I hope you all found this helpful. I can’t wait to see how you use HTML tables in your Power Apps!

We’re so excited that we found time to sit down with Mozelle, one of our talented Senior Associates. Mozelle is no stranger to RedCloud - she’s been on our team for over four years now (time files!) and came to us shortly after graduating from the University of Washington with her Bachelor’s in International Relations and Affairs. With a knack for project management, team building, team collaboration, leadership and a plethora of technical skills, she’s a gem to us here. Read on to learn more about her experience thus far and what she’s excited about digging into this year! Briefly describe your role at RedCloud. I'm a consultant at RedCloud working with our client’s Marketing and Consumer Business privacy team. I have been at RedCloud for 4 years. My role has evolved over the years working with the team and with RedCloud. I was brought on to be a project manager and assist in building out the team’s processes around complying with GDPR and has evolved into being the RedCloud team lead.  What was it like to join RedCloud (onboarding process)? RedCloud was helpful in onboarding and the team I joined was very supportive to help me get started. My account manager Scott Ekman was present through the whole process, which made asking questions easy and less intimidating. There was a team of four other RedCloud employees and meeting with them to understand the requirements of the contract and the business relationship with the client made the onboarding process smooth. My team had meetings with other RedCloud teams at the client site to collaborate and share learnings. Team members who weren't directly working on my contract at the company were also happy to meet and discuss issues we may have struggled with or to simply answer technical questions. The corporate team was helpful in providing the information I needed on my benefits and providing me with my devices. Given your background and other experiences, what stands out to you with RedCloud?  I have worked with other consulting firms and RedCloud has been involved in my journey from the beginning. I find that consulting can be a challenging role when you are balancing the relationship of your client with the relationship of your company. We are there to fulfill our role to consult for our client but are also the face of our company and to promote other areas of improvement we can offer as a business. RedCloud has been a good example of that balance of supporting their consultants while also trying to find new opportunities to support their clients. I enjoy the honest and open conversations I can have with the corporate team and the ability to make proposals and find support when needed. There is also a sense of trust in their consultants that I respect. We are treated as experts in our area of focus and reached out to as equals if there are any questions that may help the sales team in their work.   What originally drew you to RedCloud? I was working for another consulting firm when our projects overlapped with a RedCloud team. We worked closely together and the RedCloud team was always respectful of my suggestions and training even though we worked for two different firms. When my contract ended the RedCloud team reached out to me offering me a role after working with me on the previous project. I enjoyed their sense of collaboration as a team of consultants rather than the sense of rivalry that can often occur in this line of business.   Where do you see the future of consulting or the future of RedCloud? Consulting is imperative for businesses that need specialized skill sets to enhance business performance. For companies who hire full time employees for needs they currently face, consulting is a solution that brings in experts in fields that the company may not have or may not have the time or resources available to provide. Today everything is about improving and automating work streams, this may come in the form of gap analysis, tool enhancements, process improvement or merely having a 3rd party perspective on how things work today vs. how things can be improved to be more efficient. I think of consultants as a conduit for those endeavors. The benefit of being a consultant is that you are able to take the ideas and suggestions of the company and formulate an actionable plan and help them achieve that goal. RedCloud as a company has done a good job of hiring those individuals who are able to work in this role successfully. There can be challenges to being a single person on a contract while working in parallel with your client, so you are primarily directly accountable. If you are lucky, like I have been, you get a team of RedCloud employees on a single contract and get to work  more as a team. Though I can't speak for everyone and working individually has its benefits as well. The RedCloud corporate team is supportive and there has always been someone I'm able to connect with outside my contract. On top of all that, consulting can be ambiguous. If there is a gap in work then consultants are expected to fill it. Having good time management and understanding of what is most valuable to your client has always been the most effective work ethic I have in my role.   Name one piece of technology you couldn’t live without and why?  I want to say my phone, but I prefer the days that I'm on my phone less, so I'll say my oven. I love to cook and bake so without it, cooking wouldn't be as much fun and food wouldn't be as delicious.  What are you looking forward to the most this year with RedCloud? My team at RedCloud is constantly looking for ways to offer more specialized services in privacy. The relevance of privacy has grown exponentially in the last five years, partially to new laws being passed like GDPR, and the advancements of technology and data collection, but also with the larger corporations being punished through the public's eye. I'm excited for the work that my team has been doing to focus on this area of business. It is constantly changing and to offer support in keeping up with how to protect customers data and build trust with their customers is important to me.

