So, when Microsoft doesn’t give you a feature, they do give you Power Automate. The particular tasks I wanted templates for were processing some of our project accounting when purchasing, receiving, and getting invoices from vendors or getting POs from and invoicing customers. I made a Microsoft Form where I could pick the transaction I wanted and had that trigger a flow that created the task I needed in my Vendor/Customer transaction plan in the proper bucket.

It’s a bit of a beast, as you can see in the image below.

So, for this post, I’m going to share a simpler form and flow that I use to create the tasks I go through when I promote our newsletter, The PADT Pulse. Below, you will find a step-by-step tutorial on creating a flow that creates the task. A zip file with the flow is at the end.

Step 1: Define what you want in your Planner task

The first thing we need to do is create what we want our task to look like. Here is what I came up with:

I use a lot of abbreviations that don’t really matter, they make sense to me. Some key things to note are:

• All sorts of important information about this particular issue is in the task:
  • Link to web version
  • Subject line
  • Issue Month and Year
  • Publish date
  • Text for LinkedIn and the Blog
• I assign the task to me, put it in the newsletter bucket, and set the due date to the publish date
• I’ve got some useful text in the Notes section
• The important part is the checklist

Important note: Planner is evolving and for this flow to work, you have to create a Plan that belongs to a group. If you didn’t specify a group before, the group was the same as the Plan name. Now you need to create a Team in Teams and create the plan under that Team.

Step 2: Make a Microsoft Form to Get Information and Trigger the Flow

This is fairly straightforward, nothing special in the form. We want to get all the information specific about this issue so we can fill out the task and avoid having to hunt all over for the info. Here is how I made my form:

1. Go into forms.microsoft.com and click “New Form”
2. Put: “Create Newsletter Publish Task” as the title and choose Text for the first question.
3. Question 1: Enter Issue: Month Year
4. Add a new Question, Date
5. Question 2: What is the publishing date?
6. Add a new Question, Text
7. Question 3: What is the subject line?
8. Add a new Question, Text
9. Question 4: What is the web link?

That is it. You can change the style and such if you want. Here is what it looks like filled out:

Step 3: Start Making the Microsoft Flow in Power Automate: Create and Set up Trigger

In this step, we will create the flow, connect it to the form as a trigger, get the data from the form, and test that.

1. Go to make.powerautomate.com and click “+ Create” on the left menu
2. Under “Start from blank” choose “Automated cloud flow”
3. Enter “Create Newsletter Publish Task” as the Flow name
4. Click on “When a new response is submitted in Microsoft Forms”
5. Click on Create
6. It starts with “Invalid parameter” Don’t panic. It needs to know what form you are triggering from. Click on the box then a form shows up on the left.
7. Choose “Create Newsletter Publish Task” from the dropdown.
8. Click the + in a circle and choose “add an action”
9. Choose “Microsoft Forms” to get forms-related actions
10. Chose “Get response details” This pulls the data from the form into the flow for access
11. Click on the action to get the form for the action
12. Choose “Create Newsletter Publish Task” from the dropdown
13. For Response ID, enter a / to get a list of the available options, and pick “Response ID”
14. In the upper right, click “Save”
15. If you do everything right, the “Test Button” will be clickable. Click it. Click Test. Fill out your form and submit
16. When you go back to your flow, ti should have green checkboxes, like below.

Step 4: Fixing Date and Create Task

Before we start creating the task we have to deal with the fact that times are stored in Universal Time in Power Automate. So if you have to convert your time into your local timezone. Note, we can avoid this by using text for the “Publishing Date” in the form, but then we can’t set the due date

To get the date in local time, use a “Convert time zone” Action:

1. Click the + and choose “Add an action”
2. Type “time zone” into the search and click the action
3. For “Base time” click the lightning bolt and pick the “What is the Publishing Date”
4. Leave “Source time zone” as UTC
5. Set the “Destination time zone” to your time zone.
6. For time unit, pick “Short date pattern [d]”

The next step is to use the information from the form to create the task. We will add more information in the next step.

