Power Automate Intermediate Lesson 1: Expressions for Dates, Text and Numbers

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📘 Power Automate Intermediate Course · Lesson 1 of 8

Dynamic content gets you far; expressions do the rest. Click a field > Expression tab (fx) > type > OK.

Need	Expression	Result
File-name date	`formatDateTime(utcNow(),'yyyy-MM-dd')`	2026-10-05
Indian time	`convertFromUtc(utcNow(),'India Standard Time','yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm')`	2026-10-05 10:00
Due in a week	`addDays(utcNow(),7,'yyyy-MM-dd')`	2026-10-12
Email date	`formatDateTime(utcNow(),'dddd, dd MMM yyyy')`	Monday, 05 Oct 2026
Domain of email	`split('[email protected]','@')[1]`	atulvij.com
Rupee text to number	`float(replace('1,25,000.50', ',', ''))`	125000.5

(Results for a run at 04:30 UTC on 5 October 2026; we checked each with an independent calculation.)

⚠️ utcNow() is UTC, 5 hours 30 minutes behind India. A flow that names files with utcNow() at 2 a.m. IST uses yesterday’s date. Convert with convertFromUtc for anything people read.

💡 Use ?['Field'] (with the question mark): a missing field returns null instead of failing the flow.

Practice

Try each expression from the cheat sheet in a Compose action and compare the output. Build it in your own Microsoft 365 account at make.powerautomate.com, test it with the practice file, and check the run history.

📎 Practice files for this article

📄
Expression cheat sheet14 expressions with checked example results.
⬇ TXT · 2 KB

Free to use for learning. Files with macros (.bas) are plain text — import them with Alt+F11 → File → Import File, and always test on a copy.

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