We love learning here at RedCloud! Late last month, our team gathered virtually for a session solely focused on learning more about one of the hottest (and most critical) topics in tech—cybersecurity. No stranger to our team, RedCloud Alumni Terry McCorkle, Founder and CEO of PhishCloud Inc. , joined us to share his wisdom. Terry is a certified hacker with over twenty-one years of experience in the cybersecurity industry who has served in a broad range of technical, analytical, and leadership roles. We were thrilled to learn from him and to see how he has flourished since his time at RedCloud. Terry’s company, PhishCloud Inc. empowers people to make intelligent decisions on digital phishing threats, fortifies IT visibility so they can respond to that threat, and delivers reality-based education that reduces the risk of phishing attacks. With growing concerns about cyberattacks, it’s important to sharpen our skills when it comes to recognizing a potential threat. We learned so many eye-opening methods for identifying threats and thinking more like an attacker - seeing firsthand some examples of phishing. A big thanks to Terry for sharing his tips and for making our lunchtime worth its weight in gold. Wondering what our team members thought of the session? Their feedback was so positive! Lindsey Hornsby, Recruiter: "It was great to see RedCloud Alumni making such an impact in their field and then coming back to share their insight on industry best practices. Thank you, Terry, for presenting a complex issue to us in such a user-centric way!" Kelly Hallissey, Account Manager: “It was very informative. I had no idea what a big 'business' hacking, ie. 50m bad emails get through daily, 75x more phishing sites than malware, and 97% of people are unable to spot phishing. A couple of takeaways: setup multi-factor authentication whenever possible, secure your home network. Terry mentioned having two networks in his personal household - one for business and one used by the family for gaming sites, general use, etc. The other alarming data point was how many hackers are using search and social media sites for phishing. Action: check and change your passwords regularly, set up multi-factor authentication on email, and be hyper-aware before you click on a site!”

You might remember Emma, our recipient of the 4th Annual RedCloud Consulting/Dave “Hendu” Henderson Educational Scholarship in 2021. Each year, we award one hardworking and well-deserving student with this scholarship alongside Toys for Kids Founder and friend of RedCloud Rick Rizzs. To read about the fall scholarship surprise at Emma’s high school, the full article in the Yakima Herald is here . We wanted to check in with Emma now that the excitement has calmed down to see how she is doing and how her New Year has kicked off. What is new? Tell us all about what you've been up to academically since you won the RedCloud Scholarship. Lately, I’ve been applying for more scholarships, and I’ve been working hard to keep my 4.0, and it definitely takes some extra effort in my AP Calculus and AP English classes. I strive to graduate with the title of valedictorian, and after high school, I’ll be attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, AZ. I’ll be majoring in Cyber Security and Intelligence and plan on becoming a forensic accountant for the FBI. What are your goals and aspirations? Are they the same as they were when you won, or have they changed? Those have remained the same since I received my scholarship. One major way that winning the scholarship has helped me go after my big goals is that it shows I really am capable of doing great things and earning even better achievements. How do you use technology in your everyday life? What piece of tech can't you live without? EG: I use technology in my everyday life to complete assignments for school, search the web when I have a random question, watch movies to keep myself entertained and stay in contact with my friends. I’d say out of all the types of technology, my phone would be most important because I use it most often. If you could solve one problem in the world today, what would it be and why? If I could solve one problem in the world, it would be to have proper mental health support systems that people are 100% comfortable with. When someone has a reliable person or group they can go to for help and to rant, that can better their state of mind, and sometimes that can give them the courage to confront their obstacles and personal problems, whether it be at home, at school, or be in relationships with people in their life. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us about you, your experience, or advice you'd give other young people about pursuing higher education? As for advice to younger people pursuing higher education, I know that it’s hard to find what you want to do truly, but that’s ok. Many people struggle with finding their true dream job or their purpose. Just try to picture yourself doing that 20 years later and imagine if you’d still be happy or not. If you don’t have a drive for that line of work or idea, then change it to whatever you need to. Procrastinating can really sneak up on you, and I’ll admit I still do it often, but through school and even life, if you’re able to find a system or a routine, that can help a lot. Even if you set smaller goals about what you want to complete that day, and you accomplish those goals, give yourself a small reward, like hanging out with friends, or you can have your favorite candy bar. Just do what’s best for you and what makes you happy, and you’ll do great! Thanks for the sound advice, Emma! We admire her tenacity and know she will do great in the future. Look for future updates once she starts her college career next year!

