Flows are now Power Automate and why not? After all it is an enterprise process automation flow framework personally I believe the name change is long due. And the name change has brought with a plethora of new features but Robotic process automation (RPA) is the big brother taking all due credit.
However there are some hidden gems being released with the new version and one of them is the Common data service (current environment) connector. And with that some wonderful stuffs like Invoking an action, Relating and un-relating record and quite of few of them deserves mention.
Announcement of the capability to invoke bound and unbound actions with the CDS connector have been announced way back with March release 2019. And I had my customer who I informed prior about that and as soon as Release Wave 2 came, customer tried out to invoke custom action using CDS connector. But unfortunately they could not find it. I tried to find it from my end as well but no luck with me.
And finally the MVP community came to my rescue to save my face. Special thanks to Alex Shlega for helping me out that there is a new connector Common data service (current environment). One more time I realized that MVP’s are MVP’s for a reason. You can check out his awesome blog right here.
I will run a series of blogs describing the capabilities introduced by the new connector. So let’s begin with setting up the connector.
So first let’s set up the new connector.
Setting up the CDS (current environment) Connector
While this sounded quite simple for me. After what’s the big deal in selecting a connector from the list of connectors? Well sometimes the simplest of things you think may take out couple of hours from you.
If you go to My flows section and try to create a new flow, it simply won’t appear. Below screenshot is when I try to create the flow from my “My flows” section.
It turns out that the connector is visible only when you try to create a flow from within a CDS solution. So I went ahead and created a solution and when I tried to create a new flow this time the CDS (current environment) trigger is right up there.
So remember to use this connector you would need to design your flows from within your solution. Small tip but can save you some time in case you are trying to explore something new.
Hope this helps!
In my next article I will show you on how to invoke custom actions using flows.
Debajit Dutta
(Dynamics MVP & MCT)
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Hi Debajit,
Thank you for the tips.
I have a flow that was created outside of the solution, and is now added to the solution through Add Existing feature. I’m editing this flows and I the Common Data Service (current environment) action is not available. It seems like the Common Data Service (current environment) is only available when I create a new flow inside the solution. Do you have any tips?
Thanks,
Troy
Hi Troy, Thanks for reading my blog. CDS current environment connector is only available for data for flows which were created originally as part of the solution. Doesn’t matter whether existing solution you are working on or some other solution.
Cheers!
Debajit