Recently, we implemented the Inactivity process as part of the CoE Toolkit, which is a component of our general tenant hygiene strategy. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, I suggest reading the article below: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/guidance/coe/after-setup-tenant-hygiene
Also, I suggest learning about the inactivity process setup: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/guidance/coe/setup-archive-components
If you don’t like reading, here’s a quick summary: it’s all about cleaning up your Power Platform assets that are not in use. Makers receive notifications about their Flows and apps that haven’t been modified or run, which are then selected for potential cleaning. ONLY APPROVED assets will be deleted.
It’s a great set of tools to ensure your tenant remains clean. I could explain why, but let’s assume you already know this. (If you don’t, that’s OK—you can watch this video from one of the recent user group events where I cover this topic.)
As I mentioned, we implemented this process for one of my customers.
Overall, it was a success. People would either click the Approve button in the email or respond with comments like, ‘OH NO! DON’T DELETE IT! IT’S A MISSION-CRITICAL APP!’
However, some people would email us asking, ‘What is this? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
One of those emails inspired me to dig deeper, and I’m sharing my findings with you.
The Power Automate flow was named ‘Due date reminder,’ prefixed with a GUID. It didn’t sound like something a human would create—and indeed, it wasn’t.
There are variations of this type of automation, but the one I’ll be discussing is part of the SharePoint list ‘Work Progress Tracker’ template.
Some insightful reading for you here:
and here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/create-sharepoint-reminder-flows
Look what happens when I try to create a list using the template!
So far so good.
Now, this explicitly tells you that it will create a Power Automate Flow on your behalf.
And here.
Then here as well.
But people often don’t read messages. Maybe they do, but then forget about it afterward. Or they might just click through absentmindedly—we will never know.
As a result of the above exercise, whether consciously or unconsciously, I triggered the creation of a Flow. The Flow in the solution below was created on my behalf:
Now, it will be picked up by the Inactivity process after some time to send me a reminder to clean up after myself. Will I remember creating it?
I can tell you that there are more Flows like this on the Default environment. I haven’t yet figured out how to address the existence of these ‘unconscious makers.’ We have excluded the ‘Due Date reminder’ Flows from the process until we decide on a course of action.
As a Power Platform admin, I am curious—what else do I need to know? And guess what? There’s more to it!
The Flow is created within a solution, and connection references are included as well. I don’t believe this is part of the existing CoE Toolkit cleaning routine.
So we need to figure it all out: do we clean it? what do we clean? how do we clean?
The winning question is:
“How do you question someone about something they made without them knowing they were responsible for it?”
(Sigh)
Olena's Dynamics Blog (post-AI) 