Welcome to Team RedCloud, Tonia! An actress in her early career turned expert account manager over the years, Tonia brings a creative spin to her work and we can already tell how much of an asset she is to our team. She comes to us from Denny Mountain Media, which you may have heard we recently acquired. As she settles into our team over at RedCloud, she brings a multitude of skills from content management, web, print, research, and even writing and editing. We can’t wait to see what she does here (we’re certain it will be amazing), and we’re lucky to have her. Read on to hear her initial thoughts directly since transitioning to our team. Briefly describe your role and how long you've been in the consulting industry. I’m an Account Manager, a role that requires both client and consultant focus. I’ve been working with Microsoft clients off and on since 1996, either as a consultant myself or as an Account Manager to support Microsoft's business. Given your background and other experiences, what stood out to you initially with RedCloud? I’m stating the obvious here, but account management is largely about relationship-building, and good relationships are built on traits like trust, transparency, and clear communication. I’ve worked with numerous organizations—both established and start-ups, nonprofits, and for-profits—in which one or more of these traits were missing. I’ve been with RedCloud for just a few weeks, but it’s already obvious to me in the way my RedCloud colleagues interact that these are core values, and the fact that clients and professionals continue to come back to RedCloud speaks volumes. Where do you see the future of consulting (or the future of RedCloud), particularly with the impact of Covid, remote work, etc? An opinion piece in Inc. published back in the spring of 2020 declared that “the rapid adoption of remote work and related technologies that occurred during the pandemic will stick. As a result, clients will demand their consultants and consulting firms shift delivery models to the digital world.” Fortunately, RedCloud and many consulting firms in this space were already well-positioned to respond to remote work requirements imposed by COVID. RedCloud had built a network of professionals both familiar with and ready to work productively from home, allowing for quick and relatively easy flexibility and adaptability when clients could no longer provide onsite options. Of course, a small percentage of clients may request that their consultants be back onsite, placing consulting firms in the position of negotiating for hybrid scenarios to keep both clients and talent happy. But I think the primary challenges will be staying on top of the technologies that enable remote consulting solutions and recruiting professionals who can deliver with the latest technologies. Name one piece of technology you couldn’t live without and why? I expect that everyone’s first thought is their cell phone, and of course, that’s a critical piece of tech I use daily. But I wouldn’t be functioning daily at all without good, quiet nightly sleep, so I’ve got to say I couldn’t live without my husband’s CPAP machine. I realize I’m outing him for peak snoring, but since he got his CPAP, we both sleep like babies. What are you looking forward to the most about your projects and the people here at RedCloud? “New” sparks creativity, and learning never stops. Many of my RedCloud colleagues have—like me—been in the consulting and staffing business for a long time, and I look forward to tackling new projects and learning new things from this talented crew. ​ Is there anything else about your background we should know about your work, your approach to client service, or anything else? I actually started my professional life as an actor. This is less of a stretch than you’d think. Actors need to know how to read people, pick up cues, and rely on collaboration. Account Managers do, too.