1. Click on “Edit” in the upper right get back into edit mode
2. Click on the plus under “Get response details” and choose “Add an action”
3. Choose “Planner” from the list
4. Choose “Create a Task” Don’t pick the preview version.
5. Click on your new action and fill out ther form
   • Pick the team your plan belongs to for “Group Id”
   • Pick the plan where you want to place the task for “Plan Id”
   • For Title, enter “Publish:”
     • Click the lightning button and pick “Enter issue:…”
     • Type ” | ”
     • Click the lightning button again and choose “What is the publish…”
     • This creates a string for the title with the values you put in the form
   • In the “Advanced Parameters” dropdown choose “Bucket Id” and “Due Date Time”
   • Pick “Newsletter” for the bucket
   • For “Due Date Time” click the lightning bolt and choose “What is the publish…”

1. Save and correct any errors
2. Click Test
   • Click “automatically” so you don’t have to fill out the form again
   • Choose “with a recently used trigger”
   • Click the last test
   • Click the Test Button
   • You should get all green checks!
   • Check your plan, you should have

Here is what our task looks like. Yay!

Step 5: Add Notes and Checklist with Update Task Details

For whatever reason, they don’t let you set all the values in a new task in the creat action, you have to use the “Update task details” action to do that. So let’s do it.

1. Get back in edit mode
2. Click on the plus under “Get response details” and choose “Add an action”
3. Choose “Planner” from the list
4. Choose “Update task details”
5. For “Task id” click the lightning bolt and choose the Id for the task you just created
   • It may not be in the drop down, so click “See more” next to “Create a Task” to get the full list.
   • Chose Id
6. For the “Description,” which is actually “Notes” in the task, take your sample text from the task you hand made and paste it in.
   • Replace the link with lightning bolt, “What is the web link”
   • Replace the Subject text with lightning bolt, “What is the subject line”
   • Replace the “Month Year” under Blog and LinkedIn with lightning bolt, “Enter Issue: Month Year”
   • Replace the demo subjec tline for the LinkedIn text with lightning bolt, “What is the subject line”
7. Here is what the form looks like

8. Save and test

Next we are going to use the same “Update task details” action to add our check list.

1. Get back in edit mode
2. Click on the “plus under “Get response details” and choose “Add an action””Update task detail” action to get the form back.
3. Under “Advanced parameters” choose “Checklist”
4. Now comes the part where you wonder if using this flow actually saves time… but remember, you only have to do this once. It’s a pain because you have to provide an Id, the text for the to-do item, and set the flag to false.
   • For “Id – 1” enter 1
   • For “Title -1” copy and paste the first item from your checklist in “Create draft and share with team”
   • For “Checked -1” set ti false
   • Click Add new item
   • Repeat for each item in your checklist
5. Save and Test

Here is what the form looks like when filled out. Note, at this release there is a bug and even though you set the “Checked” to False, when you go back it shows blank.

A Nice Planner Task With All The Info

And that is it. I could make it a bit better by adding a person to the form that gets assigned the task. I could also add a start date.

I’m not sure how much time this really saves… but I like it. I put the forms for these on a SharePoint page.

Here is a link to the MS Flow package as an example:

Here at PADT, we are all about the right solution for the right problem, and often, that right solution is a flow in Microsoft Power Automate. If you have any engineering needs, maybe, reach out to us and have a chat with our engineers.

CES 2025 was a remarkable event where innovation took center stage across multiple venues in Las Vegas. Engaging with over 40 forward-thinking companies, I delved into discussions spanning robotics, chip manufacturing, and the burgeoning realm of simulation technology. Through my role at PADT, Inc , I am privileged to offer comprehensive application engineering support to firms looking to integrate simulation into their design and testing phases.

In my interactions, it was evident that many engineers recognized the indispensable value of Ansys in enhancing their manufacturing processes through simulation. The engineers I connected with typically invested 6-14 months in refining their products, with a substantial 80% leveraging simulation techniques throughout the development journey.

Ansys stands out for its cutting-edge engineering simulation software, empowering engineers to virtually assess product performance across diverse physical domains such as structural stress, fluid dynamics, and electromagnetics. By enabling predictive analysis of products in real-world scenarios pre-prototype, Ansys equips designers to optimize complex engineering solutions before physical production, ensuring superior end results.

