Monitoring Microsoft Flow runs

Once a flow has been created how do we know that it successfully ran or failed or it is still running. You can monitor the flow runs by clicking the icon as shown below.

You can see all runs including success, failure, running and cancelled along with checks (no new data) and failed checks.

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Sharing Flow with Teams using Team Flows

When we create a flow using Microsoft Flow, the person who created the flow only will be able to maintain it. Team Flows will allow the person who created the flow to assign additional owners to maintain the flow. Team Flows is currently in “Preview” only.

a) Click on “Invite another owner” icon beside the “Blog post notification to Twitter” as shown below.

b) Add another owner who is an user as part of your office 365 subscription.

Note: Adding another owner will allow them to edit, update and delete the flow. They can also add additional owners to this flow along with viewing flow history. Also everyone listed as owners will be able to access all embedded connections and can use them in that flow only.

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Creating my first flow using Microsoft Flow

Scenario:

Whenever I write a blog post, I would like a tweet posted on my twitter for my followers. Initially I used to do that manually and then I was using Zapier and now I wanted to move that to Microsoft Flow. Let us see how to do that.

a) Navigate to https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/ and sign-in.

b) Click on “Create flow from blank”

c) Choose “RSS” as new blog posts will be available on RSS newsfeed

d) Choose “When a feed item is published” trigger.

e) Type the blog’s RSS URL. I have typed my blog’s RSS URL - http://feeds.feedburner.com/CodeSpot and click on “Next Step”

f) Now I need to post a tweet on twitter once I publish my blog post. Choose the “Twitter” action and “Post a tweet” trigger.

g) Now you need to sign in to create the connection between Microsoft Flow and your Twitter account.

h) Provide your twitter credentials and once done you can configure your tweet text with some dynamic content.

g) Provide a name to you flow. In this scenario I have given the name “Blog post notification to twitter”

h) Now my first flow has been created and started running.

i) You can see the flows under “My flows”

Update on 03/04/2017

I have updated the above flow to include bitlink to create shortened URL of my blog post URL. After adding it my flow looks like the below.

Now, I have posted this blog post and below is my twitter output from Flow. Great to see that I have done this without writing a single line of code.

Updated twitter output with bitlink

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What is Microsoft Flow and how it differs from Logic Apps?

Microsoft Flow is a new cloud based workflow application that will allow business users to automate routine tasks through applications. Other cloud services like IFTTT (If This Then That) and Zapier have similar functionality and also work across many services. Flow also comes with a list of pre-defined templates. I have been using Zapier until now and moving my zaps to Microsoft Flow.

Flow vs. Logic Apps

• Both Flow and Logic Apps are configuration based Integration services which allows users to automate their tasks including integration with SaaS APIs. Flow is built over Logic Apps.

• Flow is targeted against business users while Logic Apps is targeted against IT Pros/Developers.

• Flow is used for small scale integration while Logic Apps are used for mission critical applications.

• Develop a Flow in production directly while with Logic Apps you can use Visual Studio, Source Control, testing, support and Automation.

• Flow has standard security practices like data sovereignty, encryption at rest for sensitive data, etc. while Logic Apps has the security assurance of Azure.

In general if it is a simple integration and doesn't require Enterprise capabilities then go with Flow or use Logic Apps for simple/complex integrations requiring Enterprise capabilities (DevOps, Security, Source Control) and if functionality is not available in Logic Apps then use Azure Functions to write your own transformation code.
Pricing - https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/
Flow Templates - https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/
Feedback & Ideas - https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Flow-Ideas/idb-p/FlowIdeas
Release Notes - https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/release-notes/

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Flow,Logic Apps,Integration,Azure