Nearly five years ago, RedCloud’s very own Managing Partner, Brett Clifton, joined the advisory board of the University of Washington Foster School’s Consulting and Business Development Center (CBDC) as an avenue to support youth education in our local community. Throughout the years, there have been many opportunities for our team members to join in Brett’s generosity to help the organization, which offers real-life experience for UW undergrad and MBA students. The CBDC is all about preparing their own for what’s to come in the workplace after graduation, and we couldn’t be more supportive of that mission. Today, we’re taking a look back on what 2021 brought our way with CBDC and celebrating all those who dedicated their time and resources to the students this year. With the ongoing virtual environment, we are grateful for the opportunity to continue supporting the program and for the fact that it is still offering students the same caliber of experience. Impact Awards Taking place last month as an annual wrap-up event, the CBDC virtual Foster School Impact Awards recognized business, civic, and student leaders who are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in business and have made a substantial impact in growing companies in underserved communities as well as accelerating student careers. RedCloud was proud to sponsor the event in the great company of other sponsors. A big congrats to Ovation Technology on their William D. Bradford Minority Business of the Year Award. The Bradford Award, named for former Foster School Dean William D. Bradford, is presented to an outstanding business owned by a person of color who has demonstrated leadership through its revenue growth, management quality, and investments in community efforts. Macadons was the winner of this year’s Client of the Year Award, sponsored by Harborstone Credit Union. The award is presented to a company that has grown substantially by utilizing several of the Center’s programs. 2021: A Year of Mentoring Earlier this Spring, we recapped the exciting wrap-up of the CBDC Business Management Consulting Program. During this exciting and enriching student program, four talented RedCloud mentors, Marie, Sophia, Mary Anne, and Scott helped guide and advise small student teams (4-6 members each) as they navigated real-life client challenge scenarios, creating their own plans and strategies for solving them, implementing all that they have learned so far in business school. The program kicked off at the New Year and the student teams each completed their client presentations late March. From spring into early summer, final meetings took place with the clients to guide the implementation of the student team recommendations. We thank CBDC for all they do to help students pursue successful career journeys and look forward to our upcoming support in 2022!

It is with great excitement that we announce RedCloud’s acquisition of Denny Mountain Media (DMM), a digital staffing agency that specializes in digital content, design, and marketing. “We extend a warm welcome to the DMM team as they join the RedCloud family! We recognize the value of every consultant who works with us. We strongly believe every person brings their own unique blend of skills, experience, and personality to our team, which is why we’re more excited than ever for the future of our team,” said Brett Clifton, Managing Partner of RedCloud. As the DMM team members remain on existing projects in their current roles, they will be provided with a wider range of future opportunities across RedCloud’s diverse client base in healthcare, fintech, and e-commerce, from Fortune 500s to startups and small businesses. Our new teammates are savvy professionals who enable us to serve more of our clients' project immediate needs while well positioning us for ongoing expansion amidst a once-in-a-generation labor tightening. DMM shares RedCloud’s culture of client service, ensuring that existing and new clients will remain a top priority as the companies merge and move forward. “Our decisions on growth are driven directly by the needs of our clients, with a keen eye on ensuring the high level of client service we’ve built the firm on stays intact. Bringing DMM’s team of experts into the RedCloud fold immediately bolsters our ability to serve our clients in a historic time when the regional labor market is extremely tight,” said Brett Alston, Managing Partner of RedCloud. “The combination of our firm’s proven success, along with new, top-notch talent, will provide our clients with a more complete consulting experience, encompassing a full suite of services including strategy, data, and design.” Over the last 17 years in the Pacific Northwest, DMM has always led with stellar client service and creative solutions. This approach is now supported by RedCloud’s award-winning employee and client processes and community programs. Bringing a Seattle-based firm under the RedCloud umbrella only strengthens our local roots, bringing local talent and businesses together to drive innovation and economic opportunity collaboratively. To read the full press release on this acquisition, click here .

