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Boost your productivity with Microsoft Flow – Power to the PeopleSerge LucaShareQL, Belgium
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Serge Luca11 x SharePoint MVP, Brussels
SharePoint since 2002
Architect (Admin, Dev, governance)
Managing partner of www.shareql.com
Worked for the MS workflow team
Blog: http://sergeluca.wordpress.com/
@sergeluca
Agenda
Environment + Data Loss prevention
Creating Flows
Introduction : the concept
Flows and on premises
Extensibility : communication with the outside world
Price & roadmap
Conclusions
The context
Personal productivity
Collaboration : Approval & Review,…
Quickly create (0 code) Business Processes apps “Citizen development”
3 main benefits :
The context : business Apps
Empower power users
Connect data across apps
More efficient developersApp Services
Service Fabric
Azure Functions
…
Logic Apps
API Management
BizTalk
…
SQL Server BI
Data analytics
Internet of Things (IoT)
…
Build modern business app fast
Creating Flows
Creating and managing Flows
Microsoft Account (free) or Office 365 or Dynamics 365 or Flow (paid) or PowerApps (or free new PowerApps Community Plan)
Flow.microsoft.com
Powerapps.microsoft.com
A modern SharePoint Online list
Mobile app (iOS-Android-Windows Mobile)
Flow templates
demoEXPENSE REPORT
Approval escalation in Flow
Approval problems…
•What do we do if the item (to be approved) is deleted ?
•No approval reassignment(->roadmap)
• Limitation of Flow : • flow duration = max 30 days
• Approval duration = max 30 days
->What if Approval 1 = 20 days & Approval 2 = 15 days ?
• However (great) Approval history is perpetual
Limitations
• 250 actions/flow ->create nested flows
• SharePoint• Limitation when more than 5000 items in a SharePoint list?
• The flow cannot run with the security context of the user ->roadmap
• No OOB site level actions ->roadmap
• Cannot OOB change item security ->roadmap
• No multiple value ->soon
• No taxonomy (write)->soon
• No content publishing ->soon
• Lookup field pointing to another web ?
Limitations
•No out of the box send for review ->soon
•No custom input forms for approvers->roadmap
• Flow duration : 30 days ; loops : max 5000 iteration->???
Microsoft Flows and On Premises
Flow and data on premises
• Install the « on Premises data gateway »(shared between PowerBI, PowerApps and Azure Logic
Apps) Not just databases, but alsoPowershell scripts, files and
(recently) : REST API web services
demoFLOW & DATA ON PREM
Environments
Environments & compliance
• Isolated spaces where Flows/Data are running/stored– Ex HR, Marketing, Operations, Legal, DEV, TEST,
UAT, PROD…
• Different rules (DLP)– Ex marketing can use twitter, Legal and Production
cannot
• Different regions if needed
[Plan 2 for creating Env]
ENVIRONMENTSDEV MARKETING
TEST MARKETING
UAT MARKETING
PROD MARKETING
DEV OPERATIONS US
TEST OPERATIONS US
UAT OPERATIONS US
PROD OPERATIONS US
US
DLP
DEV OPERATIONS EUROPE
TEST OPERATIONS EUROPE
UAT OPERATIONS EUROPE
PROD OPERATIONS EUROPE
EU
DLP
Attention
•We can export-import Flows from Env1 to Env2• We have to recreate the connections (fixed in roadmap)
• SharePoint lists based on GUID (! From SharePoint test site to SharePoint prod site !)
•On premise data gateway :• Gateways only in the default environment
demoENVIRONMENTS
Extensibility &Communication with the outside world
Action Request
Action Http Custom Connector (REST API described in a Swagger/Open
API )
PowerApps calls Flow
A custom app calls Flow (« Flow as a service »)
PowerBI calls Flow (Data Alerts)
Flow calls the outside world
PowerBI & Flow
FLOW
DATA ALERTS
DATA SOURCES
POWER BISCHEDULED REFRESH
STREAMING DATA
LIVE
Pricing & roadmap
Tarifs: Comparaison
SharePoint Designer Flow
Multiple connections to >150 data sources SQL, SP, ODBC & WSDL only ALWAYS
Out of box templates <5 100s
Workflow & approval history <365 days Perpetual
Approvals over mobile + mobile notifications NEVER iOS, Android, Windows Phone + in Outlook. History coming imminently.
Loops, Do Until, Switch-case, parallels, variables Yes Yes
On-premises support Native Gateway support
Extended field types (people, choice, MMS, lookup) Yes People, choice, lookup – Yes new, MMS –coming soon
Send email as user or system System only Yes
Attachments Yes Yes new
SharePoint Designer Flow
Out-of-box send for review Limited Q4CY2017
Reassignment of approvals Yes Q4CY2017
Approval reminders Yes Q4CY2017
Custom input forms for approvers Yes Q4CY2017
Document library CI-CO, approve Yes Future
Approver impersonation Via permission elevation Future
Site level actions Yes Future
Set permissions on an item Yes Future
Microsoft Flow roadmap - highlights
H2 Calendar 2017 Calendar 2018
o Export/import app packages across envs
o SPO – “In-the-box” review flows
o SPO – use flow for Content Publishing approvals
o SPO – people, choice, attachment and multi-values
o In-context in Dynamics 365
o Embedded Power BI analytics
o Office 365 audit logs
o Support for GDPR compliance
o UK deployment
o HTML rich text editor
o Guides for debugging actions and conditions
o Government and sovereign clouds deployment
o ALM – Sandbox environments
o ALM – Move or copy across environments
o Leverage device signals (e.g. Location)
o AppSource integration
o Azure functions integration
Conclusions
Positive• Easy tool
• Not just SharePoint (it replaces SPD)
• Connections to hundreds of services
• Including on prem!
• SharePoint Integration is getting better
• PowerApps, PowerBI integration
• Team Flow is very proactive & delivers
Negative
• Young, unknown reliability
• No state machines (but we have loops and tests)
• Collect feedback weak
• SharePoint integration still weak
• Flow duration : 30 days, Approval : 30 days
• Weak for long business processes
Advices
• Keep your forms as simple as possible
• Manage the business logic in the workflow
• Use environments
• Define system accounts for your connections
• Limitations
• Learn the Logic Apps Workflow Definition Language(WDL)– Read my blog post
https://sergeluca.wordpress.com/2017/04/26/using-the-azure-logic-apps-workflow-definition-language-in-microsoft-flow-part-1/
