From the Microsoft Power Platform blogs: SQL stored procedures; Power Automate flow screenshot; Send notifications V2; Business card reader

In this week’s Power Platform blog roundup:

• Using SQL stored procedures within PowerApps via PowerFx
• How to take a screenshot of your Power Automate flow
• Send notifications V2 to phones, tablets, and watches with Power Apps
• Utilize the power of prebuilt business card reader model in Microsoft Power Automate

Using SQL stored procedures within PowerApps via PowerFx

Writing on his blog, Andrew Ly noted that customers can now call stored procedures in Power Automate without incurring performance penalties, which leads to improved efficiency in action-based apps.

In his blog post, Ly explained the details of this feature as well as its benefits. He wrote that customers can use PowerFx to directly call stored procedures, eliminating the need for additional steps.

He pointed out that by adding a SQL Server database object to their data sources, customers can access stored procedures actions directly from the database object. He stated that this feature helps customers avoid performance hits during app initialization by calling Power Automate. 

After discussing some of the benefits of the feature, Ly provided step-by-step instructions along with a one-minute video to help you get started with SQL stored procedures using PowerFx.

How to take a screenshot of your Power Automate flow

On the Let's Power Automate blog, Tom Riha wrote that you should never forget the documentation when you're building a flow. He stated that the documentation is a resource that everyone can access to understand what’s going on in the flow. 

However, Riha noted that this is one of the most neglected parts of a solution because describing the functionality and creating diagrams isn't as much fun as building the flow itself.

He pointed out that typically there's no documentation at all or if there is, it's not updated regularly to reflect ongoing changes.

In his blog post, Riha wrote the easiest way to document a flow is to take a screenshot. He then explained how to do that.

Send notifications V2 to phones, tablets, & watches with power apps