Wow, what a year! We can’t believe we’re already wrapping up 2021 and looking toward all of our 2022 plans that are taking shape. A lot happened at RedCloud despite another year of uncertain and uncharted waters in the world around us. As we are thankful for our collective success in 2021, we are proud to have stayed dedicated to our community - particularly as we acknowledge the pandemic continues to have rippling effect in our local communities. At the end of 2020, we made the exciting announcement that we were committed to supporting Solid Ground’s Broadview Shelter & Transitional Housing for the whole year ahead. We’re looking back today on all that was accomplished with our support and rounding it up in celebration. For those unfamiliar with Broadview - this Seattle-based organization exists to provide a safe haven to families, mostly mothers and their children, with a secure home location while experiencing homelessness or domestic abuse. Broadview is a positive environment that families can use to transition, but being a resident comes with a lot of uncertainty and challenges. The families seeking an apartment are often going through the toughest part of their lives, and can sometimes lack the basic needs that we take for granted. That’s where RedCloud stepped in! Our Year of Broadview, as we like to call it, started with a donation of new technology to support remote learning for the children living at Broadview during the pandemic. The technology included Microsoft Surface tablets, Microsoft Office software, and mic headsets. But we didn’t stop there. We promised to continue the support where we saw opportunities. In February, we attended a Lunch and Learn to download our team with details about the shelter and its residents. Throughout the middle of the year, our support continued with the help of our recruiting team, who provided their dedication, support, and helpful resources in the form of a Career Day. As a follow-up to Career Day, the team made themselves available to residents with 1:1 support as needed. In May, we surprised the residents with a special Mother’s Day delivery. This past summer, we hosted a fun, professional photoshoot for families at Broadview with local photographer Toni from Pinto Portrait. As the new school year rolled around, we partnered with Toys for Kids (TfK) again in providing backpacks for the Broadview students to send them on their way for a successful year ahead. Finally we’re wrapping up the year with a new coat and holiday present drive, currently ongoing through our RedCloud team. In each of our efforts, we led with the desire to take stress away from the Broadview families, thinking of small yet impactful ways to make their days easier. As we look forward to another year of community effort at RedCloud - including staying a phone call away from our friends at Broadview - we are grateful for the opportunity to extend our support throughout this entire calendar year to focus on making a deep impact for many families in need. While our day-to-day business focus stays at the forefront, it will always remain a core value of RedCloud to look up and look around for ways to give back.

‘Tis the season of giving, and we’re excited to kick it off with great news! East Valley High School (Yakima) Senior Emma is the recipient of the 4th Annual RedCloud Consulting/Dave “Hendu” Henderson Educational Scholarship. We were thrilled to recently present our $5,000 scholarship award to her at school with Toys for Kids Founder and dear friend of RedCloud, Rick Rizzs (aka the 425 Citizen of the Year!). Emma is on her way to a successful future. She is involved in basketball, tutors students and has always had straight A’s on her report cards. Emma also values her community and has logged over 300 hours of volunteer time - wow! She just was accepted to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – Prescott and plans on studying Forensic Accounting. In her winning essay, she said: “By furthering my education, I could achieve my dream of being someone important and setting an example, and the thought of this makes me smile every single day.” We wish Emma all the best on her continuing education journey and cannot wait to see what she becomes and all that she achieves. We’re honored to be involved for six years in our partnership with Rick Rizzs and Toys for Kids (TfK) not just during the holiday season but also throughout the year with help like extra boosts during the pandemic and a year of support to Solid Ground’s Broadview Shelter - one of TfK’s key community partners. We extend a big thank you to Rick leading the way and rallying this circle of supporters together. To read more about the scholarship surprise at Emma’s high school, read the full article in the Yakima Herald, click here . Check out the inspiring video below.

Our newly developed learning series continues. Read on for tips from Yusuf on taking your Canvas App dimensions to a new level. As you dive in, be sure to leave your questions at the bottom in the comments section, or feel free to let us know what else you’d like to see. ​ Whether it be a Power App or a Power BI report, components or visuals that don’t line up perfectly can easily degrade the user’s trust in your process or data. I mean, come on, if the time couldn’t be taken to line up two graphs, who’s to say you took the time to double-check your data accuracy?! For that reason, I have made it a habit in my own Canvas App development never to have a hard-coded X, Y, Width, or Height property. In the past, this was even more important when containers weren’t available (all hail containers!), but even with containers, systematically setting your dimensions can add a huge value. As with many things, I have discovered patterns and common best practices. I have listed below the ones that I find myself using most frequently. Stay at 0 Often times you’ll have to copy and paste components to different screens, and you don’t want the X and Y value to increment by 40. Instead of 0, use Min(0). Centering Often you want to center horizontally and/or vertically. You can use the align feature, but that’s not smart enough when you then change the width or height! Instead, set: X = (Parent.Width - Self.Width) / 2 Y = (Parent.Height - Self.Height) / 2 This is a great trick, because it also works within containers! Creating a Buffer To bring continuity, set a global variable to act as your standard buffer between visuals. My go-to is Set(gblBuffer, 20). I also suggest turning off the non-blocking OnStart rule. This will ensure that all the visuals render without a freaky transition. Cascading Visuals As I mentioned above, I try to never hard code dimensions and a key to that is referencing other visuals dimensions. Just as the eye tracks, I set dimensions starting on the top, and then cascade down and to the right (F – pattern). Therefore, if you have two Labels, Label_Title and Label_Subtitle that sit one above the other, set the second labels X and Y variable as follows: X = Label_Title.X Y = Label_Title.Y + Label_Title.Height + gblBuffer See how I snuck in the gblBuffer! With that there's no guess work. ​ Stretch it to the Bottom Sometimes you want a visual to stretch all the way to the bottom of the page. That’s easy with: Height = Parent.Height - Self.Y But, if you’re using a buffer: Height = Parent.Height - Self.Y - gblBuffer This works just the same with widths: Width = Parent.Width - Self.X Width = Parent.Width - Self.X - gblBuffer Now what if you have a footer at the bottom of the page and you can’t stretch the visual all the way to the bottom (and you can’t use a vertical container)? No worries, you can reference the footer to adjust the height too! Height = Label_Footer.Y - Self.Y With these quick dimensional tricks, you’ll be surprised how quickly and neatly you can transform a Canvas App screen into a dynamic masterpiece!

