Insights & perspectives
Practical thinking on Power Platform, AI adoption, and enterprise governance.
Where your document data goes during generation
What Microsoft documents about Power Platform data residency during document generation, what crosses the tenant boundary when a connector runs, and where the documentation on connector traffic and regional boundaries stops answering the question.
What document generation actually costs in Power Platform
Power Automate document generation cost breaks into premium connector licensing, Power Platform requests, flow run rates and Dataverse storage, priced out here using Microsoft's own published rates and rules for third-party licensing models.
Converting Word to PDF in Power Automate, and what it costs you
Two ways to convert Word to PDF in Power Automate, OneDrive's standard action and Word Online's premium connector, with the file size limits, font problems and licence cost each one carries.
Repeating rows and conditional sections in a Word template
How the Populate a Microsoft Word template action handles repeating section content controls, table rows and conditional content, plus which Word content controls it cannot populate at all.
Dynamics 365 Word templates and the limits nobody documents
A practical look at Dynamics 365 Word template limitations, including the 100 record cap, unsupported content controls, PDF output rules and why templates do not migrate between environments.
Four ceilings that stop document generation at volume
A document generation process built for one record hits four separate ceilings once it's pointed at a view of five hundred. The plug-in sandbox, Dataverse's service protection limits, Power Automate's action budget and the batch endpoints doing the writing each set a different limit, and each one needs a different fix.
Where generated documents should live in Dataverse
A document generated from a Dataverse record can sit in a file column, in Notes, or in SharePoint, and each option bills a different capacity meter at a different price. One of them also drops Dataverse's row-level security, and Microsoft says so directly if you read the right page.
The agents your DLP policy does not cover
Power Platform DLP fully governs Copilot Studio agents, Teams agents and Dynamics 365 prebuilt agents. SharePoint agents and Azure AI Foundry agents sit outside it, and Purview DLP for Copilot, generally available since June 2026, covers only part of what's left.
Who is allowed to build an agent in your tenant
Every licensed user in the default Power Platform environment already holds maker rights to build an agent, a default most admins never touched. Tenant settings, environment roles and Managed Environments restrict Copilot Studio creation, but Agent Builder and SharePoint agents sit outside every one of them.
How an agent leaks data without anyone attacking it
Copilot Studio only shows a user what that user could already reach, but a decade of SharePoint sharing links and broken permission inheritance turns quiet oversharing into a searchable answer. Microsoft's own controls for closing that gap are specific, and one of them is still preview only.
Dataverse cannot delete dependency errors, and how to find what's actually blocking you
When Dataverse says a component cannot be deleted, the real blocker is often several components away. This covers the dependency types, the Dependency and InvalidDependency tables, Show Dependencies, RetrieveDependenciesForDelete, and the dependencies Dataverse does not track.
How Dataverse solution layers decide which change actually runs
How Dataverse solution layers stack from unmanaged down to system, why a managed solution layer override can beat a clean import, which components merge instead of overriding, and when Remove Active Customizations actually fixes a Power Platform solution layering problem.
Creating an Excel file from Dataverse with Power Automate
In Power Automate, the Excel Online (Business) connector cannot create a workbook from scratch and only writes into a named table that already exists, capped at 25 MB and 100 calls a minute. Compare that to the Excel template's 50-record creation limit and the row limits for exporting Dataverse data to Excel from a view.
Moving Dynamics 365 Word templates between environments
Word and Excel templates in Dynamics 365 are not solution-aware, and Microsoft documents no supported way to migrate them between environments. What the Configuration Migration Tool and Package Deployer actually cover, the SharePoint route through Power Automate, environment variables, connection references and versioning, explained plainly.
What the EU AI Act Asks of a Power Platform Agent
The EU AI Act's high-risk deadline moved to 2 December 2027 under the Digital Omnibus, but the Article 50 transparency duties took effect on 2 August 2026 and have been live for weeks. Which Power Platform and Dynamics 365 builds fall inside Annex III, and what an admin can check now.
Dynamics 365 electronic signature options for a Dataverse document
Dynamics 365 has no native e-signature capability for contracts pulled from Dataverse. This piece covers what Microsoft Syntex eSignature ships, which Power Automate e-signature connectors exist, and what it takes to get a signed PDF back into Dataverse.
Power Automate's email attachment size limit is smaller than Exchange's own
The Office 365 Outlook connector caps a Power Automate email attachment at 4 MB, far below what Exchange Online or Dataverse allow, which is why a flow's attachment goes from fine to too large without warning.