CES In Action

Here is a video showing some of the things we saw while walking the floor:

For those navigating intricate engineering challenges, feel free to connect with me to embark on your pathway to success.

PADT’s Alex Grishin felt the question was an interesting one, and the solution was certainly blog-worthy. After helping the customer, he created the presentation below that goes through all the theory and shows you how to do it. Not to give too much away, he used constraint equations with an APDL script that can be applied to the model.

Holding Nodes an Ansys Mechanical Model to a Specified Average Temperature

Here is Alex’s presentation, which goes through the whole process and uses a real model to show how it works for both static and transient thermal analyses.

Here is a zip file with the Ansys Mechanical model he used:

This presentation is an example of how PADT’s engineering team combines an understanding of fundamental engineering principles with the leading simulation tools from Ansys. It would be easy to just import the CAD model, put some pressure loads on, and run it. However, an approach that includes some looks at some basic equations can help us make sure we are modeling the real situation.

This is one of the many reasons why companies around the world use PADT’s simulation consulting team to supplement their own engineering teams. Reach out today, and let’s talk about how we can help.

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Published on:	December 17, 2024
With:	Eric Miller, Vincenzo Abbatiello, Doug Oatis & Christian Crowley
Description:	In this episode your host and Co-Founder of PADT, Eric Miller is joined by EOS Additive Manufacturing Consultant Vincenzo Abbatiello, PADT’s Application Engineering Manager Doug Oatis, and PADT’s Application Engineer Christian Crowley, to discuss Ansys applications for modeling with metal additive design. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to suggest a topic for the next episode, shoot us an email at podcast@padtinc.com we would love to hear from you!
Listen:
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@ANSYS #ANSYS

This is the Excel Checkbox You Have Been Waiting For

Those of us who have been using Microsoft Excel, the world’s most popular tool for everything, for decades have probably tried the venerable form or ActiveX checkbox control in the Developer tab to save time on setting a cell to true or false… except it doesn’t work that way. Those developer controls need code to convert their value into a cell value. And since they are not a cell value, they are hard to move and size.

Well, after a long time, the developers at some Microsoft location added a new control that is actually in the cell. You check it, the Value is set to True, you uncheck it, the value is set to False.

To add it to a cell:

1. Click in the cell you want the checkbox to go into
2. Go to the insert Tab
3. Click on Controls > Checkbox
   

That is it. If you click on the cell, you can see in the formula bar that the value of the cell is True or False. Exactly what we want.

Here is a simple example. The formula in E3 and E4 are just = D3 and D4 so you can see the value change.

Making Tables Easier to Use and Read with the Excel Checkbox

I use tables for everything. I just updated an employee tracking tool using this new control, and it is so much easier to see which values are true or false. You can change the value with a click. Since that sheet has actual employee data, I can’t share it. So I made a fake one:

I put an Excel Checkbox in each column for the three characteristics I want to track. Then in the “EmpDets” column, I used the True or False values to create a string. On the total row, I used CountIf() to get a percentage of True for each characteristic.

Here is a zip file with the spreadsheet I used to play with this new’ish (finally) and useful feature.

Like our New’ish Excel Features Tips, Consider us or Recommend us for Engineering Products and Services

PADT is not an Excel company. Like the vast majority of companies out there, our technical, sales, and administrative teams use Excel for everything. If you find any of our content useful and you do mechanical engineering or know someone who does, please consider or refer us for simulation, design, or additive manufacturing.

PADT’s NOCTI Certified Additive Manufacturing Site

You can learn more about the program on our NOCTI Certification landing page.

To learn more about what is so exciting about this new system, read our press release at one of these links:

• Official Press Release, HTML
• Official Press Release, PDF
• PADT’s Website Press Release

If you would like to talk to someone about the program, please contact us at info@padtinc.com or give us a call at 480.813.4884

How Does The Gift Exchange Work?

Everyone gets the gift they brought and forms a big circle in the middle of the room.  Someone with a strong voice (or a microphone) reads the story, and every time the word LEFT is read, everyone passes the package they have to the left. Every time the word RIGHT is read, everyone passes the package they have to their right.  You should pause a bit at each LEFT/RIGHT to give people a chance to pass. Once the story is over, you end up with the gift you are holding.