Danny is back with us today! We were excited to track him down for a special Alumni Q&A session so we could share his career path and his whereabouts since his time working at RedCloud. Before Danny came to us, he had extensive consulting experience with some of the Pacific Northwest’s biggest brands including Microsoft, Accenture and Premera Blue Cross. To no surprise, he brought his expertise and nailed his client projects here at RedCloud. After his time with us, he’s moved on to impressive projects with two more large companies and is here to share some reflections with us today. Thanks for taking the time to chat with us, Danny. What position did you hold at RedCloud, and what position do you hold now, and with what company? During my time at RedCloud from 2018-2019, I was a Senior Associate of Enterprise Solutions, working as an advisor. After my time with RedCloud, I headed to Twitter for almost 3 years as a Lead Program Manager. I recently joined Rivian as a Sr. Digital Program Manager focused on partner integrations within the commercial business unit. I'll be helping the team to deliver on the massive order of 100K EV vehicles for Amazon ! I'm super excited to dive deep into the automotive and EV industry and apply the program management frameworks and best practices I learned during my consulting career to add tangible impact while growing personally and professionally! What kind of projects did you work on at RedCloud? At RedCloud, I had the chance to help CTO's leadership team at F5 evaluate the best 3rd party solutions to effectively manage their global engineering workforce. I delivered on multiple strategic products for the company. I also partnered with the chief medical officer at Premera Blue Cross and his leadership team to build out a 3-year strategy to help the company leapfrog their impact while staying competitive in the market. Did you have any experiences with RedCloud's community partners/charitable giving? I did. I actually had the honor of attending the 2018 Toys for Kids Christmas fundraising gala  in Bellevue. RedCloud’s dedication to helping their community and committing time to support those around them has always stuck out to me. Your favorite part about the RedCloud team members? At RedCloud, everyone is approachable and willing to help. The leadership team is super accessible and open to new ideas. That makes a big difference in doing your best work and delivering top-notch results. What were some skills you learned at RedCloud that you took with you to your next job? I learned about the capability maturity model [ CMMI ] and how to use that when developing a growth strategy focused on high performance. CMMI helps businesses and organizations understand their existing capabilities so they can optimize business results. What would you say to someone who was thinking about working for RedCloud? I would say it's an opportunity to truly accelerate your professional growth since each project is very unique in terms of the problems you'll be helping solve, the people you will work with and the frameworks you will use to build a solution.  If you love variety, creativity, intensity and learning on the job, this is definitely a great place to give it a shot! The one thing you miss or look back fondly on the most about RedCloud? The autonomy to operate independently and deliver creative solutions with management support rather than inefficient process red tape.

