Build a mail-merge report in Word straight from an Excel table
One clean Excel table and a Word template are all it takes for forty personalised reports, once the wizard is driven properly.
Automation
// 22 postsTutorials, tips, and deep dives on Automation — every post from bianca.codes tagged Automation.
Automation posts
-
-
The Power Automate trigger that ends manual file shuffling
One Outlook trigger, configured once, means invoices and attachments file themselves before you've even opened the email.
-
Power Query from Scratch, Part 1: The mental model nobody teaches you
Most people learn Power Query by clicking through wizards. Nobody explains what it's actually doing - and that gap is why queries break in confusing ways.
-
Your nested IF statements are technical debt
A formula with six nested IFs works fine, right up until the rule changes and you're reverse-engineering a 300-character one-liner you wrote six months ago.
-
Stop Treating SharePoint as a Database - It Will Eventually Bite You
SharePoint Lists are brilliant for what they're designed for and actively dangerous past that scope - and the limits bite when your solution has been accumulating data that matters.
-
Excel Is Quietly Becoming a Programming Language and Most Users Haven't Noticed
LAMBDA, MAP, REDUCE, SCAN, BYROW. These are functional programming primitives. Excel is shipping them one by one, and most users are still writing nested IFs. The spreadsheet you learned in 2015 has been quietly replaced by something much more powerful.
-
Build a Power Automate Desktop Flow That Exports a Report and Emails It Daily at 7am
Step-by-step from a blank flow, including how to handle the parts that break the first time.
-
Power Automate Desktop: The Automation Layer That Connects the Apps That Don't Have APIs
Cloud flows are great when your data lives in SharePoint or Teams. But some processes still live in legacy apps, PDFs, or the export button of a system that predates APIs.
-
Not Everything Should Be Automated — Here's How to Tell the Difference
Automation bias is real: if you can automate something, it feels like you should. But some processes contain judgement calls that automation silently gets wrong, edge cases that require human revie…
-
3-Minute Win: Set a Power Automate Flow to Only Run on Weekdays
Your flow runs daily — but you only need it Monday through Friday. One condition block and a formatDateTime expression, and your automation skips Saturday and Sunday without you touching it. Three …
-
Build a Dynamic Summary Table Using BYROW and LAMBDA — No Pivot Table Required
You'll build a summary that calculates a custom metric for every row in your dataset without a pivot table, without helper columns, and without copying formulas down. BYROW plus a LAMBDA gives you …
-
Python for Excel Users, Part 1: Reading and Filtering Your First Real Dataset
This isn't 'what is a variable' Python. This is: you have a CSV that's too big for Excel, you need it filtered by date and category, and you need the result saved as a clean file. Part 1 covers exa…
-
Build a Rolling 12-Month Balance Tracker That Updates Without Touching a Formula
You'll build a balance tracker using SCAN and a structured table that extends itself as new rows come in. No helper columns, no fragile cell references, no 'just re-paste the formula down.' Add a r…
-
SCAN: The Excel Function That Keeps a Running Total of Anything
Running totals used to mean helper columns or array gymnastics. SCAN changes that — it applies a function cumulatively across an array and hands you back every intermediate result. Once you see it …
-
Excel Formulas Are Getting Too Complex - And LAMBDA Is Why That's Actually Fine Now
The counter-argument to 'if your formula needs a scrollbar to read, it's wrong.' With LAMBDA, complexity lives in one named place and gets called cleanly everywhere else. The formula in your cell c…
-
Build a Reusable OVERDUE LAMBDA and Use It in Three Different Tables
You'll build a named LAMBDA called OVERDUE that takes a date and a threshold and returns a clean status label. Then you'll call it in three different tables in the same workbook. By the end, you'll…
-
LAMBDA: How to Write the Excel Functions Microsoft Didn't
Before LAMBDA, every Excel function that existed was one Microsoft decided to write. After LAMBDA, you can write them yourself — naming the logic, hiding the complexity, and calling your custom fun…
-
Build a Word template that holds its formatting
Your Word templates shouldn't fight you on formatting.
-
3-Minute Win: Name Your LAMBDA Function and Call It From Any Cell in the Workbook
One function definition in the Name Manager, and every cell in the workbook can call it like a built-in. LAMBDA + named functions means you stop copy-pasting logic and start writing like someone wh…
-
The Flow Ran Perfectly for Two Months. Then It Didn't.
You built the flow. It ran perfectly for two months. Then a colleague renamed a SharePoint column, or moved a file, or changed a dropdown value - and everything stopped. This isn't bad luck. It's…
-
Stop Manually Checking Whether That Report Got Updated
Five minutes to set up a SharePoint file-change trigger with a Teams notification. You'll never manually check whether that report got updated again.
-
The state of email merge in 2026
It is 2026, and we are still stringing together premium Power Automate connectors just to avoid the Word mail merge wizard.