Why your Populate a Word template action is failing
A symptom-based look at why Populate a Microsoft Word template fails in Power Automate: the Bad Gateway error, template file faults, size and timeout limits, data errors, and licensing and throttling blocks.
Your Agents Have Identities Now
Since May 2026 Copilot Studio gives every new agent a Microsoft Entra Agent ID at creation, turning it into a directory object with an owner, a sponsor and a 30 day deletion window. Agents built before that date still run on the old app registration model, and there is no automated way to convert one.
Every Agent in Your Tenant, and the Ones the Inventory Still Misses
The Power Platform admin center's agent inventory reached general availability on 31 March 2026 and covers every Copilot Studio and Agent Builder agent in the tenant. It also misses classic Power Virtual Agents bots, unpublished drafts and anything past a 200 resource cap, which matters because the per-agent spend limits only reach agents it already found.
The Power Platform release plan is going away
Microsoft stopped publishing new Power Platform and Dynamics 365 release plans in September 2026, replacing the twice-yearly wave model with continuous updates on the AI at Work roadmap. Release Planner retires 15 November 2026, and no 2026 Wave 2 document is coming.
What It Takes to Run a Document Engine Inside the Dataverse Plug-in Sandbox
No filesystem, no GDI+, no system fonts, a 46 MiB package ceiling nobody had measured, and a two-minute clock. The engineering notes from building Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF generation that never leaves the customer's environment.
The Real Limits of 'Populate a Microsoft Word Template' in Power Automate
Eighteen documented limitations, one premium licence, a 10 MB cap, and a template that cannot live in Dataverse. Everything Microsoft's own docs say about the Word Online (Business) connector, in one place, with what to do about each.
How to Generate a PDF from a Dataverse Record Without Leaving Your Tenant
There are four ways to turn a Dataverse record into a PDF. Three of them send your data somewhere else or stop short of what a real quote or invoice needs. Here is what each one actually does, and the one that stays inside your environment.
DLP Changed in June and Your Policy Is Still the Old Model
Advanced connector policies went generally available on 4 June 2026 and replaced the Business, Non-Business and Blocked model with a deny by default allowlist. One policy per environment, action level control, and anything not explicitly allowed stops working.
Your Seeded AI Builder Credits Disappear on November 1
Microsoft removes seeded AI Builder credits on 1 November 2026 for all new and existing customers, including Enterprise Agreements, and there is no automatic conversion to Copilot Studio Credits. What you lose per licence and what replacing it costs.
What Actually Runs on a Dataverse Table
Plug-ins, real-time workflows, cloud flows, business rules, form scripts and PCF controls all fire on the same table, and the list lives in seven different screens. Here is where each one hides, and what order they run in.
The Power Platform Request Limits Nobody Is Enforcing
The 40,000 requests per user per day figure everyone quotes is documented but not currently enforced. The limits that actually throttle you are a different set of numbers on a five minute window, and almost every article conflates the two.
Five Power Platform Licensing Traps That Surface at Renewal
Nobody discovers a licensing problem the week they cause it. Five traps that stay invisible until a true-up or a renewal, what each one costs, and what to do in the ninety days before the date.
The Dataverse Storage Bill Nobody Budgets For
Dataverse has three storage meters, not one, and the expensive one costs twenty times the cheap one. How capacity really works, why a tenant with spare storage can still be in deficit, and what is filling your database.
Copilot Studio Pricing, Explained Properly
Copilot Studio does not bill per user or per agent. It bills per event, and two decisions set most of the invoice. The full rate card, two costed examples, and why the big prepaid pack is usually the wrong buy.
The Default Environment Is Where Governance Problems Start
Every Power Platform tenant has a default environment, and every licensed user can build in it. Here's why that's the worst place for anything that matters, and a realistic way to fix it.
Introducing Cartographer: AI-Powered Documentation for Power Platform
We built Cartographer because every Power Platform environment we walked into had the same problem — hundreds of customizations, zero documentation. Today, we're making it available to everyone.
The Power Platform Copilot Readiness Checklist
Before you turn on Copilot in your Power Platform environment, make sure your data, security, and processes are ready. Here's what to check first.
Why AI Governance Matters More Than AI Features
Every Power Platform update ships new AI features. But without governance, you're just adding risk. Here's how to think about AI governance before it becomes a problem.
What a Power Platform Environment Audit Actually Looks Like
Most organizations don't know what's in their Power Platform environment. Here's what we look at during an audit and why it matters.