Power Automate provides several ways to monitor cloud flow activity. Periodic emails notifying flow owners of recent failures and the Cloud flow activity dashboard are available. However, we have found that when operating business-critical flows, we need to be far more responsive when a flow fails.  As a result, our Power Automate team at RedCloud has developed a method to quickly and easily log flow failures and notify the flow owner. Admittedly, there are gaps, which I will address later, but this method has greatly improved our responsiveness to failures and identification of core issues.  ​ Setting the table  Perhaps we have a simple flow that retrieves SharePoint items on a schedule and sends one reminder email. We also want to be immediately notified when the flow fails. To do that, we start creating a Scope to encapsulate the flow failure logging actions. This also makes it incredibly easy to copy and paste across flows. More critically, we need to set the Log flow failure scope to only run when there is a failure. You do this by changing the scope’s Configure run after settings. By default, all actions run after the previous action ‘is successful’. In our case, we want the scope to run when the prior action ‘has failed’, ‘is skipped’, or ‘has timed out’.  These three outcomes cover scenarios such as these:  Has failed: the scope will run if the previous action has failed  Is skipped: the scope will run if the previous action was skipped because a prior action failed. For example, the ‘Get items’ step failed and the ‘Send email’ action was never initiated. Has timed out: the scope will run if the prior action timed out. This commonly occurs when an approval is not completed within 30 days.  There are times when you may only want the Log flow failure scope to run after the previous action has failed, so use your own business case to set the run after settings. ​ Getting workflow details  Now that the scope will run when desired, we need to capture critical flow run details. There is a handy flow expression called workflow(). As you will see, the output provides flow run details that allow you to generate the link to the particular run! I have underlined the critical values.  {  "id" :  "/subscriptions/de199c31-4f16-4099-87e6-0b5042c8bada/resourceGroups/F24185AE9B1C4 DAA8E323BC7BA68B0C3-0845F0C2652041ED9E6FB4FCDBA1C2D0/providers/Microsoft.Logic/wo rkflows/5c215c10-fe2e-46e6-a79a-8e8f4d77ed06" ,  " name" : "5c215c10-fe2e-46e6-a79a-8e8f4d77ed06" ,  "type" : "Microsoft.Logic/workflows" ,  "location" : "westus" ,  "tags" : {  "flowDisplayName" : "Demo Flow Failure Log" ,  " environmentName" : "Default-f24185ae-9b1c-4daa-8e32-3bc7ba68b0c3" , "logicAppName" : "5c215c10-fe2e-46e6-a79a-8e8f4d77ed06" ,  "environmentFlowSuspensionReason" :  "Default:2Df24185ae:2D9b1c:2D4daa:2D8e32:2D3bc7ba68b0c3-None" },  "run" : {  "id" :  "/subscriptions/de199c31-4f16-4099-87e6-0b5042c8bada/resourceGroups/F24185AE9B1C4 DAA8E323BC7BA68B0C3-0845F0C2652041ED9E6FB4FCDBA1C2D0/providers/Microsoft.Logic/wo rkflows/5c215c10-fe2e-46e6-a79a-8e8f4d77ed06/runs/08585684983136468297173891175CU 86" ,  "name" : "08585684983136468297173891175CU86" ,  "type" : "Microsoft.Logic/workflows/runs"  }  }  Now we can generate a flow run url from the following format:  https://us.flow.microsoft.com/manage/environments/{ tags.environmentName }/flows/ {name} /r uns/ {run.name}   With another simple compose set, we have the flow run url then be logged and enable the owner to quickly access the run!  https://us.flow.microsoft.com/manage/environments/@{outputs('Get_workflow')?['tags']?['environment Name']}/flows/@{outputs('Get_workflow')?['name']}/runs/@{outputs('Get_workflow')?['run']?['name']} ​ From there, all that is needed is logging the failure into a centralized list. There are numerous data sources you could use, and we have used a few of them. In some cases, we use a simple SharePoint list. In others we log a bug in Azure DevOps or create a record in Dataverse. What is nice about DevOps is that it automatically notifies the bug owner that it has been created. Alternatively, you could create a flow that sends a notification when the failure is logged in a SharePoint list. Unfortunately, creating this log flow failure function will then mark a run that fails as a success in the log. This may be okay with you, but if you want those runs to be accurately marked as a failure, I suggest then adding a terminate step within the scope. Wrapping up  With all of this done, you now have a simple method:  ​Generate a flow run url by using the workflow() function and doing so only when a flow fails according to your criteria  Log failures for immediate action  Create a failure log to analyze and find trends  Let us know what other methods you and your team have used to manage flows!