You Can Find Previous Gift Exchange Stories Here:

These stories are for everyone’s use, free, and with no strings attached. So please copy and paste the text into your word processor and enjoy. And if it all goes well, please share a picture with us at info@padtinc.com.

Our 2024 Holiday Party was in the middle of some pretty stressful times for many of us, and the organizing group was not feeling the holiday spirit. So we wondered what it would be like if a town forgot Christmas.

The Town that Forgot Christmas

The day after Halloween? That is what many people now feel is the right time to start celebrating Christmas. I, for one, feel that the right time is right after you have left-overs from Thanksgiving. Either way, we eventually get the tree up, and lights hung on the left and right sides of the house and we listen to Christmas classics, and the Christmas spirit is upon us. 

But, right now, I want you to think long and hard about what it would be like if you lived in a town that forgot Christmas. Yup, a few years back I ended up in a town that left it right off their calendar. 

It’s nestled right there in the mountains of Idaho, a quaint little town with a square with a big pine tree right in the middle, an old courthouse on the right side, and one of the best independent toy stores left in the country, on the left side.  But when we left our little AirBnB right outside of town and walked to a little restaurant that December night, something felt left out. 

I looked right down main street, and there were no Christmas lights, no decorations. That big pine tree stood right there in the center of town with not one colored ball or twinkly light. Right then, I realized what was not … Correct. This town forgot Christmas, and there were only two weeks left!

We went into the toy store to ask someone what was going on. Standing right behind the counter was a huge man with long white hair and a huge white beard and a massive stomach. He was sitting on a stool, and the leftovers of a cookie and a half-dunk glass of milk were left next to the old-fashioned cash register. 

“Ho Ho…. caugh cough… I mean Hi hi!  What brings you to Christopher’s Toys? We have some great winter deals left, but they end right at midnight on the 24th.

I said, “Um… winter deals? What about Christmas? Does this town not celebrate Christmas?”

He looked at me in a way that left me feeling almost naked, like he was judging if I was good or bad. With his left hand, he stroked his long beard and, standing up, he put his right hand on my shoulder.

“You must be from out of town. It might be best if you just left now.” 

I was left stunned, but I was not ready to back down, not right away.

I asked, “Why don’t you celebrate Christmas here? “

He looked right at me again and pulled on his beard with his right hand. 

“Look, I can tell you have mostly been a good boy, so I’ll let you know. Right now, I’m just tired.  Year after year after year, it has left me worn out and left me feeling a bit done with Christmas.”

He sat back down, right there on that stool, and slumped over. 

Then I heard the voice of a small child behind me

“No Christmas?” he asked.

I turned and saw a little boy looking right at me, then right at the store owner, and I could see tears forming in his left eye and in… his other eye. 

The old man kneeled down on his right knee in front of the child and asked, “You remember Christmas?”

“Of course I do, silly. Who could forget Christmas?”. 

The old man gave the little boy a huge hug right there in the toy store. And then he looked right at me and smiled and said “Ho Ho Ho” and nodded his head three times. 

I felt a little dizzy and my vision was a little fuzzy for a few seconds. Then I looked around me. The store was full of Christmas decorations, and I looked right out the window and saw the most beautiful Christmas tree I had ever seen, right in the middle of the square. 

The old man stood up and patted the boy on the head and said, “Last year I was left with some doubt if anyone cared. But this little boy reminded me that I left out what lives in the human heart. Now, everything is right back where it should be. Ho, Ho, Ho.”

# The End #

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Published on:	November 18, 2024
With:	Eric Miller, Keyvan Bahadori & Alex Moody
Description:	In this episode your host and Co-Founder of PADT, Eric Miller is joined by PlaneWave Co-founder & Chief Engineer Keyvan Bahadori and PADT’s Antenna Application Engineer Alex Moody, to discuss their use of Ansys HFSS and how it provides benefits for their unique applications. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to suggest a topic for the next episode, shoot us an email at podcast@padtinc.com we would love to hear from you!
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@ANSYS #ANSYS